MONASTERY HIGHLIGHTS
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The church of Saints Peter and Paul is one of the oldest churches on the canonical territory of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In historical sources, it is first mentioned as a seat of a bishopric in the 10th century. It is considered to be one of the earliest spiritual centers in the Ras area where the first Serbian state was created under Great Župan Stephen Nemanja in the 11th century. It was in this church that Nemanja was baptized, where he later organized church councils, and passed on his rulership to his son upon taking of monastic vows.
Sts. Peter and Paul church is situated at the outskirts of Novi Pazar and is historically linked with the old city of Ras which used to be the first Serbian capital. In its vicinity are two important monasteries: Sopoćani and Đurđevi Stupovi, which played an important role in the spiritual life of the medieval Serbian kingdom. Together, they are inscribed on the Unesco world heritage list as a part of Stari Ras and Sopoćani.
On the inside, the church is structured as a quatrefoil, while on the outside, it has an appearance of a rotunda with a semi-circular apse on the eastern side. It was altered numerous times, and frescoes in the interior date from different periods: the earliest being painted toward the end of 9th, beginning of the 10th century, later ones dating from the end of the 12th, and the latest layer being made in the last decades of the 13th century. The church is surrounded by a cemeterycemetary that preserves many tombstones from 18th and19th centuries.
The best of photographs in a short presentation. Go though them at your own pace or run a pre-built slideshow.