Monastery Slava

  • The Monastery church is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, so the monastery’s holy day is the Holy Trinity, or the Holy Spirit (Pentecost) slava.

    The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles completed the establishment of the church of Christ or the Kingdom of God on Earth by the Lord, Jesus Christ. Now the apostles received the Holy Spirit and became the living soul. From that moment on, the Church of Christ began to live its full life and grow by admitting other souls. Thus, this holy day is considered the birthday of the Church of Christ. This growth of the Church, external and internal, in depth and width, is described in the Acts of the Apostles referring to the descent of the Holy Spirit and establishment of the church: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed as resting upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance”
    (Acts 2:42-43).

    This was the fulfilment of the promise Jesus gave to his disciples before he ascended to heaven. The force of the Holy Spirit immediately had an effect, as Peter, with his fiery word, won over three thousand souls to the teachings of Christ.

    To commemorate this important event, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles, and to celebrate the Holy Trinity, God with three faces, and particularly the Holy Spirit, the church celebrates a feast called Pentecost, as it is the fiftieth day after Easter. That is why this holiday has three names: the Trinity (Trojica), Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles – The Holy Spirit (Duhovi), and Pentecost (Pedesetnica).

  • As the Serbian Orthodox Church canonized Despot Stefan Lazarević as
    Saint Stefan, Serbian Despot, 500 years after his death, on 19 July 1927, and honours him on 1 August (19 July in the Julian calendar), so this day beame the monastery slava.

    The biographer of the Holy Stefan the Tall, son of Holy Prince Lazar of Serbia and Princess Milica, Constantine the Philosopher, wrote that he who beheld God, Moses, was a role model for the holy God-loving, righteous Stefan despot, since their lives almost from the beginning took almost the same path. Both Moses and Stefan led their God’s chosen peoples to salvation for 40 years through the land of slavery, Egyptian and Turkish.

    He also compared him to Jesus son of Naue, as he was similar to him in faith and courage, and with prophet Daniel and Three Young Men from the fiery furnace of Babylon, as he, just like them, was in the den of lions and went through fire.

    Tropar

    Светом и праведном деспоту Стефану Високом, гл. осми

    С висоти воспријав увјешченије,
    отечеству твојему бил јеси предстатељ и просвјетитељ,
    свјати праведни деспоте Стефане;
    супостати побјеждаја и људи своја просвјешчаја
    и многија храми устројаја.
    Сего ради чтушче тја молим,
    моли Христа Бога о спасенији народа серпскаго.