Jovanje monastery

Jovanje Monastery is situated on the left bank of the River West Morava, in its biggest meander. It was dedicated to the birth of St. John, the Baptist.

Judging by the style in architecture it was supposedly erected iffhe 16th century.

It has been ruined throughtout its history. It was abandoned for some time. The beauty of the church, its size and the ruins of a number of guest houses around the monastery church are a testimony to a large and strong community of monks in the monastery.

Thanks to Archbishop Nikolaj Velimirović the life was brought back to the monastery. In 1936 Archimandrite Rafailo Hilandarac came to Jovanje Monastery with 12 nuns from Kalište Monastery. That’ s how Jovanje Monastery became the first women’ s monastery in the Ovčar – Kablar gorge.

Around the 1950s the monastery church was pulled down because of the plan to build a hydro – electric power plant on the site of the church, so that none of the important architectural details of the church have been preserved. The new Jovanje Monastery was built by Dragomir Tadić, who joining the old and the new patterns in sacred architecture, added a new realization of church to the Ovčar – Kablar complex of  monasteries.

The monastery has been devastated and ravaged on several ocassions, so that all traces of the monastery were completely destoyed. That’ s how the treasury of the church disappeared. The most valuable objects in the treasury are the two icons dating from 1850.