Moštanica Monastery, located 12 km the town of Kozaska Dubica, near the eponymous river, is one of the largest and oldest Serbian Orthodox monasteries in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is dedicated to St. Archangel Michael.
Its dimensions are monumental and the architectural decoration makes the Moštanica church a lavish structure and one of the most daring and most beautiful religious buildings in Serbian medieval architecture. Its, at least, five hundred year history and the extremely brave, harmonious and rich architecture, puts the monastery in the order of cultural monuments that marked the highest level of creativity of Serbian people under the auspices of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
According to one legend, the monastery is the endowment of Nemanjić Dynasty, and according to another, it was built in 1113 on the site of the death of the St. Theodore Tyron.
Like most other monasteries, the Moštanica monastery had a turbulent past – it was destroyed and rebuilt nine times. The monastery church is monumental, it is 23.4m long, 10.5 m wide and 13.5m high, built of neatly cut stone. It has a trefoil plan with a single dome resting on freestanding columns. Unusual enough, the entrance portal is on the south wall of the narthex, and is one of the most beautiful religious buildings from the period of Turkish rule.
The monastery keeps the wax which sealed the tomb of Christ, the stone from Christ’s tomb, as well as the shoe of St. Vasilije of Ostrog.
The Moštanica monastery is registered as a cultural monument of the second category in 1951 and enjoys the protection prescribed by the Law on Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage of B&H.
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