Hrelja

Hrelja
Hrelja's Tower in the Rila Monastery, Bulgaria
Died	27 December 1342
Allegiance	Kingdom of Serbia Byzantine Empire
Years of service	ca. 1320s-1342
Rank	Prōtosebastos

Kingdom of Serbia

Hrelja (Serbian: Хреља; Bulgarian: Хрельо, Hrelyo), also known as Stefan Dragovol (Стефан Драговол) or Hrelja Ohmućević (Serbian: Хреља Охмућевић) was a 14th-century semi-independent feudal lord in the region of northeastern Macedonia and the Rila mountains who served medieval Serbian kings Stefan Milutin, Stefan Dečanski and Stefan Dušan. He is known for reconstructing the Rila Monastery, Bulgaria's largest monastery, in 1334–1335.

Hrelja was first mentioned in the 1320s as the commander of a Serbian military detachment involved in that time's Byzantine civil war. With his detachment, Hrelja assisted Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. By that time, Hrelja was already the ruler of a large domain in the region of Štip (in today's Republic of Macedonia) and east of the city; in the early 1330s, his domain expanded to include Strumica. In 1334–1335, Hrelja reconstructed the church of the Rila Monastery and built the so-called Hrelja's Tower, the monastery's defensive tower and its oldest structure surviving today.