Description:
No evidence has yet been found for the legend according to which the monastery is a legacy of a despot of the house of the Branković Family, and the first reliable mention in the written sources dates back in 1451. The present church was erected between 1575 and 1576, thanks to the offertory of a group of ktetors, particularly Lacko and Marko Jovišić, the inhabitants of Gornji (Upper) Kovin. The data about the previous church have not been sufficiently researched. The Church of Hopovo represents one of the biggest-size and from the point of view of its architectural value the most significant sacral construction of its epoch. Its architectural solution is a blend of traditional Serbian architecture and the elements taken from the Wallachian artistic area, as well as certain experiences of the contemporary Islamic architecture. A massive bell tower with a small chapel, St. Stefan, on the first floor, was additionally built to the church of the trefoil basis of a spiraling type, with a simple narthex between 1751 and 1758. Then, the monastery compound suffered substantial changes in the spirit of baroque perceptions in the surfaces of the walls in the naos in 1608 and in the narthex in 1654. In the second half of the 18th century, the old iconostasis was replaced with a high alter partition. The icons on the iconostasis were painted by Teodor Kračun in 1776. In the Second World War, the monastery was pulled down, the iconostasis was disassembled and damaged, and the movable material was taken away. The reconstruction of the church started in 1949. During the renovation of the church, an old fresco-painting was discovered (1953-1960). The archaeological research studies in the period 1978-1979 revealed the remains of one of the old ecclesiastical constructions.