The Vlach 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 the Cetinje field, at that time part of

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 ...

(present-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 a

Bogomil Bogomilism ( Bulgarian and Macedonian: ; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", bogumilstvo, богумилство) was a Christian neo-Gnostic or dualist sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Pe ...

necropolis that included around 150 stećci (monumental, ornate tombstones). Only two of these have been preserved to this day. Originally facing each other, they 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

One theroy states that the church received its name from the

Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other E ...

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 ''Vlach'' in the name of the church. Some authors believe that the term 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 membership in the

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 ''Vlach'' (according to them this church was allegedly built by settlers from

in modern Serbia).

Building materials

The church was initially made of sticks ( sr, плот, plot), switches and mud and was rebuilt three times. At first, it was redone in stones without mortar ( sr, сувомеђа, suvomeđa), then in stones with lime mortar ( sr, клачена, klačena) 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 ...

References

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