What to wear
Shoulders and knees covered, everyone. At most churches nobody will say anything. At the places below it is enforced and people are turned away daily in July.
- Ostrog, upper monastery — strictly enforced. Wraps sometimes available, sometimes not.
- Cetinje Monastery — enforced
- Ostrog, lower monastery — usually enforced
- Working monasteries generally — Piva, Morača, Savina
Men remove hats. Women are not required to cover their hair in Montenegro, though some do — it is customary in some monasteries and never demanded of visitors.
Inside
- There are no pews. Orthodox liturgy is stood through — a few chairs at the walls are for the elderly and infirm.
- Do not turn your back on the altar when leaving. People step backwards a pace or two, then turn.
- Hands out of pockets, and quiet. Conversation happens outside.
- Do not cross in front of someone praying in front of an icon.
- Candles: thin ones for the living, placed high; for the dead, placed low, usually on a separate stand with water or sand. There is a box for a coin.
- Photography is usually banned inside, and always where it is signed. Never during a service.
The frescoes
Several churches here hold work of real importance — Morača from 1252, Piva from the 1580s with frescoes covering much of its interior walls, Savina above Herceg Novi. Flash damages pigment, which is the actual reason for the photography rule rather than commerce.
The church question
Montenegro has two Orthodox churches claiming the same ground — the Serbian Orthodox Church, which holds most of the buildings, and the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which is not recognised by the wider Orthodox communion. The dispute has produced large street protests within the last few years and a change of government over it.
For a visitor it changes nothing practical. It does mean that asking a monk or a local which church a building belongs to is not a neutral question.
Where to go
| For | |
|---|---|
| Ostrog | The cliff, the pilgrimage, the queue |
| Cetinje Monastery | Relics, and the old capital around it |
| Morača | Thirteenth-century frescoes, beside the road north |
| Piva | The monastery that was dismantled and moved |
| Savina, Herceg Novi | Three churches in a cypress garden, quiet, free |
| Our Lady of the Rocks, Perast | A votive church on a man-made island |
| Podmaine, above Budva | Overlooked, and five minutes from the beach |
Catholic and Muslim too
Kotor's cathedral of St Tryphon is Catholic and has been since 1166. Ulcinj and the south are substantially Muslim, with working mosques where the same broad courtesy applies plus removing shoes. Montenegro is genuinely mixed and this is unremarkable to everyone who lives here.
