Vidovdan 2009 in Gracanica Monastery

I made a post about Gracanica Monastery a while ago, emphasing on the archtiecture and history. But here there is even something more to say about the Gracanica Moanstery.
Every year on Vidovdan (St. Vitus day, June 28th) in the beautiful and spiritual surroundings of the monastery the celebration for this serbian religious and national holiday takes place. Here the pictures that my friend Johanna sent me from this year's celebration. The text is from [ B92, Beta, Tanjug ]

GRAČANICA - The celebration of Vidovdan started in Kosovo this morning with the Holy Liturgy served in the Serbian Orthodox monastery of Gračanica.

Serbs mark Vidovdan (St. Vitus Day) as a religious and national holiday.

The province is calm and there are no incidents reported this Sunday, as Kosovo police, KPS, and KFOR members have visibly increased their presence near the Serb enclave of Gračanica, and also near Kosovska Mitrovica and Gazimestan.

This year's Vidovdan celebrations have gathered the largest crowd seen since 1999, with several thousand people in Gazimestan, near Priština, attending a commemoration of the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo.

On this day 620 years ago, the Serb army, led by Lazar Hrebeljanović, confronted the invading Ottoman Turks.

Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Patriarch Pavle's emissary Metropolitan Amfilohije and bishops Artemije, Filaret and Teodosije served a religious ceremony dedicated to the souls of the fallen soldiers of the medieval Serbian empire - commonly referred to as the Kosovo heroes.

After the ceremony, Bishop Artemije told the crowd that "the Kosovo heroes have given their lives so that we can live in Kosovo and Metohija today."

The Serbs have gathered in Gazimestan, the bishop continued, to pray to the Lord and tell themselves and others that this is the holy Serb land, soaked with blood and tears of our ancestors.

"Kosovo was and will be the heart of Serbia, just as it was 620 years ago," he said.

The participants in the ceremonies today arrived in some 60 buses and several hundred private vehicles from all over Serbia, but also from Montenegro and the Republic of Srpska. KPS members and Czech KFOR soldiers secured the area close to the Gazimestan monument.

Unlike in previous years, this time a stage was set up, while the monument was draped with a huge Serbian national flag and a canvass with the fresco image of Holy Tsar Lazar.

Both the Gazimestan commemoration, and the one earlier in the day in the monastery of Gračanica were attended by government ministers Bogoljub Šijaković, Goran Bogdanović and Nebojša Bradić, and Crown Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević and his wife Katarina.

Johanna and her husband Nenad making the church greeting


Some even better information about Vidovdan 2009 here at de[construct].net