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Kuršumlija (Municipality, Serbia)

Куршумлија

image by Tomislav Šipek, 20 October 2021

Flag of Kuršumlija
Coat of arms

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Flag of Kuršumlija

The flag of Kuršumlija (photo) is light blue with the municipal coat of arms in the toward the hoist.

Tomislav Šipek, 23 September 2015

See also photo at https://kursumlijabezcenzure.com
Tomislav Šipek, 20 October 2021

The municipality of Kuršumlija (12,886 inhabitants in 2011) is located 250 km south of Belgrade, on the border with Kosovo.

The coat of arms of Kuršumlija features the church of the former St. Nicholas monastery.
Together with the monastery of the Most Holy Mother of God, the St. Nicholas monastery is one of the first endowments of Stefan Nemanja (1113/1114-1196), the founder of the Serbian dynasty of Nemanjić, who ruled medieval Serbia from 1166 to 1371. The monastery is located on a plateau above Kuršumlija, overlooking the confluence of the Banjska and Toplica rivers.

The monastery was built by Stefan Nemanja between 1152 and 1166, and no later than 1168. Nemanja's biographers - Stefan Prvovencani, Sts. Sava and Domentian - do not agree on the order of raising Nemanja's endowments in Kuršumlija. Regardless of these differences, everyone agrees that after the construction of the monastery, there was a conflict between Nemanja and his brothers, who challenged his work. In this conflict, Stefan Nemanja emerged victorious in 1168. He soon built a court next to the monastery, and Kuršumlija, then known as Bela Crkva (White Churches), became the county seat. Namely, as Nemanja's endowments were covered with lead roofs that shone in the sun, the people called them White Churches, and hence the settlement got the name White Churches.
A strong spiritual life took place in the monastery from the very beginning. For example, the great abbot (elder of the church), together with several other abbots, participated in the election and introduction to the title of Archimandrite of Studenica. It was in this monastery, after gaining Serbian church independence in Nicaea in 1219, that the seat of the newly formed Toplica episcopate was located. It is assumed that, after the proclamation of the Empire and the elevation of the Serbian church to the rank of patriarchy (1346), it was also elevated to the rank of metropolitanate.

The fate of the monastery after the battle of Kosovo (1389) and the Turkish conquest of Toplica (1453) is not accurately known. No record is available until the first half of the 16th century, when sources mention a certain Metropolitan of Bela Crkva. Both Nemanja's endowments in Kuršumlija, judging by the payment of annual income, were active in the period between 1455 and 1530. However, the Turkish travel writer Evliya Çelebi (1611-1682), traveling through Kuršumlija, mentions only one deserted church.
After the Great Migration of the Serbs (1690), the monastery was deserted. The Turks took off its lead roof, according to tradition, to cast bullets. Hence the modern name of the town. According to Turkish sources, however, Kuršumlija comes from the Turkish words "kurşunlu kilise" ("lead church"), which is, therefore, only a variant translation of the Serbian name Bela Crkva.

Still deserted in the 18th century, the church was finally demolished in the middle of the 19th century, allegedly by Sulj Krveša from Niš and Muli Halil, asking for money. After the liberation of Toplica, the Austrian painter and travel writer Felix Kanitz (1829-1904) wrote that what was left of the church, despite its severe neglect, still represents one of the most beautiful works of medieval Serbian masonry architecture, and recommended that the Serbian Minister of Construction be restored.
The first move to protect this church was made by the National Museum in Belgrade in 1910, when the roof structure was made. After the Second World War, the reconstruction continued, which lasted intermittently until 2003. The church was registered on 21 June 1982 as a cultural monument of exceptional importance.

http://spomenicikulture.mi.sanu.ac.rs/spomenik.php?id=552
Cultural Monuments in Serbia

Ivan Sache, 23 October 2021

Coat of arms

image located by Valentin Poposki, 18 June 2024