Liplje Monastery

The certain earliest recorded mention of Liplje Monastery dates to 1576. There were indications that it was named in a chronicle, the Dobrun pomnik, from the end of the fifteenth century, but that document burned in the Belgrade library during the bombing of the city at the start of the Second World War, so its authenticity can no longer be determined. The 1576 record is therefore the secure date, not a founding date: the monastery was likely older than its first mention. During the seventeenth century the monks of Liplje were active in transcribing religious books. At some point in the Great Turkish War of 1683–1699 the monastery was burned down by the Ottomans; the surviving monks fled north across the Sava and found refuge in the Orahovica Monastery in Slavonia, carrying a number of their manuscript books into the Orahovica library. Unlike the nearby Stuplje Monastery, Liplje was not razed to the ground: its church was partially repaired so that it could serve as the parish church for the surrounding area. After the Ottoman authorities permitted it, the church was restored between 1867 and 1879, largely funded by donations from the Serb population of the area. A bell tower was added at its western side in 1922. Almost three hundred years after the monastic community had ceased, Liplje was re-established as a monastery in 1965 and renovated in the 1980s, when the bell tower was removed.