Cetinje Monastery

Listen for a moment. The town is quiet here, quieter than you might expect for a former royal capital. Pale limestone rises behind the monastery walls, grey and scrubby, and the air carries the dry smell of mountain pine. Underfoot, the paving stones are worn smooth by centuries of pilgrims. You are standing at the spiritual heart of Montenegro. It is a low, modest building, set against the rocky slope of the hill behind it.

This is Cetinje Monastery. For several hundred years, this compound was far more than a place of prayer. It was a church, a seat of government and a treasury. It was also a fortress of identity for a small mountain people who refused to be absorbed by larger empires around them. To understand Montenegro, many historians say, you start right here, in this unassuming courtyard.

The story begins in the late fifteenth century. A ruler named Ivan Crnojević was pushed back from the coast and the lowlands by the advancing Ottoman Empire. He retreated into these high karst valleys. Karst is a landscape of limestone, full of sinkholes and caves, where water vanishes underground. It is hard country to farm and harder country to conquer. In 1484, Ivan founded a monastery here and made this valley his new centre.

Now comes the first surprise. The monastery you see is not the original one. The first building stood on a nearby spot called Ćipur, a short walk from here. That earlier monastery was destroyed at the end of the seventeenth century, during fighting between Ottoman and Venetian forces. A new monastery was then built on this site in the early eighteenth century. It was later repaired and reshaped over the following generations, so the walls carry several periods of work.

Some stone from the old monastery was carried over and set into the new one. As you walk around, look closely at the carved fragments. Their style differs from the plain masonry around them. Those pieces are a quiet link to Ivan Crnojević's original foundation. They were saved from the ruins and given a second life.

Here is the second surprise, and it matters far beyond Montenegro. Under Ivan Crnojević's family, a printing press worked in this valley. In 1494, it produced a church book known as the Oktoih of Cetinje. It is widely regarded as the first book printed in Cyrillic among the South Slavs. Cyrillic is the alphabet used today in Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian and other languages. Printing came to these mountains only a few decades after Gutenberg's press in Germany.

For a long period afterwards, Montenegro was ruled by its bishops. They were known as the prince-bishops, or vladikas. Each one was both the head of the church and the political leader of the tribes. Because bishops in the Orthodox Church do not marry, power often passed from uncle to nephew. From the start of the eighteenth century, the Petrović Njegoš family held this role. This monastery was effectively their palace, their office and their church at once.

The most famous of these rulers was Petar the Second Petrović Njegoš. He ruled in the first half of the nineteenth century. He was also a poet, and his epic poem, The Mountain Wreath, is still central to the literature of the region. His predecessor, Petar the First, is honoured as a saint, Saint Peter of Cetinje. His relics are kept inside the monastery church, and many local people come specifically to pray before them.

The church also holds other relics of deep importance to Orthodox believers. The best known is a relic venerated as the right hand of Saint John the Baptist. Another is a fragment believed to come from the True Cross. These objects are not museum displays. They are part of the living worship of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which still runs the monastery today. You may see people kiss them, cross themselves, or light thin candles nearby.

That brings us to what it feels like inside. The interior is small and dim. The light comes from candles and narrow windows. It falls on gilded icons and dark wood. The smell is beeswax and incense. Services may be in progress, with chanting that echoes off the stone. Move slowly, keep your voice low, and follow the lead of the people around you. Shoulders and knees should be covered. Women are often asked to cover their hair and wear a skirt, and wraps are sometimes offered at the entrance.

The monastery also keeps a treasury of manuscripts, vestments, icons and gifts from foreign rulers. Over the centuries, Montenegro received support from Russia and other Orthodox powers, and many of those gifts ended up here. Access to the treasury can vary, so ask at the entrance whether it is open during your visit. Even a short look shows how this remote valley stayed connected to the wider world.

Step back outside and look up at the hill behind the monastery. Cetinje sits in a closed valley, surrounded by rock, under the slopes of Mount Lovćen. On Lovćen's summit stands the mausoleum of Njegoš, the poet-bishop. From the monastery yard, you can understand why this place was chosen. It is sheltered, hidden and easy to defend. Then walk the short distance to Ćipur, where a later church now stands on the original monastery site. King Nikola, Montenegro's last monarch, is buried there.

Before you leave, pause in the courtyard. Notice the simple stone, the small bell tower, the scale of everything. Nothing here is grand in the way of a cathedral in Rome or Moscow. And yet, for generations, this building held a country together. Listen again to the quiet. Then, as you walk back into town, look at the old embassy buildings along the streets. They are reminders that, not so long ago, the world sent its diplomats to this small valley in the mountains.