Ecumenical Patriarch Manuel Saranten Haritopul and vasilevs (emporor)Theodore I Lascaris awarded Archimandrite Savawith "Law of the declaration of independence of the Serbian church, ordain him on Palm Sunday 1219 year for the first Serbian archbishop. Žiča monastery became the seat of Serbian Archbishopric.
In the third decade of the thirteenth century the church was re-mortared and colored in red. Believing that the church is based on the blood of the martyrs, St. Sava ask the master to paint the Church of the Ascension of Christ in red.
By charters of Serbian kings Žiča monastery was given over 57 villages, 8 mountains, and 217 families. Thanks to King Stefan the First Crowned, Žiča had one of the richest treasure in which they are found cassock and girdle of the Holy Virgin, part of the Holy Cross, the right hand and part of the head of St. John the Baptist, the holy relics of the apostles and martyrs, icons, golden vessels and vestments.
In the last decades of the thirteenth century Žiča is desecrated and destroyed after the ravages of the Tatar invasion. During Ottoman rule the monastery was often the target of attacks. Over 150 years the church was without a roof. The greatest suffering Žiča experienced during World War II when the German occupying forces bombed the monastery.