The monastery church is dedicated to Holy Physicians Cosmas and Damian (Sv. Vrači Kozma i Damjan) (July 14 and November 14)
According to lore, the Rakovac Monastery is the endowment of Raka Milošević, the great chamberlain of Despot Jovan Branković from the 15th century, but the first historical data about him are found in an Ottoman document from the middle of the 16th century. It is reliably known that since the 17th century, the Rakovac Monastery has been an important transcription, translation and literary center, and that a copy of the “Dušan’s Code” (“Dušanov zakonik”) was made here, and in the 18th century the Rakovac manuscript “Srbljak” (services and lives of canonized Serbs), the work of Sinesije Živanović, the latter Bishop of Arad, was written.
At the end of the 17th century, the monastery was demolished by the Ottoman Turks, but at the beginning of the 18th century the church was rebuilt, in the middle of the same century a high, Baroque bell tower was erected – an endowment venture of Metropolitan Vićentije Jovanović, who was buried there. In the bell tower was the chapel of St. Nicholas (Sv. Nikola). In the middle of the 18th century, a cemetery chapel dedicated to the Shroud of the Virgin Mary was built. The monastery was badly damaged during the German bombing and Ustasha destruction in Second World War. The church was damaged, the Baroque bell tower was demolished, the iconostasis of the church and the library with valuable books were destroyed.
At the beginning of the 21st century, a new bell tower was built on the foundations from the 18th century, conservation works are underway in the church, and most of the konak where the newly founded chapel of St. Vasilije is found have been rebuilt as well. The new library was established in 2019.
The wall painting of the church from the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, of exceptional value, has been preserved only in fragments. In the Second World War, the iconostasis of the church from the second half of the 18th century, of the patron Metropolitan Pavle Nenadović, the work of Vasilije Ostojić, was destroyed. Of the 56 of Ostojic’s icons three have been preserved and are not in the monastery. The contemporary iconostasis of the monastery church from the end of the 20th century is the work of Branka Janković-Knežević and Ljubomir Vujaklija. Vasilije Ostojić painted the iconostasis of the cemetery chapel with Janko Halkozović. Part of the icons from that chapel, created in the 18th century, is today on the iconostasis of the chapel dedicated to St. Vasilije in the konak of the monastery, and it was painted by Nenad Tošić.
The Rakovac Monastery was the court monastery of the Karlovac Metropolitanate where over twenty archpriests were monasticized, who left a significant mark in the history and culture of the Serbian Orthodox Church and people. Portraits of some of them adorn the monastery’s newly established ceremonial salons. Here is also the famous icon of the Virgin – Rakovačka Odigitrija, which before the Second World War was above the reliquary in which the hand of St. Procopius (Sv. Prokopije) was kept. The hand of St. Procopius (Sv. Prokopije) disappeared during the robbery in Second World War, but the reliquary has been preserved and is located in the Treasury of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Sremski Karlovci. In 2007, Rakovačka Odigitrija was returned from Zagreb. In the chapel of St. Basil (Sv. Vasilije), there are particles of the relic of St. Petka (Sv. Petka), St. Charalampos (Sv. Haralampije), the Athonite Fathers and Mardarius of Libertyville (Mardarije Libertvilski).
Schedule of liturgies in the monastery church: every weekday and Saturday at 7.00 a.m., Sundays and church holidays at 8.00 a.m., evening liturgy every weekday and weekends at 4.00 p.m.
TOURIST INFORMATION: The Rakovac Monastery is open for visits from 7.00 a.m. – 7.30 p.m. (during the summer) and 7.00 a.m. -5.00 p.m. (during the winter). Decent dress is implied. Group visits must be announced two days in advance by e-mail: bojanpilipovic@outlook.com
