Ostrog by car from Podgorica: monastery visits

Zdrebaonik stands in Sekulici, on the left bank of the Zeta near Danilovgrad. Its main church is dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel and holds the relics of Saint Arsenije of Srem, the second Serbian archbishop and successor to Saint Sava. The reliquary beside the church’s south wall is therefore the focus of veneration and the main reason pilgrims come.

The present church was built in 1818 on the foundations of an older church. An inscription above the entrance records its construction and the later addition of the bell tower. One of the distinctive features inside is the iconostasis by the Djinovski brothers. Its structure is masonry, with vine decoration modeled in plaster rather than the usual carved wood.

The church stands in the middle of the courtyard, with monastery residences to the sides. Zdrebaonik has been home to a community of nuns since 1991. The residential buildings are used by the community, while visitors spend time in the church and courtyard.

Before the present monastery, monks and hermits lived in the caves of Ostroska Greda. Monastic tradition remembers Isaija of Onogost among them, while the older Church of the Presentation is associated with that early community.

Saint Basil came here as the metropolitan of Herzegovina, during Ottoman rule and a period of pressure on his diocese. Working with the monastic community, he restored the older church and built the monastery, contributing his labor and property. Ostrog was both a place of prayer and the seat from which he continued to direct church affairs. The second cave church, the Holy Cross, was built with his blessing. Abbot Isaija oversaw the work. His name survives in the inscription above the door.

Basil spent the final years of his life at Ostrog. After his death, he was first buried beneath the Church of the Presentation. His relics were later moved into the church. Believers venerate him as a miracle worker and attribute healings to his prayers. Ostrog retains that importance as a place of pilgrimage today. Visiting the reliquary, the casket containing his relics, is an act of veneration that takes place alongside prayer and worship.

Of Upper Ostrog’s two cave churches, the older is the Church of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary. Its frescoes follow the uneven walls of the cave, leaving the natural rock visible within the church itself. The figures depicted include Saint Sava, Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena.

The Church of the Holy Cross stands on a higher terrace. A surviving inscription records its construction in 1665 and its painting in 1667. The painter Radul adapted his compositions to the stone, without the regular wall surfaces found in churches built outside caves.

The fire of 1923 spared both cave churches. The exterior of the Upper Monastery and the bell tower were rebuilt afterwards, so the present facade does not mean that the frescoes inside date from the same period.

The Ostrog vine grows beside the upper terraces. Tradition links its location to Basil’s cell and the place of his death. From the terraces above the Zeta Valley, you can see the Bjelopavlici Plain.

Lower Ostrog stands on a plateau below the cave monastery. Its courtyard contains the Church of the Holy Trinity, built in 1824 on the site of an earlier village church. The residences and other monastery buildings around it show how the Ostrog community expanded beyond the cliff hermitages and welcomed pilgrims.

On the rock above the Holy Trinity stands the Church of Saint Stanko the New Martyr. It was consecrated in 2004, when his relics were transferred there: his preserved hands, previously kept at Upper Ostrog. The monastery’s account of his life describes Stanko as a boy who tended sheep. Local tradition connects his origins with villages below Ostrog and his martyrdom with the period of Ottoman rule.

The courtyard has monastery residences and a water source, while the enclosed plateau overlooks the Bjelopavlici Plain.