ЗНАЧАЈ ОСНИВАЊА АРХИЈЕРЕЈСКОГ СЈЕДИШТА У МЕТКУ ЗА ОПСТАНАК СРПСКОГ НАРОДА У ЛИЦИ
THE IMPORTANCE OF ESTABLISHMENT OF THE EPISCOPAL SEAT IN MEDAK FOR THE SURVIVAL OF SERBIAN PEOPLE IN LIKA

Summary/Abstract: The Metropolitan of Dabar-Bosnia Atanasije Ljubojević was in charge of the Orthodox Serbs in Pounje, Lika, Krbava and north Dalmatia. After 1689, when Lika and Krbava came again under the Austrian rule, these areas became part of the Bishopric of Senj. To ensure more efficient church administration, Metropolitan Atanasije tried to move to Lika, in the place of Medak, and build a palace there, but was banished several times as the Uniate bishop seated in Marča was in charge of that area. What ensued was an incessant, years-long struggle against Uniatisation and conversion of the Serbian Orthodox people as the privileges obtained from the emperor were often not observed. Highly important for the survival of the Serbian Orthodox Church in these areas was the fact that the Gornji Karlovac Eparchy became part of the Karlovac Metropolitanate in 1708. However, not even then did the attempts at Uniatisation cease. It is known that in around 1695, the wooden palace and church devoted to the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos were built. The bishops of Kostajnica and Lika later stayed in the palace, which also served as bishops’ summer residence. Danilo Jakšić, while still discharging the function of the administrator, looked after the palace. As other frontiersmen, he received land and a ”legal patent”, signed by the voivode himself in 1749. Immediately after assuming the bishop’s throne, in 1752 Jakšić opened in Medak a sort of a theological seminary. Until 1770, he built a new palace with a school and church alongside. Due to the purportedly irregular land purchase, the entire compound was seized in 1775 by the government authorities which paid out to Jakšić a small amount of money. The palace was turned into the officers’ quarters and the company administration was housed there, while the chapel was turned into a dungeon. After the Frontier was abolished, the primary community school operated there. In the Second World War, the palace was razed to the ground. The temple devoted to the Nativity of St John the Baptist was also constructed most probably in 1695, while some sources also state 1724 as the year of construction. The temple was demolished and in 1884 a new one was erected in the same place. It was built of stone as a single-nave, rectangular building, ending with a semi-circular apse in the east. A bell tower raises directly from the gable roof, above the western part of the church. The icons in the iconostasis originate from the period of restoration of the old temple, i.e. 1867. The interior of the church contains wall decoration of the early-20th-century style. Before the Second World War, the church contained many objects dated to the 18th and 19th centuries, made of noble metals, church textile, as well as books, icons... During the 1991–1995 war, the façade was damaged in frequent shellings of this area. After the Serbs were banished from Krajina in 1995, the interior was devastated and plundered. Walled in 1865, the churchyard contains, apart from the temple, the unfinished quarters and a facility that is today in a derelict state. In 2006, this compound was declared a monastery. The St Mark’s church in Velebit mountain belongs to the monastery as its metochion – it was built in 1863 near the cave were services used to be performed. This monastery is still today a strong foothold for the few people who have returned to their homes.

• Details
• Contents