Rmanj Monastery Welcomes Vucic and Dodik on St Elijah's Day

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic arrives at Rmanj Monastery in Martin Brod at 2 p.m. today, on St Elijah’s Day, opening a one day tour of western Republika Srpska and Canton 10 that also takes in Drvar, Manjaca and Mrkonjic Grad. For Belgrade the trip carries more weight than the church calendar suggests: Serbian budget money has already gone into rebuilding the monastery, and the week ahead brings the central commemoration of Serb suffering in Operation Storm, so the itinerary reads as a preview of what Serbia will say on August 4, and from where.

Vucic set out the route himself, speaking to TV Informer on August 1 at 9.22 a.m.

I am going to Rmanj Monastery, Drvar, Manjaca, then Balkana and Mrkonjic Grad.

He travels with Milorad Dodik, president of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD). The two are received by Bishop Sergije of Bihac, Petrovac and Rmanj and by the monastic brotherhood of Rmanj.

Why does Rmanj Monastery matter?

The monastery sits in Martin Brod, in the Una canyon, at the point where Lika, Dalmatia and Bosnia meet. It was built in 1443 and dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra, which makes it one of the oldest Serbian places of worship west of the Drina. It was torn down and burned repeatedly over the centuries and left in ruins at the end of the last war. Serbian Patriarch Porfirije consecrated the rebuilt church in September 2024.

That reconstruction is why the Diocese of Bihac, Petrovac and Rmanj named the Serbian president directly in its statement issued before the visit.

President Vucic took part with wholehearted commitment, both personally and through the Government of the Republic of Serbia, in the great historic restoration of Rmanj Monastery, which was consecrated in 2024.

This is a region most of its Serb population left in the summer of 1995, so every restored building in Martin Brod, Drvar or Grahovo carries a demographic weight alongside the religious one. The monastery now serves a community far smaller than the one it served three decades ago.

Drvar, Manjaca and a poster that went up first

The second stop is Drvar, a municipality in Canton 10 where a meeting with the local leadership and a tour of the Jumko plant are on the programme. Serbian officials cite that investment as an example of economic support for returnee municipalities, and Drvar has been one of the few places in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a Serb majority in local government since the Dayton Agreement.

The third stop is the politically delicate one. A poster reading “President Vucic, welcome to Manjaca” has gone up in the Manjaca area. A camp run by the Army of Republika Srpska operated on that mountain near Banja Luka from 1991 to 1995, and thousands of civilians and prisoners of war passed through it, mostly Bosniaks and Croats. Crimes against detainees have been established before international and domestic courts, which means anything said from that spot is also addressed to Sarajevo, Zagreb and the European offices that follow Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Who put the poster up is not known. It is proof enough that day to day politics in the country still treats wartime sites as backdrops, whatever the courts have ruled about them.

What comes on August 4

The last stop is Mrkonjic Grad, which on August 4 hosts the central commemoration of the day of remembrance for Serbs killed and expelled in Operation Storm. Dodik earlier called on citizens of Republika Srpska and Serbia to attend.

We covered that split before, in “Knin and Mrkonjic Grad: Storm marked on two dates”. Croatia holds its Victory Day in Knin on August 5, the Serbian side marks its remembrance on August 4, and that single day of difference has kept two parallel accounts of the same events running for years. Today’s tour, from a 15th century church to a mountain with a camp in its past, is the run up to that date.

Vucic returns to Serbia after Mrkonjic Grad. What exactly he says from Manjaca will be known before the day is out.