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A representative exhibition titled “Treasuries of the Chilandar Monastery” was opened on November 6, marking the Applied Arts Museum Day. The exhibition, put together by the museum’s consultant, Dušan Milovanović, was a joint project of the Applied Arts Museum and the Serbian Arts and Sciences Academy. Joined by a team of experts, Milovanović spent nearly 30 years on this research project. Research at the Chilandar Monastery on Mount Athos was an all-encompassing enterprise and embraced such areas as architecture, books and paintings as well as the monastery’s treasuries. Part of the material collected is to be published in a two-volume catalogue (only the first volume has been issued to-date) offering a showcase of different objects the researchers found, whether precious items or simple articles for everyday use.
The exhibition Treasuries of the Chilandar Monastery is documentary as well as material, because the items presented through a documentary approach (photographs) were not brought from the Chilandar Monastery, primarily owing to security reasons. In addition to photographs, some items from Mount Athos that are housed in scientific and cultural institutions in Serbia were also put on display. They include the priceless icon collection from the Oplenac-based King Petar I Endowment, followed by ten or so handwritten books (Gospels, Menaia, anthologies) presently kept at the Serbian Arts and Sciences Academy, the National Library of Serbia, the Historical Museum of Serbia. To this should be added valuable objects from the Applied Arts Museum collections, the National Museum of Serbia and other institutions.
The exhibition, divided into several sections, was conceived with a modern approach and interesting solutions have been applied. The documentary section is devoted to Chilandar Monastery treasuries accompanied with material from other museum collections. This is followed by a separate section dedicated to various factographic aspects regarding the monastery, with a special part focusing on its renewal. The third section -on the museum’s first floor -offers original material from Mount Athos and from the monastery itself. Spatial distribution of the exhibition was conceived by designer Ivan Mangov.
The Chilandar Monastery is the only Serbian monastery on Mount Athos. It was built in 1198 by Grand Zhupan Stefan Nemanja with his sons, Sava the monk and Stefan the First-Crowned, after he received special permission from Byzantine Emperor Alexis III Angelos on the site of an earlier monastery called Helandarion. The large monastery complex is surrounded by thick walls and towers (pyrgi), and over the centuries it has undergone innumerable changes and reconstruction work. The present entrance, located on the northern side of the complex, was constructed in the 14th century. The main monastery church – the Katholikon, devoted to the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God was built by King Milutin in 1303 at the time of Abbot Danilo II, where the original church stood. The church’s frescoes date back to 1319. At the time of Prince Lazar in 1380, an exonarthex decorated in the Moravian style was added. Apart from the main church, the monastery complex also accommodates a larger number of chapel-type churches – pareklisi – also built and reconstructed many times over the centuries. Within the monastery walls there may also be found multi-storied cell buildings (konaks) dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries as well as the hospital, a refectory adorned with murals painted by Georgije Mitrofanović, a large kitchen, the ‘new’ Library, the Tower of St. Sava (cc 1200), the Tower of St. George (13th and 16th century), the Tower of St. Nicholas (14th and 17th century) and a grand entrance.
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The treasuries of the Chilandar Monastery bear witness to its role as a cornerstone of Serbian history, religion and culture. The exhibition at the Applied Arts Museum closes on January 15, 2009. | 
