Ostrog monastery
— a white wall cut into the cliff.
Not only on a wall.
“A Serbian Orthodox monastery built into a near-vertical cliff in central Montenegro, founded in the seventeenth century by Saint Basil of Ostrog whose relics still rest in the Upper Monastery. The white façade reads against the dark rock from a long way off. Pilgrims arrive on foot from the Lower Monastery, about three kilometres below. The two chapels in the Upper Monastery are cut into the stone itself.
Ostrog monastery, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Ostrog Monastery sits on a near-vertical cliff face on the Ostroška Greda ridge, about 900 metres above sea level in central Montenegro. The Upper Monastery, the visible white façade pressed into the rock, was founded in 1665 by Vasilije Jovanović, later canonised as Saint Basil of Ostrog. The Lower Monastery lies about three kilometres below at the foot of the cliff. The site is administered by the Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Budimlja and Nikšić. Nikšić, the nearest city, lies about thirty kilometres to the northwest, and Podgorica, the capital, about forty kilometres to the southeast.
The Upper Monastery has two cave churches cut directly into the limestone of Ostroška Greda. The Church of the Presentation of the Mother of God holds the relics of Saint Basil and frescoes painted by Radul, a Serbian master, in the late seventeenth century. Above it, the smaller Church of the Holy Cross was painted in 1665 by the same hand. A fire in 1923 burned much of the outer monastery but stopped at the inner cave, sparing the original frescoes. The white plaster façade was rebuilt afterward against the unchanged rock.
The monastery is open to pilgrims daily, with no admission fee. Modest dress is required, with shoulders and knees covered for both men and women, and a scarf for women entering the cave church. The road from the Lower Monastery climbs the cliff in switchbacks, and many pilgrims walk the final stretch barefoot as an act of devotion. A small guesthouse at the Lower Monastery accepts overnight pilgrims. Peak crowding falls around the Feast of Saint Basil on 12 May in the Julian calendar, which corresponds to 29 April Gregorian.