Monastery St. Dimitrije

At the foot of the southeastern part of Suva Planina, about five kilometers south of Bela Palanka, at 450 meters above sea level in the village of Divljane, is the monastery of the Holy Great Martyr Dimitrije. The monastery was built on the ancient road to Skopje and Thessaloniki. The monastery has been demolished and rebuilt several times, and it is assumed that it is almost 1600 years old. The sanctuary on which the monastery was built was revered in the 4th century BC, and apparently it was dedicated to the pagan sun god Mithras. The first monastery church, which was located on this place in the ancient period, was a three-nave basilica of the ancient early Christian type, and according to tradition, it was built in 394. According to tradition, the monastery church was built by Saint Nikita Remezijanski. The monastery was built on a place that was already respected as a sanctuary, not far from the spring. Saint Nikita did not want to destroy the religious potential of the place, so he built a temple on this place. The original temple was most probably dedicated to the holy great martyr Demetrius, whose memory spread throughout the Christian universe. The monastery was first destroyed by Slavic invasions in 614, and was first rebuilt in 870, when the Slavic tribes that lived here were most probably baptized. Since the city of Remezijana was completely destroyed, and the city lost the seat of the episcopal chair, this monastery became the central shrine of the middle Ponishavlje. The monastery was completely destroyed in 1386 by Turkish conquests, when many towns, villages and shrines were destroyed in humiliation. The legend says that the monastery was soon renovated, as early as 1395, and that it was renovated by the Mrnavčević brothers. The German travel writer Stefan Gerlach passed this way and in 1578 he visited the monastery. He noted that five monks lived in the monastery, who ran a school in the monastery. The monastery is also mentioned in the Turkish defter from 1574, in which it is said that the monastery is indebted with a tax of 300 akca a year, in the name of tens of grains. In the monastery, the monks were engaged in copying and binding books, so in 1714, one Oktoih was connected in the monastery. People's assemblies were held in the monastery on all major holidays, and it was noted that in 1723, on the day of the Most Holy Mother of God (most likely on the feast of the Assumption), a fair was held. The Austrian diplomat Gerhard Drisch visited the monastery in 1719 and wrote that the monks lived according to the type of St. Basil the Great. The monks Arsenija and Maksim wrote on the cover of Pentecost that in 1796, Kardzhali committed a huge massacre in the entire Ponišavlje. Another record of these monks says that in 1798 they dug the first well. The monastery was severely damaged during the First Serbian Uprising, when it was burned down in 1809, just before the battle of Cegra. The monastery was quickly renovated by the efforts of the locals of the surrounding villages, as well as prominent guilds from Pirot. Kanic notes that the monastery lodgings were burned in the Serbian-Turkish war in 1876, by Asker, when a library with two parchment manuscripts burned down. During the First World War, the monastery suffered severely from the Bulgarians on two occasions in 1915 and 1916. After the liberation and the October Revolution, a large number of Russian emigrants, priests, monks, officers and doctors found refuge in this monastery. The monastery sisterhood began to grow, so the monastery became female. With the arrival of the new government, all the property of the monastery was confiscated, but the monastic life continued despite the new circumstances. In recent times, the temple has been renovated, and in 2005 a new monastery residence was built.