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Zica
Zica
Када се почетком XIII века Свети Сава вратио са Свете Горе у Србију са моштима
светог му родитеља Симеона мироточивог, српска држава је била потрешена
сукобом између Стефана и Вукана. Помиривши завађену браћу Свети Сава је
заједно са Стефаном одлучио да сагради манастир Жичу као српску царску лавру.
Место на ком се градио манастир било је подједнако удаљено и од Цариграда и од
Рима, што је Божијом помоћу значило да је Србија на раскршћу између
православног Истока и римокатоличког Запада.
Црква у манастиру Жичи која је посвећена Христовом Вазнесењу (Свети Спас)
грађена је око двадесет година. Црква је као целина представљала не само
манастирски храм већ и катедралу првог српског архиепископа. У грађењу цркве
уочавају се новине у односу на храмове из времена Стефана Немање.
Владика Николај, којега већ одавно српски народ зове светим владиком, био је
прије свега Христоносац, а потом и филозоф-књижевник, духовник и бесједник.
Због велике мудрости коју је овај часни отац оставио иза себе у многобројним
писаним дјелима, многи данас владику Николаја пореде са премудрим владиком
Његошем.
ZICA MONASTERY
The Zica monastery is in the very heart of Serbia, near the historical province of Rashka.
Its founding benefactor at the beginning of the 13th Century was St. Stefan the First-
crowned (in monasticism, taking the name Simon). Its builder (in the old sense of that
monastic title) was Holy Hierarch Savva himself. Both were sons of the great holy ruler
Stefan Nemanje (Venerable Symeon the Myrrh-gusher), founder of the Nemanje Dynasty,
which gave the Church an unprecedented number of worthy ones, principally righteous
sovereigns of Serbia.
The holy brothers put much work into establishing and putting in order their zadushbiny,
(i.e. donating za dushu - for the soul). St. Savva oversaw the building of Zica with the
resources donated by St. Stefan until he left for Byzantium. There, in 1219, he was
consecrated a bishop for a henceforth independent Serbian Church. From Byzantium, he
brought master craftsmen/iconographers to decorate the Zica Cathedral of the Lord’s
Ascension.
In 1221, a great Council of Church and State took place at Zica. At that Council, Savva,
the first Serbian archbishop crowned Stefan Nemanja as the first Serbian autocratic
Orthodox king. Subsequently he became known as the First-crowned.
The years of 1219 and 1221 are two of the most important dates in Serbian history.
Almost simultaneously, the Serbian national Church and the Serbian national state came
into being, like a single national organism. From that point began the simultaneous
flowering of “two branches of power.” Zica was the embodiment of that concordance of
powers.
In the 1930s, Vladyka Nikolai (Velimirovic) who was transferred from Okhrid to Zica,
made great efforts to renovate the buildings and to renew the cultural and spiritual
activity of the monastery. At that time, spiritual life in Serbia was at its peak of
blossoming, in significant part due to the efforts and concerns of Vladyka Nikolai, (as the
troparion describes him) ‘leader of the prayerful forces of Christ,’ and Zica was filled
with monks. Several of our compatriots found shelter there after their flight from Soviet
Russia. Vladyka was, as he himself admitted, “a great Russophile,” and had as his
spiritual father the Russian monk Khariton, who was of Estonian origin. When Khariton
was translated to the Lord, Vladyka greatly mourned his passing. The Russian
iconographers Ivan Melnikov and Nikolai Meyendorf worked in the monastery; the latter
also decorated the newly erected Church of St. Savva.
Like the entire Serbian people, the monastery endured especially great sorrows during
World War II. While tens of thousands of Serbs were being executed in neighboring
Kraljevo, Kragujevtse, while hundreds of thousands languished in Ustashe concentration
camps, and the fires of war consumed up to 1 million Serbs, Zica also suffered greatly
under bombardment. Part of the North wall of the Cathedral was destroyed to its
foundation, with the loss of its medieval frescoes. Neighboring kellia and a typesetting
facility were consumed in flames, and the bishop’s quarters were shredded by shrapnel
fragments. Nonetheless, Vladyka Nikolai immediately commenced reconstruction. He
was not able to complete the work: he was arrested and confined to the Dachau
concentration camp together with another holy confessor, Patriarch Gavriil. Forced to
leave his native land after the War, he moved to America.
At this point, a new period in Zica’s life began: for the first time in its history, Zica
became a women’s monastery, for under the Communists it was easier to open a women’s
monastery. After all, “the opiate of the people” was considered to be more likely the
milieu of “intellectually backward women.”