Tuman Monastery
Tuman Monastery is located 9 km from Golubac on the left bank of the Tumane river, at the foot of the Golubac Mountains, entirely surrounded with lush forest which greatly provides wonderful beauty of this shrine.
The Tuman Monastery was founded by Milos Obilić, famous hero of the epic songs of Kosovo Battle cycle. Tradition has it, that Milos Obilici who ruled the Branichevo area during the reign of Prince Lazar, while hunting here unintentionally wounded anchorite Zosim of Sinai, who lived his ascetic life in the nearby cave. Milos Obilic carried the anchorite on his back to the court to treat the bad wounds when hermit, feeling his end, said : „Tu mani” /leave me here to die/. Hence the name of the Monastery, which was, according to the same legend, built by Milos Obilic, who laid down remains of the hermit inside the church, for repentance. There is another legend which says that the Prince Lazar ordered Milos Obilic to stop construction of the monastery /tu mani – abort the building process/ due to advancing invasion of the Turkish army to Kosovo.
Turkish archives recorded the Tuman Monastery in the eight decade of the 16th century. Before the Great Serbian migration in 1690 here gathered the Patriarch Arsenius III Carnojevic and lord Djordje Brankovic with intention to prepare the Serbs of the Danube area for the Uprising against the Turks. Presumably Tuman Monastery was deserted at the end of the 17th century to be restored at the beginning of the 18th century, and experienced several destructions and reconstructions. The church of Tuman Monastery is dedicated to Saint Archangel Michael and was built in the Serbian-Byzantine style of architecture, featuring facades dynamically divided by arches and cordons, richly adorned with rosettes and chess fields. The altar and the side apses are semicircle inward and five-sided outward with round pillars that are laid on angels and connected with the arch. The round windows with stone rosettes are in timpanone of the Tuman Monastery, surrounded with decoration of chess fields. The four-sided footage rises above the central part of the Tuman church on which sits the eight-sided tambour of the dome. The elongated narrow windows decorate sides of the tamboure, while above the narthex there of the Tuman Monastery is the four-sided bell tower, slightly lower than the dome, featuring two light windows on each side. Tuman Monastery has tin roof. Outer facade is decorated with two cordon wreaths, divided into three parts with the windows in the central part. Windows on narthex of the Tuman Monastery are two light windows while the others are one-light windows. The main entrance to the Tuman Monastery church is on the western side, while the side entrance is on the apse. The interior of the Church of Tuman Monastery was recently fresco painted. The iconostasis of Tuman Monastery is likewise the other Medieval monasteries of Serbia and does not cover the frescoes in the altar.
Under the dome of the central part of the wonderful church of the Tuman Monastery there are two humble coffins which keep the priceless treasure of the miracle-working holy relics of the saints – the Holy Zosim of Tuman, hermit from the distant Sinai, and the Holy anchorite Jakov, our contemporary – pupil of the Holy Bishop Nikolaj, who was brutally killed by communists in 1946. Right besides the coffins of the holy saints within the Tuman Monastery, there is 3 hundred years old miracle-working icon of the Holy Virgin which was brought here in 1918 by the Russian monks emigrants for the gratitude to the Serbian Orthodox Church. Prayers by those holy relics, as per numerous testimonies, dramatically and drastically change lives of people, by miracle healing of the most serious illnesses. And this remains so for centuries….
Tuman Monastery is since 1966 nunnery, and now here live the brethren. During the Transfiguration – the feast of Tuman Monastery there is huge assembly of thousands of local pilgrims and numerous other faithful people who come here for the liturgy and prayers to get indescribable enlightenment and unique spiritual experience of peace of mind…..
