Sunday 26 June. Day 10: St. Jovan Bigorski Monastery

June 26, 2016

This morning we slept until 8am – such luxury! A non-riding day. We enjoyed our breakfast of an omelette, bread, cheese, raw honey and excellent jams – until we saw the breakfast being served to the Italian friends of the owner, also staying in the hotel to visit him. Given the years the owner spent in Italy, I guess it should be no surprise that the coffee here was excellent!

We spent the morning doing some washing, watching a thunderstorm over the valley and doing some planning for the next part of the trip. After a lunch of potato pie and a pretty average Tavče Gravče (white bean stew) plus the best thick and tasty Bosnian peach nectar, we organised a taxi to take us to the St. John the Forerunner (Jovan Bigorski) Monastery.

Although only 6km away, it would have involved yet more steep climbing and I wanted a day off. Taxis are cheap for us foreign currency holders, and the MKD500 (USD8.90) we paid to be taken there and back, with a one hours’ waiting time, was enough money that the driver was exceptionally happy and thanking us profusely. Doesn’t really seem too fair. The taxi was just a guy from with a car from Adzhievci across the other side of the main road, a friend of the waiter at the hotel who we had asked about booking a taxi…. A nice guy.

So the monastery. After donning the required floor length skirt (me) and paying our MKD100 entrance fee, we joined the mostly pilgrim-type tourists visiting the complex. Except we didn’t pray, kiss any icons, or converse with any monks (apart from the one in the gift shop!).

The new woodwork really does look new. Makes the whole place look new. It would have been awesome to see before the fire...

The church bell rang every 15 mins and this guy (monk) did a round of the church banging the wooden plank with a hammer. Not sure why?

The monastery was originally built in 1020, destroyed by the Ottomans in the 16th C. and restored in 1743. It was then expanded in the 19th C. In 2009, a fire tore through the buildings destroying the dark cherry wood balconies and the library. The church was saved as well as most of the stone-work of the buildings and the wood work has been rebuilt as part of the subsequent restoration.

People were filling shopping bags full of empty plastic drink bottles with the spring water from these pipes.

The church contains an amazing wood carved iconostasis – but no photos were allowed inside. The monastery also has a large collection of holy relics including John the Baptist, Clement of Ohrid, Lazarus of Bethany, Saint Stephen, Saint Nicholas, Saint Barbara, Paraskevi of Rome, Tryphon, Respicius, and Nympha, and part of the Holy Cross. Not that it means so much to us – but obviously this is an important place in Macedonian Orthodoxy. The monastery choir sing the old Byzantine eastern orthodox liturgy, rather than the Serbian tradition that was introduced in Macedonia after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately we were not there at the right time of day (7am) to hear it.

The views across the valley from the monastery were really splendid.

Dinner was more grilled meat and veg, ajvar and a beef stew.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0