Celebration of 1700 Years from Milan’s Edict in Belgrade and Nish.
ABOUT CONSTANTINE I THE GREAT
Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustusreign, better known in History as Constantine I the Great, was born in the village of Naissus, the modern city of Nish in Serbia. At that time Naissus belonged to the roman province of Moesia (later Dacia Ripensis) and during the last century all the region had been under the menace of Goths and barbarians. What is more, a great battle took place near the city in 264, when the emperor Claudius II (268-270) defeated a great army of Goths. Thousands of barbarians died in the countryside near Nish.
Constantine was one of the children of Constantius Chlorus and Helena. According to the Thetrarcy, his father had been elected by Diocletian as Caesar in 293. A few years later, in 305, Constantius became into emperor, but in 306 he suddenly died after a war against Picts, in Britain. As he was dying, he asked his soldiers to accept his son as emperor. Consequently, Constantine was proclaimed emperor at York but he had to fight a lot to impose himself over the others rivals.
The reign of Constantine the Great, apart from producing some military and fiscal reforms of particular importance, was marked by two fundamental and foundational facts. On the one hand, the Council of Nicaea after the famous Edict of Milan, which proclaimed religious freedom in 313 and on the other hand, the rise of the new imperial capital in the East: Constantinople (ex Byzantium). Both of them would shape the epidermis and the core of the Roman state in just a few decades.
-FIRST DAY OF EVENT, MAY 31ST, CONFERENCE IN BELGRADE: “1700 YEARS FROM MILAN’S EDICT”-
Conference is dedicated to 1700 years from Milan’s Edict and his influence of today’s world.
Introducing speach: Branimir Kuzmanovic,City of Belgrade;
Opening Conference: Debora Serracchiani, Italy, member of European Parliament;
Speakers:
-Protojerej Predrag Milanovic, Priest in Saint Sava Temple, Serbia
-Silvia Ronchey, Byzantologist, Italy
-Guilhem Walter Martin,Byzantologist, Argentina
-Galo Garces Avalos, Byzantologist, Peru
-Carmine Monaco, Writter, Italy
On the Conference will be shown the film “Constantine the Great and Milan’s Edict”
After Conference, there will be organized visit of Saint Sava Temple, Vracar, Belgrade, with certifite tourist guide with explanations.
The Cathedral of Saint Sava or Saint Sava Temple in Vračar, Belgrade, is an Orthodox church, the largest in the Balkans, and one of the 10 largest church buildings in the world.The church is dedicated to Saint Sava, founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church and an important figure in medieval Serbia. It is built on the Vračar plateau, on the location where his remains were burned in 1595 by the Ottoman Empire’s Sinan Pasha. From its location, it dominates Belgrade’s cityscape, and is perhaps the most monumental building in the city. The building of the church structure is being financed exclusively by donations. The parish home is nearby, as will be the planned patriarchal building.
It is not a cathedral in the technical ecclesiastical sense, as it is not the seat of a bishop (the seat of the Metropolitan bishop of Belgrade is St. Michael’s Cathedral). In Serbian it is called a hram (temple), which is in Eastern Orthodoxy another name for a church. In English, it is usually called a cathedral because of its size and importance, though basilica may be a more appropriate name.
Common lunch
Visiting of Belgrade (Singidunum), included:
KALEMEGDAN – BELGRADE FORTRESS is the core and the oldest section of the urban area of Belgrade and for centuries the city population was concentrated only within the walls of the fortress, thus the history of the fortress. First mention of the city is when it was founded in the 3rd century BC as “Singidunum” by the Celtic tribe who had defeated Thracian and Dacian tribes that previously lived at the fort and around. The city-fortress was later conquered by the Romans, became known as Singidunum and became a part of “the military frontier”, where the Roman Empire bordered “barbaric Central Europe”. Singidunum was defended by the Roman legion IV Flaviae which built a fortified camp on a hill at the confluence of the rivers the Danube and the Sava. In the period between AD 378 and 441 the Roman camp was being repeatedly destroyed in the invasions by the Goths and the Huns. The legend says that Attila’s grave lies on the confluence of the Sava and the Danube (under the Fortress). In 476 Belgrade again became the borderline between the empires:Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), and the Slav-Avar State in the North. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I rebuilt the Fortress around 535. In the following centuries a fortress suffered continuous destruction under the Avar sieges. The Slavs (Serbs) and Avars had their “state union” north of Belgrade with the Serbs and other Slavic tribes finally settling in the region of Belgrade as well as the regions west and south of Belgrade in the beginning of the 7th century. The name Belgrade (or Beograd, in Serbian), which, not just in Serbian but in most Slavic languages means a “white town” or a “white fortress”, was first mentioned in AD 878 by Bulgarians. The Fortress kept changing its masters: Bulgaria during three centuries, and then again the Byzantines and again Bulgarians. The fortress remained a Byzantine stronghold until the 12th century when it fell in the hands of a newly emerging Serbian state. It became a border city of the Serbian Kingdom, later Empire, with Hungary. The Hungarian king Béla I gave the fortress to Serbia in 11th century as a wedding gift (his son married Serbian princess Jelena), but it remained effectively part of Hungary, except for the period 1282-1319. After the Serbian state collapsed after the Battle of Kosovo, Belgrade was chosen in 1404 as the capital of the principality of Despot Stefan Lazarević. Major work was done to the ramparts which were encircling a big thriving town. The lower town at the banks of the Danube was the main urban center with a new build Orthodox cathedral. The upper town with its castle was defending the city from inland. Belgrade remained in Serbian hands for almost a century. After the Despot’s death in 1427 it had to be returned to Hungary. An attempt of Sultan Mehmed II to conquer the fortress was prevented by Janos Hunyadi in 1456 (Siege of Belgrade). It saved Hungary from an Ottoman invasion for 70 years.
In 1521, 132 years after the Battle of Kosovo, the fortress, like most parts of the Serbian state, was conquered by the Turks and remained (with short periods of the Austrian and Serbian occupation), under the rule of the Ottoman Empire until the year 1867 when the Turks withdrew from Belgrade and Serbia. During the period of short Austrian rule (1718–1738) the fortress was largely rebuilt and modernized. It witnessed two Serbian Uprisings in the 19th century, the Great Serbian Migration in the 17th century, the Turkish Period. The fortress suffered further damages during the First and the Second world wars. After almost two millennia of continuous sieges, battles and conquests the fortress is today known as the Belgrade Fortress. The present name of Kalemegdan Park derives from two Turkish words, kale (fortress) and meydan (battlefield) (literally, “battlefield fortress”).
Visiting of Saint Marko Church, parliament, Skadarlija, etc…
St. Mark’s Church is a Serbian Orthodox church located in the Tašmajdan park in Belgrade, Serbia, near the Parliament of Serbia. It was built in the Serbo-Byzantine architectural style by the Krstić brothers, completed in 1940, on the site of a previous church dating to 1835. It is one of the largest churches in the country. There is a small Russian Orthodox church next to St. Mark’s. It is copy of Monastery Gracanica, Serbian Orthodox Monastery on Kosovo and Metohia.
Common dinner in Skadarlia, Belgrade bohemian street.
Sleeping in hotel ****
-SECOND DAY OF THE EVENT, JUNE 1ST , VISITING SERBIAN MEDIEVAL MONASTERIES IN BYZANTINE STYLE-
-MILESEVA MONASTERY-
Mileseva monastery 1234.
Serbian Orthodox monastery located near Prijepolje, in southwest Serbia. It was founded by King Vladislav, in the years between 1234 and 1236. The church has frescoes by the most skillful artists of that time, including one of the most famous in Serbian culture, the “White Angel”, which depicts an angel on Christ’s grave.
The first group of frescoes were produced in the 1230s. The other groups include works from the Turkish period, to be found in the exonarthex. These thirteenth-century frescoes may be considered to be the supreme achievement of all the painting in Europe of that time. The portraiture deals with bishops (altar space), warrior saints and martyrs (nave), as well as monks (narthex). The upper registers in the narthex represent Christ’s earthly life. Below the resurrection composition on the south wall of the west bay, King Vladislav is depicted as being led to Christ by the Mother of God. The Nemanjić family is portrayed in the northeastern part of the narthex: Stefan Nemanja as the monk Simeon, Sava as the first archbishop, Stefan the First-Crowned as king, and his sons Radoslav and Vladislav. The frescoes in the narthex and the adjacent chapel were presumably painted in the 1230s and 1240s. They illustrate the last Judgment and the lives of some saints. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the church was repainted with a new layer of frescoes of which only fragments of the Last Supper under the dome and the Forty Martyrs in the north choir have survived. These frescoes were damaged in a fire, but they happened to save (acting as a protective layer) the earlier and more valuable paintings from the thirteenth century.
The Studenica monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery situated 39 km southwest of Kraljevo, in central Serbia. It is one of the largest and richest Serb
Orthodox monasteries.
Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the medieval Serb state, founded the monastery in 1190. The monastery’s fortified walls encompass two churches: the Church of the Virgin, and the Church of the King, both of which were built using white marble. The monastery is best known for its collection of 13th- and 14th century Byzantine-style frescopaintings.
Studenica was declared Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia, and in 1986 UNESCO included Studenica monastery on the list of World Heritage Sites.
Žiča is an early 13th century Serbian Orthodox Monastery near Kraljevo, Serbia. The monastery, together with the Church of the Holy Dormition, was built by the first King of Serbia, Stefan the First-Crowned and the first Head of the Serbian Church, Saint Sava.
Žiča was the seat of the Archbishop (1219–1253), and by tradition the coronational church of the Serbian kings, although a king could be crowned in any Serbian church, he was never considered a true king until he was anointed in Žiča.
Žiča was declared a Cultural Monument of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by Serbia. In 2008, Žiča celebrated 800 years of existence.
-Common lunch-
The Sopoćani monastery, an endowment of King Stefan Uroš I of Serbia, was built in the second half of the 13th century, near the source of the Raška River in the region of Ras, the center of the Serbian medieval state. It is a designated World Heritage Site, added in 1979 with Stari Ras.
History
The church was dedicated to the Holy Trinity and completed around 1265, with interior decorated shortly thereafter. Archbishop Sava II, who became the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1263, is represented in the procession of archbishops in the area of the altar. The frescoes of Sopoćani are considered by some experts on Serbian medieval art as the most beautiful of that period. On the western wall of the nave is a famous fresco of the Dormition of the Virgin. In the 16th century the monks had to temporarily leave the monastery on several occasions due to the Ottoman threat. Finally, during one of the raids in 1689 the Ottoman Turks set fire to the monastery and carried off the lead from the church roof. The brotherhood escaped with some important relics to Kosovo – but did not return to Sopoćani; it remained deserted for over two hundred years, until the 20th century. The church slowly decayed: its vaults caved in, its dome fell down, and the remains of the surrounding buildings were covered with rubble and earth.
Finally, during the 20th century the monastery was restored and today it is settled by a thriving brotherhood of dedicated monks. The fact that most of the Sopoćani frescoes still shine with radiant beauty – surviving more than two centuries of extreme exposure to the elements – many consider nothing less than a divine miracle. Sopoćani was declared Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia.
-PROHOR PČINJSKI- Monastery on the South of Serbia
Prohor Pčinjski is an 11th-century Serbian Orthodox monastery in the deep south of Serbia, located in village Klenike, Pčinja District near the border with Macedonia. It is situated at the slopes of Kozjak at the left side of the Pčinja river.
According to tradition, it was founded 1067–1071 by the Byzantine emperor Romanus IV in honour of Saint Prohor Pčinjski, who prophesied that Romanus would become the emperor. Within the monastery there is a theological school and iconography is taught there.
The monastery was declared a Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia.
Dinner and sleeping in hotel ****
-THESE ARE SOME OF FRESCOS WHICH CAN BE SEEN IN THESE MONASTERIES-
Sopocani, Saint Emperor Constantine and Empress Jelena.
Mileseva Monastery, White Angel
Studenica Monastery, Crucifixion of Christ
–THIRD DAY OF EVENT, JUNE 2ND, VISITING CITY OF NISH AND CELEBRATION 1700 YEARS FROM MILAN’S EDICT-
The Main Celebration of 1700 Years from Milan’s Edict will be held in Nish in Saint Emperior Constantine and Empress Jelena in Nish.
After Celebration, and common lunch it is planed visiting City of Nish
It is one of the oldest cities in the Balkans and Europe, and has from ancient times been considered a gateway between the East and the West. It was named Navissos by the Scordisci in 279 BC, after an invasion of the Balkans. The city was among several taken in the Roman conquest in 75 BC; the Romans built the Via Militaris in the 1st century, with Naissus being one of its key towns; it is also the birthplace of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor and the founder of Constantinople, and Constantius III and Justin I. It is home to one of Serbia’s oldest churches, dating to the 4th century, located in the suburb of Mediana.
Return to Belgrade at evening.
-WELCOME-
For more informations:
Katarina Sekularac
e-mail: treneri@sezampro.rs
web: www.byzantine.org.rs
cell: +381 63 7074578
office: +381 11 3984988