Visoki Dečani is a medieval Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery located in the heart of Balkans, in the region of Kosovo.

It was founded in the first half of the 14th century – and more precisely in the year 1327 - by Serbian king Stefan Dečanski.

The Romanesque Church - which by any account is one of the most outstanding Serbian monuments of the Middle Ages

and for sure the largest Orthodox church built in the 14th century - is 26 m tall and, because of the unusual height

of the Katholikon, for its time and in this region, the Monastery was called “tall” - visoki in Serbian - Dečani.

The Monastery's main architect was Fra Vitus, a Franciscan monk from the Montenegrin coastal town of Kotor.

The Church has little of just a typical Byzantine sacred building, because it is the result of an

ideal integration of the Eastern Byzantine and Western medieval stylistic traditions.

Very characteristic the dichromy of the external surfaces, obtained by an alternation of blocks of a

calcareous alabaster for the white bands and a reddish limestone for the red ones.

The restoration took place within the project “Safeguard of Cultural Heritage in Kosovo - Restoration

of the structure and facade elements of the Church of Christ Pantocrator of Dečani Monastery”

funded by UNESCO, being this Monastery, since 2004, in its World Heritage list.

A special mention for the absolutely outstanding

cycle of frescoes in the

interior of the

Church.