Visoki Dečani Monastery - Kosovo

Great friends always send great cards but when they match our wishes, that's ever greater and special. Ana, dear Ana, checked my Unesco wishlist and decided to send me 2 sites missing on my list.

This one is from Serbia and the other is from Montenegro.

Thanks Ana for helping me, again, with my unesco collection :D

"Visoki Dečani is a major Serb Orthodox Christian monastery located in Kosovo, 12 km (7 mi) south of the town of Péc. The monastic katholikon is the largest medieval church in the Balkans containing the most extensive preserved fresco decoration.

The monastery was established in a chestnut grove by Serbian King Stefan Uros III Decanski in 1327. Its original founding charter is dated to 1330. The following year the king died and was buried at the monastery, which henceforth became his popular shrine. The construction was continued by his son Emperor Stefan Uros IV Dusan until 1335, but the wall-painting was not completed until 1350.

The monastic church, dedicated to Christ Pantocrator and built from blocks of red-purple, light-yellow and onyx marble. The church is distinguished by its imposing size and Romanesque and Early Gothic structure and design. Apart from the extensive and well preserved fresco cycles the interior features the original 14th-century stone templon, the throne of the hegumen and the carved wooden sarcaphagus of the founder King Stefan.

Visoki Dečani was declared Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1990, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia. In 2004, UNESCO listed the monastery on the World Heritage List, citing its frescoes as "one of the most valued examples of the so-called Palaeologan renaissance in Byzantine painting" and "a valuable record of the life in the 14th century". In 2006, it was added to the List of World Heritage Sites in danger due to the potential for attacks by ethnic-Albanian partisans; it is protected by the United Nations' KFOR." - in: wikipedia