Description of the attraction
The Piva Monastery is located in the northwestern part of the country, near the town of Pluzine. The Piva Monastery stands on the ground near the Piva Lake and the Piva River. The monastery church was built at the end of the 16th century.
The beginning of the 17th century for the temple was marked by the painting of now unknown Greek masters, whose work was subsequently continued by Serbian icon painters. A feature of the monastery church is the gilded iconostasis, on which the Serbian master Jovan (Kosma) worked in 1638. In addition, in the church you can admire a large number of frescoes, icons, on which various Serbian masters worked. It also stores valuable liturgical items, a collection of rare printed and manuscript books that date back to the 16th-17th centuries. Among them are books, the bindings of which are decorated with silver: the omophorion of Sokolovich Savvaty (1568) and the Psalter of the son and heir to the throne of the ruler Ivan - Georgy Crnoevich (dated 1495).
In addition, parts of the relics of some saints are kept in the Piva Monastery. For example, King Urosh or Gregory the Illuminator of Armenia, Gregory the Theologian and several other saints.
At the end of the 20th century, the monastery was moved from its historical location due to the fact that it was decided to build a hydroelectric power station on the Piva River. Fearing that the holy place would be flooded, the whole church was moved in complete safety 3 kilometers from the original place of construction. This process was not carried out immediately - it took more than 12 years to transfer the monastery, the transfer began in 1970. During this time, the workers moved about a square kilometer of frescoes.
Another unique feature of the Piva Monastery is that a letter issued by the Russian Emperor Alexander I in 1816 is carefully preserved here, which confirms the annual assistance to the Piva Monastery from Tsarist Russia. The validity of the charter lasted until the 1917 revolution.
