FEATURE: Serbia’s icon-painting nuns combine religion and art

On the wooded slopes of southwestern Serbia’s Golija mountain, a dozen nuns at the Gradac monastery have devoted their lives to God, but have not turned their backs on their lifelong passion: painting.

Twenty years ago Jasna Topolski, already a famous artist who had graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, arrived at this 13th-century monastery. Today, she is Efimija, the mother superior.

“[As an artist] I thought that art would allow me to find the truth, to resolve the mystery of death, but I had found no answer,” the 46-year-old said.

“I started looking elsewhere and realized that the church

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