The Ozren Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery dedicated to Saint Nicholas and located 6 kilometres from the town of Petrovo in northern Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the spiritual centre of the area of Mount Ozren. It was probably founded in the second half of the 16th century, during the office of Serbian Patriarch Makarije Sokolović, who was granted permission from the sultan of the Ottoman Empire to renovate and build churches and monasteries. Folk tradition, formed in the 18th century, has it that the Ozren Monastery was founded by King Dragutin, a member of the Serbian Nemanjić dynasty, who ruled north-eastern Bosnia from 1284 to 1316.
The frescoes in the monastery's church were painted in the early 17th century. After the Great Turkish War (1683–1699), the monastery fell into disrepair. The renovation of the church began in 1842, after it was allowed by Ottoman authorities. The bell tower outside the church was built in 1872. The church was also refurbished in 1920 and 1996. Among its icons is a Pietà painted in the 17th century by Emmanuel Lambardos, a painter of the Cretan School.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.