утверженаѧ; сего ради во владѣнїй нинѣ тꙋрецкомъ, стража тꙋрскаѧ всегда ѡбреташесѧ; въ той бо ѡбители и Стефанъ погребенъ бистъ.“ Родословїе сербскѡе, chapter XI, 54. = Янко Шафарикъ [Janko Šafarik], "A Serbian Chronicler from the Beginning of the 16th Century" („Србскiй лѣтописацъ изъ почетка XVI-гъ столетiя“), Herald of the Society of Serbian Letters (Гласникь Друштва србске словесности), fascicle V (1853): 17–112: 98. [cf. = Miloš S. Milojević, "General Sheet" („Общи листь“), Herald of the Serbian Learned Society (Гласник српског ученог друштва), Book XXXV (1882): 1–103: 63].
The relics of Despot Stefan in Manasija
It is not at all strange that there are few references to Manasija Monastery from the period in which the monastery had been turned into a military installation or a settlement of the Ottoman conquerors, in which the monastery lost its sacred function, and in which popular memory, because of hardships and migrations, could not be renewed amid flight and exile. Equal to a miracle of God, however, is the fact that out of such ruin Manasija Monastery was restored and, after liberation, already in the 19th century once again became a place of monastic life and, above all, a place of glorifying the Coming Kingdom. The restoration of Manasija Monastery in the 19th century also meant the renewal of the memory of the founder of this cloister. For authors of the 18th and 19th centuries, Manasija Monastery is the burial place and resting place of the Holy Despot. In the opinion of the theologian and historian Archimandrite Jovan Rajić (1726–1801), Despot Stefan carefully chose the place on which he would raise the church in which he would be buried, and chose a place in the Principality of Braničevo on the river Resava, where for that purpose he raised the monastery of the same name; after his repose, he was carried according to his testament to the monastery of Resava and buried there. "Тако о погребенији јего вси наши историки согласно повјествујут" ("Thus all our historians relate in agreement concerning his burial"), Rajić emphasizes. According to the writing of Archimandrite Evgenije Simenović (1815–1880), Despot Stefan Lazarević was buried in Manasija Monastery. Josif Veselić (1823–1873) says: "Among the people it is told to this very day that the Despot was buried in this monastery...". The academician Milan Đ. Milićević (1831–1908), in his account of the Serbian monasteries from 1867, records: "The people tell even today that the Despot was buried in this monastery, which the Tronoša Chronicler also expressly confirms". For Stanojlović and Gajić, the most significant and most magnificent endowment of Saint Stefan