Lepavina () is a
monastery of the
Serbian Orthodox Church in the village of
Lepavina, near the town of
Koprivnica in the Republic of
Croatia. It is dedicated to the
Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
From the Beginning Until World War II
According to an old local chronicle, the Lepavina monastery was founded around 1550, very soon after the emergence of the first
Serbian settlements in this region. A monk from the
Hilandar Monastery (on the
Athos peninsula,
Greece), Jefrem (Ephraim) Vukodabović, born in
Herzegovina, together with two monks from
Bosnia, built a wooden church here. They were soon joined by several other monks and the institution, according to the chronicle, acquired the status of a monastery.
In August of 1557, Turks and the Islamized inhabitants of Stupčanica, Pakrac and Bijela, under the leadership of Zarep-Agha Ali, burnt down the church and the monastic buildings, four monks were killed and two taken to slavery.
In 1598
Hieromonk Gregory, also from the Hilandar Monastery, came to Lepavina with two monks from the
Mileševa Monastery, and they re-established the monastic community and rebuilt the edifices. In 1630 the
Orthodox population of this region, due to their constant involvement in the fights against the Turks and their allies, received great privileges, which created the conditions for building activity on a larger scale.
Archimandrite Visarion (Bessarion) came to Lepavina in 1635 to become the head of the community, and under his auspices...
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