A vow to Saint George
Tradition holds that Stefan Nemanja raised the monastery as a vow to Saint George, to whom he credited his rescue from the cave where his brothers had imprisoned him. The name stupovi — pillars — comes from the two tall towers at the west front, a rarity in Serbian building.
A king's grave and centuries of ruin
King Stefan Dragutin restored and extended the monastery in the late 13th century and was buried there. The centuries that followed were unkind: it was destroyed, abandoned and quarried for stone, and today stands largely in ruins undergoing conservation.
It has been a Cultural Monument of Exceptional Importance since 1947 and, since 1979, part of the UNESCO property "Stari Ras and Sopoćani".