Banjska Monastery

About

The Banjska Monastery (Serbian: Манастир Бањска, romanized: Manastir Banjska; Albanian: Manastiri i Banjskës) is a Serbian Orthodox monastery in the Banjska village near Zvečan, Kosovo. The monastery was the site of Banjska attack, an attack carried by Serb militants against Kosovo Police on 24 September 2023.

History: The monastery, along with the Church of St Stephen, was built between 1313 and 1317, founded by Serbian King Stefan Milutin, one of the most powerful rulers of his time and of the Nemanjić dynasty. Milutin built the church as his mausoleum (burial place), and it is where he was first laid to rest in 1321. However, following the Battle of Kosovo (1389), his body was moved to Trepča and then in 1460 to Sofia (Bulgaria), where it lies to this day. The monumental building with its church, library, monks' quarters and "imperial palace" began to fall into disrepair very early. At the beginning of the 15th century, a fire destroyed the library and in the second half of the same century, the monastery was probably abandoned. Benedikt Kuprešić, a traveller, mentioned that the monastery was razed to the ground in the 16th century on the orders of the Ottoman Sultan, as Christians...