Saint Jovan Bigorski Monastery

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Macedonian. (August 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Macedonian Wikipedia article at [[:mk:Бигорски манастир]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|mk|Бигорски манастир}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Saint Jovan Bigorski Monastery

Monastery information
Order	Macedonian Orthodox
Established	1020
Diocese	Diocese of Debar and Kičevo
Controlled churches	Church of St John the Baptist
People
Founder(s)	John of Debar
Site
Location	Mavrovo and Rostuša Municipality
Coordinates	41°37′19″N 20°36′42″E / 41.62194°N 20.61167°E / 41.62194; 20.61167
Public access	yes

The Monastery of Saint Jovan Bigorski (Macedonian: Свети Јован Бигорски) is a Macedonian Orthodox monastery located in the western part of North Macedonia, near the road connecting the towns of Debar and Gostivar.

The monastery church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. One of its most valuable treasures is the iconostasis, created by Petre Filipov - Garkata^[1] from the nearby village of Gari [mk], and considered one of the finest examples of wood-carved iconostases.

According to its 1833 chronicle, the monastery was built in 1020 by the Bulgarian^[2] clergyman John of Debar who was the last Patriarch of Bulgaria before the fall of the First Bulgarian Empire.^[3] The Ottomans destroyed the monastery in the 16th century, but it was restored in 1743 by the monk Ilarion, who also constructed a number of cells for monks. The archimandrite Arsenius further expanded the monastery between 1812 and 1825. The historical record also mentions a monk Iov, recognized by some researchers as the future educator Yoakim Karchovski, a Bulgarian priest who became an important figure in the Bulgarian National Revival.^[4]

Most of the old monastery complex was destroyed by a fire in 2009, while the new sections of the complex and church were saved. Reconstruction of the old sections began in May 2010 with the goal of restoring the buildings as closely as possible to their original style.

The monastery 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.

Another valuable monastery treasure is an icon dating from 1020 with supposedly miraculous healing power.

• The official website of the monastery in English
• St. John Bigorski
• gostivar.com