 It is said that they defected to the Serbs after discovering that they would be fighting their fellow Christians, fought against the Ottomans, retreated to the mountains around Sokobanja after the Serb defeat and built their monastery there.The monastery was razed several times by the Ottomans.Saint Gregory the Illuminator, the first official head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, was depicted in churches of medieval Serbia, and he is still venerated by the Serbian Orthodox Church.