The hospices of St Jovan Bigorski Monastery, Upper and Eastern Palat, were sanctified on Sunday.
The Monastery of Saint Jovan Bigorski is a Macedonian Orthodox monastery located in the western part of Macedonia, near the road connecting the towns of Debar and Gostivar.
The monastery church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. According to the monastery's 1833 chronicle, it was built in 1020 by Ivan I Debranin. The Ottomans destroyed the monastery in the 16th century. The monastery was restored in 1743 by the monk Ilarion, who also built several monk cells.
Later, in the period from 1812 to 1825 the monastery was expanded by archimandrite Arsenius. Among the donors there is also a mention of a monk Iov, recognized by some researchers as the future educator Yoakim Karchovski.
One of the most valuable treasures of the monastery is the iconostasis created by Petre Filipovski Garkata from the nearby village of Gari. This iconostasis is considered as the most beautiful and most valuable wood-carved iconostasis. Another valuable monastery treasure is an icon dating from 1020 with supposedly miraculous healing power.
