Prilog proučavanju povesnice franjevačkog reda na području Srbije u srednjem veku - O prvobitnoj kapeli u manastiru Gradac i kraljici Jeleni Anžujskoj
Contribution to studying history of Franciscan order on the territory of Serbia in the Middle Ages – About the original chapel in the Monastery Gradac

Summary/Abstract: Within the studies about religious life on the territory of Serbia during the Middle Ages existence of the chapel dedicated to St. Nikola within the monastery Gradac is of special importance. By all appearances, it is about a construction originally intended for craftsmen building the Gradac cathedral sanctuary (around the year 1276), who were mostly Roman Catholics, which was after the end of the monastery construction and their departure transformed into a sanctuary intended for Orthodox Church’s service. That the St. Nikola’s chapel was built on Helen of Anjou’s initiative, the Serbian Queen, for the craftsmen of the Roman Catholic confession strikingly testify particular parts from her biography as well. According to the presumptions with good foundations, they were probably members of the Franciscan order, which would be consistent with the fact about her special affinity towards this monastic order, whose more considerable presence in Pomorje and Dalmacia started in the mid thirteen century that is at the time of Queen Helen’s rule. In fact, the most impressive evidence of Queen Helen’s ambition to affirm distinctiveness of the Franciscan worldview is that precisely during her rule Franciscans for the first time appeared to a considerable extent in the regions where she ruled, identifying, maybe, in them particular elements of St Bonaventura’s theology who saw Franciscan spirituality’s approximation to the Byzantian one. In this context also Helen of Anjou was not only the link between Christian East and Christian West, but also admirable predecessor of some particularities of Ecumenism, that is of the movement for Christians’ unification, or at least ambition for co-living of Christians of different confessions, filled with mutual love and respect for “unity with differences”.

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