Lešok Monastery

The Monastery of Lešok is a monastery, near the village of Lešok in Tearce Municipality, North Macedonia. It is located close to the border with Kosovo. Lying at 638 metres above sea level it is located on the southeastern side of the mountain Šar Planina. In its complex are the churches of St. Athanasius of Alexandria and the Holy Mother of God Church. The Lešok Monastery developed from an earlier monastic complex located about 500 meters north of the present monastery site. Archaeological surface research suggests that this earlier monastery was relatively small, consisting of modest residential quarters and a small church. Its construction likely began during the reign of the Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin (r. 1282–1321). The development of the monastery as the episcopal seat of the Bishop of Lower Polog was closely connected with the establishment of the Lower Polog Diocese, which functioned under the jurisdiction of the Prizren Metropolitanate. A charter issued in 1326 by Stefan Dečanski mentions the Church of the Holy Mother of God in Lešok as a dependency of the Prizren diocese. The formation of the Lower Polog Diocese is linked to the church council held in Skopje in 1346–1347, when the Serbian Orthodox Church elevated the Peć Archbishopric to the rank of Patriarchate and proclaimed Stefan Dušan as emperor. Around 1347–1348, the hieromonk Anthony was consecrated

Monastery data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).