The Vlah Church ( sr, Влашка cрква, Vlaška crkva) is a

Serbian Orthodox The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, Christian churches. The majori ...

church built in 1450 in the village of Donji Kraj (on Cetinje field),

Zeta Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...

Serbian Despotate The Serbian Despotate ( sr, / ) was a medieval Serbian state in the first half of the 15th century. Although the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 is generally considered the end of medieval Serbia, the Despotate, a successor of the Serbian Empire and ...

(modern day

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

Stećci

The church was built around 1450 on the site of Bogumils' necropolis, which had around 150 stećci (monumental, ornate tombstones). Only two of them are preserved today. Originally they faced each other, and were recently reoriented to be side by side. According to some legends, recorded for the first time by Ljubomir Nenadović, the 17th-century military commander

Bajo Pivljanin Bajo Pivljanin ( sr-cyr, Бајо Пивљанин – 7 May 1685), born Dragojlo Nikolić, was a Montenegrin and Serbian '' hajduk'' commander mostly active in the Ottoman territories of Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia. Born in Piva, at the ...

and his wife are buried beneath them. According to another legend and documentary evidence the stećci mark the graves of the founders of the church—Ivan Borojević, born in

Stari Vlah Stari ( sla, Stari, "Old One") could have multiple meanings: * Stari, a rural locality in Babushkinsky District of Vologda Oblast of Russia. * Stari, a nickname of Đuro Pucar. * Stari, a nickname of Josip Broz Tito Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, � ...

, and his wife Jelica.

Origin of the name

This church received its name for the Vlahs who guarded the cattle of

Ivan Crnojević Ivan Crnojević ( sr-Cyrl, Иван Црнојевић, italics=no, lit=Ivan the Black) was the lord of Zeta and Serbian leader from 1465 to 1490. Having formed an alliance with the Republic of Venice, he led the Serb resistance against the expandi ...

and built the church around 1450. There are several additional theories about the origin of the term Vlah in the name of the church. Some authors believe that the term Vlahs in the name of this church is used as an

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

. Other theories connect the name of the church to the fact that the terms such as "Vlach's church" or "Vlach's rituals" were indicators of belonging to

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops vi ...

and Orthodoxy or to demonym Vlahs (according to them this church was allegedly built by settlers from

in modern Serbia).

Building materials

The church was initially made of "plot" ( sr, плот), i.e. of sticks, switches and mud. It was rebuilt three times. First as "suvomeđa" ( sr, сувомеђа), which means of stones without mortar; then of "klačena" ( sr, клачена), which is stones with lime mortar; and finally, in 1864 the church received its current form. A guard rail around the church was built in 1897 using barrels of Ottoman rifles captured in 1858 during the

Battle of Grahovac The Battle of Grahovac took place in the eponymous village of Grahovac from 11 to 13 May 1858, when the Montenegrin Grand Duke Mirko Petrović-Njegoš led the army of Principality of Montenegro against the Ottomans, ending in a decisive M ...

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vlah Church Religious buildings and structures completed in 1450 15th-century Serbian Orthodox church buildings Serbian Orthodox church buildings in Montenegro 1450 establishments Cetinje