New Gračanica Monastery

New Gračanica Monastery (Serbian: Манастир Нoва Грачаница, romanized: Manastir Nova Gračanica) is a Serbian Orthodox monastery complex is located in Third Lake, Illinois, United States, a suburb of Chicago. The complex houses a scaled-up replica of the Gračanica monastery in Kosovo.[lower-alpha 1] It is a part of the Diocese of New Gracanica - Midwestern America. It has 300 acres of land, making it the 6th largest monastery among the 80 American Orthodox Christian monasteries.[1]

For other uses, see Gračanica.

The monastery pictured in 2016

History

Built on land that the Most Holy Mother of God Serbian Association purchased in 1977, New Gračanica Church and the main building on its grounds dedicated to the feast of the "Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God" were completed and consecrated in 1984.[2]

Architecture

It is an architectural replica of the original Gračanica in Serbia that is found on UNESCO's World Heritage List, but built in a scale eighteen percent larger than the original.[2] New Gračanica has detail such as hand-carved wooden entrance doors depicting twenty-three monasteries and churches from various regions of Serbia.[2]

The Frescoes

In 1995 famed Polish-American artist Fr. Theodore Jurewicz was commissioned to paint the entire church. Done over the span of three years, Fr. Theodore is held to be one of the most celebrated icon painters in North America today.[2] Painted in a Byzantine style it features richly colored designs and religious scenes covering the walls, vaults, pillars and dome of the church. The frescoes painted by Fr. Theodore like other contemporary icon painters are done in acrylics on dry plaster.

See also

Annotations
  1. Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Kosovo and the Republic of Serbia. The Republic of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on 17 February 2008. Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory. The two governments began to normalise relations in 2013, as part of the 2013 Brussels Agreement. Kosovo is currently recognised as an independent state by 97 out of the 193 United Nations member states. In total, 112 UN member states have recognised Kosovo at some point, of which 15 later withdrew their recognition.

References
  1. http://www.assemblyofbishops.org/assets/files/news/scoba/AtlasOfMonasteriesSecondEditionBookmarkedOptimumSize.pdf
  2. Serbian Monastery of New Gracanica - History Archived 2009-02-21 at the Wayback Machine
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