JAZAK MONASTERY

The Jazak Monastery complex is located on a plateau at the end of a narrow valley around the Rovača stream, behind the village of Jazacki Prnjavor, where once lived serfs who brought revenue to the monastery The original Jazak monastery emerged in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century and was highly valued, as it held the relics of the last ruler of the Nemanjić dynasty, Emperor Uroš. Today it is a convent. Remnants of the original old Jazak monastery are located about two kilometers to the north and are hardly accessible. The monastery consists of a church, living quarters on the north, south and west, and a wall that encloses the complex on the east side. The church is dedicated to the Descent of the Holy Spirit (the Holy Trinity). Construction of the new monastery began in the eighteenth century but was subsequently abandoned as a result of the Regulation on the reduction of the monastery in 1773. Work on the new monastery began in 1736, with the construction of the church, and the western and northern dormitory. The complex was created gradually, with the donations of wealthy citizens and the permanent engagement of the Metropolitan and head of the monastery, who encouraged the building. After construction, the church and quarters were repaired several times, and after the Second World War there was a major renovation, which took place in several stages. The church was designed as a cross in conjunction with a trefoil, and narthex connected by three openings to the nave. In front of the narthex, a little later, after the consecration of the church, a massive bell tower on a square base was added. The cupola structure of the church has octagonal columns section. The altar apse is a wide gap between the columns and the proscomidion and diaconicon were established in niches. The exterior of the church is much richer and more decorative than the interior. The walls are polychrome, in rows of stone and brick, with a stone pitch cornice set high, above the first row of the window. Above these windows are triple molded semicircular archivolts. Above the cornice are a series of wide arched blind arcades, which rest on pilasters. The profiling of the arcade is different, and the spaces between them are not the same width. Below the roof cornice is a frieze of shallow arcades of stone, their regular rhythm combines the elements into a whole. The windows, in smooth stone frames with flat sills, are not evenly distributed,. The side of the apse and the altar were raised to the same height as the walls of the church. At the intersection of the nave and choir is set an eight-sided pedestal, decorated with blind arcades and roof-molded cornice. On this structure is set a decahedral drum of great height, decorated in two zones. In the lower zone on each side of the drum are narrow, high windows in two-stage niches. A partition crown is then placed at about two thirds of the height of the drum and below it, on every side are two blind arcades. Beneath the cupola caps profiled crown is repeated, and below it blind arcades, again on each side. The church roof was once covered with shingles, and today is covered with tile. The cupola cap is very jagged, with a wide "cushion", above which a high lantern is placed. 
The architecture of the bell tower completely deviates from the design of the church and there is no element that could make them compositionally linked. Entry to the belfry is through the narthex, because it was placed on columns and the northern wall, forming the entrance portico. On the first floor, modeled on medieval examples, is a chapel, which is still not operational. The molding is multi-layered, simple and straight.
Some researchers partially associated the solutions of the Jazak monastery church to the scheme by which the Hopovo monastery church was made. The interior of the monastery is large, so that between the church and the dormitories there is sufficient space to view the church as a whole, which in many monasteries is not the case.
The dormitories were built gradually and vary in construction technique. The west and north wings were built in parallel with the church in brick, the south wing was started after the construction of the church in 1761. It is built in a combination of brick and rough-hewn stone. All three wings have a ground floor porch with arcades forming cross vaulted fields. The entrance to the monastery was on the ground floor of the southern dormitory and worked in stone. The portal is constructed as a nearly square stone wall surface to which was added a wide arc. The archivolt arch is evenly decorated with carved rosettes. The exterior walls of the dormitories were simple, smooth surfaces, with rows of rectangular windows on the ground floor and first floor, arranged in vertical shafts. The baroque furniture was made gradually, depending on the capabilities of the donor, and the founder of the monastery brotherhood. The iconostasis was set up in 1759, while the icons, painted by Dimitrije Bačević and associates, only in 1769, as is written under the icon of Christ. The throne icons provided a wealth of detail in the gilded background image and marvelous carved royal doors. Below the altar and icons in the socle are small icons with standing figures of the saints from the family Nemanjić and Branković, Serbian saints and rulers - a rare example of iconographic solutions of this zone of the iconostasis.
The Throne of  King Uroš was completed in 1776, the Virgin's throne in 1779, the Synod in 1784. The icon of the Virgin for the throne was painted by Teodor Kračun, and the icon on the Episcopal throne by Grigorije Davidović Obšić. The  Icon of King Uroš on the same throne was painted by Andrej Šaltist, associate and friend of the Novi Sad woodcarvers, the brothers Marković.