Sokollu Mehmed Pasha
Piva has the unique distinction of having been built with the permission of the Ottoman rulers over a period of a little more than a decade, from 1573 to 1586. Its founder, the Serbian Metropolitan of Herzegovina, later the Serbian Patriarch, Savatije Sokolović, was a kinsman of the Grand Vizier, Mehmed Pasha Sokolović (also known as Sokollu Mehmed Pasha), who was kidnapped from his Serbian home as a boy and rose to become one of the most renowned statesmen to three sultans -- Suleiman the Magnificent, Selim I and Murad III. As a result, the church at Piva monastery contains a fresco depicting Savatije and Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, a rarity for a Christian church adorned with a portrait of a convert.