Cetinje Monastery, where Montenegro was once governed

If one building sums up Cetinje, it’s this one. For centuries the monastery was more than a place of worship; it was Montenegro’s political and spiritual centre, because the rulers of the Petrović-Njegoš dynasty were bishops and heads of state at the same time. Outside it’s plain, pale stone at the foot of Orlov krš hill. Inside are some of the most venerated relics in the Orthodox world.

Two monasteries on one plain

The Cetinje tourist board explains that Ivan Crnojević, falling back before the Ottoman advance, settled on the Cetinje plain and built first a palace, in 1482, and then a monastery, fulfilling a vow made a year earlier before the icon of the Virgin at Loreto. That first monastery stood at Ćipur, where the king and queen are buried today, and the tourist board dates it to 1484.

The one you visit is a different building. Between 1701 and 1704 Metropolitan Danilo, the first Petrović-Njegoš ruler, built a new monastery on the site of Crnojević’s ruined palace, setting into its walls the slabs carrying the Crnojević arms and the founder’s inscription. During the Ottoman wars it was destroyed and burned in 1712, 1714 and 1785, and each time the metropolitans rebuilt it. What you see today is mostly from 1786.

The church, the graves and the relics

The church itself is small, with an iconostasis by 19th-century Greek craftsmen, and Prince Danilo and Grand Duke Božo Petrović are buried in it. What draws pilgrims are the relics. There are those of St Peter of Cetinje, Metropolitan Peter I, whom the tourist board describes as a statesman, writer, peacemaker between the clans and founder of the modern state, and two Christian relics the monastery guards as a fragment of the Holy Cross and the hand of St John the Baptist, kept in gold caskets studded with precious stones.

The National Tourism Organisation stresses how far they travelled to get here and calls seeing them the greatest honour for a believer. I present them with the caution they deserve, as what the monastery holds them to be.

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The treasury

The monastery’s treasury, gathered over centuries, is described by the local tourist board as one of the richest collections of sacred art in the Balkans. It runs from the 13th to the 20th century, with manuscripts and early printed books, icons, liturgical embroidery, goldsmiths’ work and woodcarving. If old books are your thing, remember that the region’s first printing press, at Obod, was in Rijeka Crnojevića.

Visiting

The monastery is in the centre of Cetinje, beside the Biljarda and a few steps from King Nikola’s Palace. I found no opening times or prices on the official websites, so I’d rather not guess. It’s a working church with services and pilgrims, so go in with covered shoulders and knees, quietly, and don’t photograph the relics without asking.

To round off the morning, walk up Orlov krš behind it, where Bishop Danilo’s 1896 mausoleum looks out over the plain. For the rest of the country’s monasteries, see my guide to monasteries in Montenegro.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Cetinje Monastery on GetYourGuide.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Cetinje for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.