Very little is known about the odlest Chilandar church erected by Stefan Nemanja and his son, monk Sava 1199. Neither is is known where it  was sited, although it could  be assumed that King Milutin’s foundation superceded it. Of that smaller, but as it  seems richly decorated church, several capitals and relief panels have survived, incorporated in King Milutin’s church,then one capital on the monastery well, while the mosaic icon of the Virgin and the wooden royal doors from the iconos-tasis, inlaid with ivory, are kept in the treasury.

Today’s main church of Chilandar, dedicated to the Presentation of the Virgin into the Temple, was con­structed and painted at the very beginning of the 14th century, as can be inferred from the original inscription, read recently after a later copy had been cleaned. The founder was King Milutin (1282-1321) who lavished rich gifts on Chilandar all through his life. Around 1380, an exonarthex was added to the west side of Milutin’s foun­dation by order of Prince Lazar, the edifice thus gaining its present-day appearance.

The church erected in the southern portion of the courtyard is rather capacious: it measures 12.5 m in width by 36.5m in length, with the exonarthex being 9 m long. Its architecture clings to the Athonite tradition: King Milutin’s katholikon has a triconch ground plan and a spacious narthex. The monastery churches constructed in the 10th (Lavra) and llth centuries (Vatopedi, Iviron), provided a prototype for this kind of edifice, which proved best suited for the requirements of liturgical activ­ity on Athos.

The church was constructed of red brick, and grey and ochre stone blocks, whose alternate rows add to its pic­turesque effect. The exterior facades are vertically articu­lated by pilasters and archivolts, indicating the internal division of the church. The horizontal division of the facade is emphasized by means of two, three or several tiers of brick.

Like other Byzantine places of worship, Milutin’s endowment is divided into three areas: the sanctuary, nave and narthex. The nave is separated from the narthex by a wall pierced by three passages, and shut off from the sanctuary by the iconostasis. Two powerful piers divide the sanctuary into three sections: the central is taken by the communion table ending in a semi-circular apse, the prothesis is to the north, and the diaconicon to the south. The nave is the most capacious part of the church with semi-circular choir apses on the north and south sides, topped by semi-calottes. These apses, as well as the sanctuary apse, are five-sided on the exterior. A large, seg­mented dome crowns the nave.

It is supported by four columns recessed into four corners of the nave, so that they do not make the central space narrow. Four barrel-vaults rise above the remaining space of the nave, form­ing a cross-in-square, easily distinguishable on the out­side.

Two piers, placed in the centre, divide the narthex into six bays. Two lateral ones on the western side are surmounted by small domes, the central one in the east by a blind dome, while the others are groin-vaulted. Milutin’s church is pierced by a large number of aper­tures — doors and windows which provide sufficient and even lighting to the church interior. The windows are greatly diversified; apart from ordinary windows, they include a number of two-light and three-light windows. The sanctuary apse displays an especially well-shaped three-light window, featuring two marble mullions with capitals. Among the portals of Milutin’s Chilandar church especially noteworthy is the entrance portal, situated in the west, with an architrave beam adorned with closely interlaced bands, the intertwining space being filled with black paste, and with three heads — two lion’s and one angel’s. The portal between the narthex and nave also has a beautifully carved console, but it does not contain fig-ural representations. The large three-light windows in the choirs and the two-light windows on the narthex termi­nate in the lower part with marble slabs, mostly covered with shallow interlace motifs, fancifully carved. Most of these slabs, as well as several capitals on the mullions, originate from Nemanja’s old church. It is only certain that two principal portals, the sanctuary three-light win­dow and the slabs on the north choir were carved for the present-day Chilandar church.

The floor in the nave represents a special element of ornamentation in the Chilandar katholikon. It is made up of multicoloured polished slabs and mosaic tessera inlaid along the edges of the slabs and forming a variety of pat­terns. The two Greek craftsmen who produced this floor, Michael and Barnabas, carved their names in the lintel of the south portal of the narthex, and encircled it by mosaic.

The Chilandar church of King Milutin is a successful synthesis of Athonite building traditions and the archi­tectural conceptions typical of Constantinople of that time, and, to a lesser degree, Thessaloniki. The unknown master mason, following the Athonite prototypes, con­structed an edifice of a developed cross-in-square ground plan with choir apses and the narthex separated by a wall. On the other hand, construction technique, the system of apertures, reliefs, the type of the dome and other ele­ments, are akin to the manner of building fostered in the Byzantine capital around 1200. The beauty of Milutin’s foundation in Chilandar is displayed in the harmony of the interior disposition of space with the exterior archi­tecture. In many of its architectural features, Milutin’s church in Chilandar departs from the churches erected in Serbia at that time. It was only in the eighth decade of the 14th century that the influence of Mount Athos was felt in Serbia when the triconch ground plan became estab­lished and adopted in the Morava architecture.

The exonarthex of the main Chilandar church was erected around 1380, under the patronage of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic, to which tradition and his later founder’s portraits bear witness. The inner narthex con­structed in Milutin’s time served as a model for the exonarthex: it is of the same width, it also has two columns in the central section dividing it into six bays; apart from the principal, it also features two lateral entrances in the north and south, and two-light windows with closure stone slabs decorated with relief. The man­ner of building of Lazar’s narthex is similar to that of Milutin’s, because alternate courses of stone and brick were employed in the construction of both. Understand­ably, there are certain differences, brought about by the epoch of construction and the purpose of the founder. The exonarthex is capped by a single dome, above the central western bay. The remaining bays are surmounted by blind domes, which are shallow, except for the central one on the east side. Besides this, the apertures on Lazar’s narthex are larger, but it does not resemble an open porch, because the large two-light windows are glazed and closed by parapets. Some of these parapets date from the 12th century, but most of them were pro­duced at the time of the narthex’s construction — around 1380. Interlace decoration, floral ornaments, and several figures are carved in the spirit of Morava architectural traditions; there are also circular windows — rosettes. The most interesting are the closure slabs built in the lower parts of the north and south two-light windows, because they display carved heraldic symbols: a plumed helmet, the coat-of-arms of Prince Lazar, and subse­quently Stefan Lazarevic, on the south side, the double-headed eagle, emblem of the Nemanjic dynasty and two connected dragons, the coat-of-arms of an unknown fam­ily, on the north side. The opulence of the sculptural dec­oration is enhanced by four consoles bearing the repre­sentations of human and lion’s heads, most probably dat­ing from the 12th century, placed above the west and south portals. In spite of the diversity of stone reliefs and some differences in construction, the exonarthex forms a harmonious whole with Milutin’s foundation.

The west portal of the exonarthex was reconstructed in the spirit of Baroque in 1779 through the efforts of the deputy abbot Danilo from Eskizagar — Stara Zagora in Bulgaria, and the wooden door at this entrance with some kind of intarsia were produced in 1891.

Wall-paintings in the entire main Chilandar church were repainted in 1803 by the monk-painters Benjamin, Zacharias and their associates from the village of Gale-sios on the way from Mount Athos to Thessaloniki. They performed this task meticulously, without damaging ear­lier frescoes or changing their content. It is therefore pos­sible to speak with great certainty about the subject-mat­ter of the oldest Chilandar frescoes in the main church from King Milutin’s time.

In the sanctuary of the main church, the row of bish­ops, including St Sava of Serbia among them, is painted in the lower zones, the Communion of the Apostles and the Virgin with Christ are placed in the apse, while the wall surfaces are covered with scenes chiefly illustrating the events following the Resurrection of Christ. In the nave, the standing figures of the military saints, hermits and other saintly personages are grouped in the lowest band. The south-west corner features the portrait of the founder King Milutin, flanked by St Stephen the Protomartyr on the left, and St Sava of Serbia and Simeon Nemanja of Serbia on the right. The second tier includes episodes from the life of the Virgin, the patroness of the church, and also some compositions relating to the life and miracles of Christ. Christ’s Passion and Miracles in the third zone are surmounted by the Great Feasts. Some of the feasts abound with details, such as the Baptism of Christ depicted in the semi-dome of the south choir. At the summit of the dome is the image of Christ, below him are the angels depicted in two tiers, then the prophets, while the four evangelists are shown on the pendentives, as is customary.

In the inner narthex of Milutin’s katholikon, standing figures are arranged in two zones. The first, lower zone contains effigies of various saints, among whom many hermits are given place, then a Deesis and the scene of the Baptism. In the upper zone, the east wall on the southern side features the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos presenting the charter for the monastery’s construction to King Milutin, next to whom is Stephan the Protomartyr. In the middle of this wall is the Virgin with the infant Christ, next to whom are the first founders of Chilandar, St Sava and Simeon Nema­nja. Around 1325, the Emperor Andronikos III, co-emper­or of Andronikos II, King Stefan Decanski and his son Dusan were painted in the upper zone, on the north side of the same wall. The pendentives of the domes feature scenes from the Old Testament, some of which can be interpreted as the Virgin’s prefigurations, while the small domes are covered by the effigies of Christ’s ancestors. The third tier on the east wall contains three episodes from the life of John Chrysostom, the Crucifixion, and the illustrations of Solomon’s text “Wisdom has built her house”. Almost forty scenes from the lives of the hermits — Makarios of Egypt, Anthony the Great, Isidore, Paul of Theba, Paphnouthios, Pachomios, Euphrosimos, Aux-entios, Dorotheos, Nathaneal, and many others, are arranged on the vault or directly beneath it.

Since the paintings from 1803, of little merit, began to be removed from the nave and the inner narthex, it is now possible to discuss the artistic value of the original fres­coes from King Milutin’s time in more definite terms. The uncovered portraits of the warrior-saints and monks in the south apse, the Presentation of the Virgin, the Christ Casting out the Merchants from the Temple and the donor’s portrait in the nave, and the effigies of kings Andronikos and Milutin, St Panteleimon or the pro-tomartyr Stephan in the narthex, reveal that they were produced by painters from Thessaloniki, who ranked among the finest artists of their time. Apart from others, the famous painter George Kalliergis is also thought to have been engaged to work in Chilandar. In conformity with the ideas of that epoch, the painters introduced a wider range of cycles in subject-matter, a larger number of figures in individual compositions, making an effort to produce literal and profuse illustrations of particular texts, to render in great detail vestments, objects or set­tings in which an event evolves. Their talent is displayed in the skillful variation of images, attitudes and move­ments of individual figures, in refined colours, and in the neatness of their compositions. Finally, the splendid por­trait of King Milutin, with a subtly delineated character, confirms that the oldest frescoes in the main Chilandar church were executed by experienced masters.

The exact date of the creation of the frescoes in Chi­landar’s main church has been recently established: they came into being in the last years of the reign of King Milutin — 1321. Some of the wall-paintings in the inner narthex came into existence at a later date. In the main Chilandar church, Milutin’s foundation, some prominent benefactors and their relatives were buried. Images of the Virgin, and occasionally other saintly figures, were placed above their tombs in the arcosolium. It is thought that in the north-west corner of the nave stands the tomb of the Caesar Voihna, father-in-law of the despot Jovan Ugljesa. In the seventh the decade of the 14th century, the Virgin of Pelagonia with a child playing in her arms was painted in a fresco above his tomb. In a good state of preservation and of fresh, bright colouring, the fresco ranks among better works of that epoch. The Virgin of Pelagonia, also shown above the tomb of an unknown person, is flanked by the Serbian saints Simeon and Sava shown in prayer for the deceased. According to i^ts style, this fresco must be dated to the seventh decade of the 14th century. In 1430-1431, Reposh, brother of the famous Scanderbeg from the Albanian family of Castri-otes, was buried in the tomb in the inner narthex, by the north wall. St George and the Serbian saints Simeon and Sava are interceding with the Virgin for the salvation of his soul. The anonymous painter of this fresco was of modest talent.

The wall-paintings in Lazar’s exonarthex cannot be said to have repeated the former subject-matter, if this space had been frescoed at the close of the 14th century. The original selection of the saints in the first row was certainly altered at the beginning of the 19th century. That tier, apart from Prince Lazar with a model of the narthex, includes Athonite and Balkan hermits, a number of saints from the ruling houses of the Nemanjic and the Brankovic, Vasilije of Ostrog, Petar of Korisa, John of Rila, George the New, saints from Mount Athos, and even the Russian Princess Olga and her grandson Prince Vladimir. It is interesting that Milos Obilic was also given a place among the saints, which was obviously linked with Prince Lazar’s patronage. The upper bands of the exonarthex contain a Deesis, the Never Sleeping Eye (Anapesson), then a number of scenes from the Calen­dar, while the representation of Christ Pantocrator is placed in the dome.

The present-day iconostasis in the katholikoo of Chi­landar bears icons from 1766 and from the beginning °f the 20th century. In the lowest zone are icons of ^a more recent date, for the most part covered by costly frames featuring inscriptions of Russian donors from th^e beginning of the 20th century. Among the main icons, (St John the Forerunner, the Serbian saints Sava and Simeon, the Virgin, then after the royal doors, Christ, the Presenta­tion of the Virgin into the Temple and the Virgin of Akathistos) especially noteworthy is the miraculous icon of the Virgin of Akathistos, which remained undamaged in 1837 when the lowest part of the iconostasis caught fire. The icon of the Virgin from around 1600 is sur­rounded by twenty four scenes illustrating the Akathistos hymn — laudatory songs praising the Virgin, placed on a wide wooden frame. This icon was named after this paint­ed frame which dates from the late 18th century. It is cel­ebrated on 12 (25) January, together with two other mir­acle-working icons — of the Virgin of the Priest and the Virgin Galaktotrophoussa.

On the iconostasis, the main icons in the lowest zone are surmounted by a row of small medallions containing the images of saints, chiefly apostles. Above it are thir­teen icons with compositions of the Great Feasts and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Above the tier of the small medallions with prophets is set a painted cross, as is cus­tomary. All the icons, except for most of the icons placed in the lowest row of the iconostasis, dating from 1766, were produced by the painters Constantine and Athana-sios. Although the icons mainly adhere to the old iconog­raphy, some departures are nevertheless evident in the treatment of details.

Behind this iconostasis an older stone screen has sur­vived, more than three metres tall. It consisted of three components: the largest, pierced with three openings, encloses the central section and does not have a parapet now, while the area of the diaconicon is separated from the nave by a screen. A door used to stand on the marble frame at the entrance to the prothesis. Pilasters with cap­itals are beautifully modulated, but only the capitals are ornamented with reliefs. Although some hold the view that most parts of this sanctuary screen do not actually originate from King Milutin’s epoch and that they were produced in subsequent reconstruction works, it never­theless seems that all its parts date from the start of the 14th century.

Between the creation of the original iconostasis and the one dating from 1766, at least one more adorned the church interior, having been set up in 1634/1635. It came into existence owing to the efforts of the Metropolitan of Herzegovina Simeon. On his way back from the Holy Land, he paid a visit to Chilandar, and, at the request of the monks, became a benefactor.

In the nave of the katholikon there are a number of icons chiefly arranged around freestanding piers. To the east of the south-west pillar, the place of the abbot is taken by the most highly venerated treasure of Chilandar, the miraculous procession icon of the Virgin with the three hands in a rich frame from the outset of the 20th century, concealed with ex-votes. Tradition had it that it was brought from Jerusalem by St Sava of Serbia. It was named after the third hand, moulded in silver, presented to the icon by John of Damascus whose cut-off hand had been healed after he had prayed before it. The legend says that the icon dates from the 8th century, while schol­ars are of the opinion that the present-day icon of the three-handed Virgin was executed in the mid-14th centu­ry, and probably to a great degree modelled on its older prototype. Of grave and dignified expression, painted in muted tones of grey and green, the icon of the three-handed Virgin is the work of a capable Greek painter. It is venerated not only by the Serbs; Orthodox believers from other countries, Greece, Russia and Bulgaria, also pray zealously before it. On the reverse is the dignified image of St Nicholas from the mid-14th century, almost monochromic, skillfully stylized in respect of drawing.

The north side of the same, south-west pillar, bears an icon of St Nicholas, a pretty good work by a Greek mas­ter of 1749, presented by the hieromonk of Chilandar Timotej to his monastery. On the western side of this pil­lar hangs the icon of Three Church Fathers, work of a

Greek artist probably from the beginning of the 19th cen­tury.

The three sides of the north-west pillar are also adorned with icons. The west displays the Assembly of the Archangles, a Greek icon from the 18th century with the representations of nine angels and a circular medal­lion with Christ Emmanuel in the middle. On the south side of this pillar is a large icon of St Demetrios, gift of the abbot Filimon from 1631/1632. Drawn by an experienced hand, decorative in the good sense of the word, the icon is remarkable for its felicitous harmonies of colours on a gilt background. On the basis of its stylistic characteris­tics, the work is rightly attributed to the painter Jovan, and can be ranked among the finest works of the seven­teenth-century Serbian painting. On the east side of the north-western pillar the icon of the Apostles Peter and Paul is hung, in a frame from 1906 donated by the Russ­ian monks on Mount Athos. The icon features the inscription of the donor, hieromonk Isaiah, from 1656/1657, but it seems to have been re-painted at a later date, which cannot be established with certainty until the frame has been removed.

A lavishly carved proskynetarion from the second half of the 18th century reclines on the west side of the north­eastern pillar. It features the miraculous icon of the Vir­gin of the Priest (Popska) in a Russian frame from 1899, repainted in the 16th century, whose reverse face con­tains the composition of the Presentation of the Virgin into the temple. The icon was produced around 1360. Judging by the representation of the Presentation, the anonymous author, with a remarkable knowledge of painting, displayed a tendency to accentuate features of the face. Ten icons of the Deesis kept in the treasury and miniatures in a manuscript are also attributed to him.

On the west side of the south-eastern pillar is another proskynetarion, work of the same wood-carver. It bears an icon of the Holy Trinity in a frame made in Moscow in 1906 by order of the kellion of the Holy Trinity. Barely visible, the icon is of older date and may have been cre­ated in the 17th century.

In the nave of the main Chilandar church, two icons are placed on the north wall, next to the northern entrance from the narthex to the nave. One is the proces­sion icon of the Virgin of Kosinitza, work of a Greek artist from the second half of the 14th century, revered as miraculous. The other, also processional, icon depicting St George, ornamental, and of extremely vivid colouring, is the creation of a Serbian master from the beginning of the 17th century, perhaps Georgije Mitrofanovic.

The nave of the katholikon of Chilandar accommo­dates several pieces of artistically ornamented church fur­niture. The abbot’s throne from 1634/1635 inlaid with bone and mother-of-pearl, gift of the Bosnian Metropoli­tan Isaiah, made at the time of the abbot Filimon, is notable for its conscientious craftsmanship and graceful ornamentation. The beautiful double doors between the nave and inner narthex from 1631, a gift of the hieromonk Gavrilo under the abbot Filip, were executed in the same technique, as well as the double doors between the outer and inner narthexes from 1639/1640, donated by the abbot Teodosije. In the nave, there are several pieces of church furniture executed in the tech­nique of intarsia: an icon stand from 1688, work of John Litusetentzis, and two lecterns from the 17th century, bearing the stamp of the intermingled stylistic influences of the Levant, Baroque and Islam. In 1973, the shrine of St Simeon of Serbia ornamented with silver relief, work of Vojislav Bilbija, was placed in the south-west corner of the nave.

The sanctuary contains an opulent crystal cross framed with silver, in the centre of which is an ivory plaque featuring a carved-in representation of the Cruci­fixion, that is, of Christ in his tomb. It was produced around 1300, so that it may have been a gift of King Milutin. Parts of the holy relics of famous Orthodox saints are also treasured in the sanctuary: the right hand of the Patriarch Nikephoros, part of the leg of Symeon the Stylite, the skull of St Eutychios Patriarch of Con­stantinople, part of the skull of St Artemios, then parts of the limbs of SS Prokopios, Charalampes, Panteleimon, St Marina, as well as the particles of some other saints.

A large flag, presented by King Aleksandar Obren-ovic on the occasion of his visit to the monastery in 1896, hangs in the inner narthex.

In the exonarthex, a carved wooden ciborium is placed above the marble vessel containing holy water, embell­ished with twenty four figures of saints. According to its stylistic characteristics, it is datable to the mid-17th cen­tury.