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image by Tomislav Šipek, 20 October 2021
See also:
The flag of Kuršumlija (photo) is light blue with the municipal coat of arms in the toward the hoist.
Tomislav Šipek, 23 September 2015
See also photo at
https://kursumlijabezcenzure.com
Tomislav Šipek, 20
October 2021
The municipality of Kuršumlija (12,886 inhabitants in 2011) is located 250 km
south of Belgrade, on the border with Kosovo.
The coat of arms of
Kuršumlija features the church of the former St. Nicholas monastery.
Together
with the monastery of the Most Holy Mother of God, the St. Nicholas monastery is
one of the first endowments of Stefan Nemanja (1113/1114-1196), the founder of
the Serbian dynasty of Nemanjić, who ruled medieval Serbia from 1166 to 1371.
The monastery is located on a plateau above Kuršumlija, overlooking the
confluence of the Banjska and Toplica rivers.
The monastery was built by
Stefan Nemanja between 1152 and 1166, and no later than 1168. Nemanja's
biographers - Stefan Prvovencani, Sts. Sava and Domentian - do not agree on the
order of raising Nemanja's endowments in Kuršumlija. Regardless of these
differences, everyone agrees that after the construction of the monastery, there
was a conflict between Nemanja and his brothers, who challenged his work. In
this conflict, Stefan Nemanja emerged victorious in 1168. He soon built a court
next to the monastery, and Kuršumlija, then known as Bela Crkva (White
Churches), became the county seat. Namely, as Nemanja's endowments were covered
with lead roofs that shone in the sun, the people called them White Churches,
and hence the settlement got the name White Churches.
A strong spiritual life
took place in the monastery from the very beginning. For example, the great
abbot (elder of the church), together with several other abbots, participated in
the election and introduction to the title of Archimandrite of Studenica. It was
in this monastery, after gaining Serbian church independence in Nicaea in 1219,
that the seat of the newly formed Toplica episcopate was located. It is assumed
that, after the proclamation of the Empire and the elevation of the Serbian
church to the rank of patriarchy (1346), it was also elevated to the rank of
metropolitanate.
The fate of the monastery after the battle of Kosovo
(1389) and the Turkish conquest of Toplica (1453) is not accurately known. No
record is available until the first half of the 16th century, when sources
mention a certain Metropolitan of Bela Crkva. Both Nemanja's endowments in
Kuršumlija, judging by the payment of annual income, were active in the period
between 1455 and 1530. However, the Turkish travel writer Evliya Çelebi
(1611-1682), traveling through Kuršumlija, mentions only one deserted church.
After the Great Migration of the Serbs (1690), the monastery was deserted. The
Turks took off its lead roof, according to tradition, to cast bullets. Hence the
modern name of the town. According to Turkish sources, however, Kuršumlija comes
from the Turkish words "kurşunlu kilise" ("lead church"), which is, therefore,
only a variant translation of the Serbian name Bela Crkva.
Still deserted
in the 18th century, the church was finally demolished in the middle of the 19th
century, allegedly by Sulj Krveša from Niš and Muli Halil, asking for money.
After the liberation of Toplica, the Austrian painter and travel writer Felix
Kanitz (1829-1904) wrote that what was left of the church, despite its severe
neglect, still represents one of the most beautiful works of medieval Serbian
masonry architecture, and recommended that the Serbian Minister of Construction
be restored.
The first move to protect this church was made by the National
Museum in Belgrade in 1910, when the roof structure was made. After the Second
World War, the reconstruction continued, which lasted intermittently until 2003.
The church was registered on 21 June 1982 as a cultural monument of exceptional
importance.
http://spomenicikulture.mi.sanu.ac.rs/spomenik.php?id=552
Cultural
Monuments in Serbia
Ivan Sache, 23 October 2021