Stuplje Monastery, Serbian Orthodox monastery in Gornji Vijačani, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Stuplje Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Gornji Vijačani featuring a small basilica measuring approximately 14 meters long and 7.5 meters wide. The complex sits near the Manastirica stream, which gives the location a quiet, secluded setting.
Folk tradition links the monastery's founding to King Dragutin of the Nemanjić dynasty. Its earliest mention comes from the Dobrun pomnik, a chronicle destroyed in the 1941 bombing of the Belgrade library. Ottoman forces burned Stuplje during the Great Turkish War; a 1696 record states that Stuplje and Liplje were then finally burned and laid waste. Monks fled across the Sava to Orahovica Monastery in Slavonia, carrying manuscript books that entered its library.
Folk tradition credits King Dragutin of the Nemanjić dynasty with founding the monastery, as with other Serbian monasteries in northern Bosnia. Monks here copied religious books in the 17th century, and their manuscripts were carried to Orahovica Monastery in Slavonia, where they survive. The monastery slava is celebrated in November, when the first abbot after 320 years was installed in 2008.
The monastery lies about 48 km from Banja Luka; leave the Banja Luka–Čelinac main road at the 13th kilometre from the Rebrovac roundabout and turn left. The last stretch follows the Manastirica stream in Gornji Vijačani. The site is registered as a second-category cultural monument of Republika Srpska.
After its destruction in 1696 the monastery vanished completely from memory until local residents discovered it again in 1994. This rediscovery allowed for the site's restoration and made it accessible once more for spiritual practice.
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