igoumen

Updated: July 13, 2025

Dinner was served in the refectory to about twenty individuals, including the monks and our party. The Igoumen drank to the health of the prince, and then of Wucics and Petronievitch, declaring that thanks were due to God and those European powers who had brought about their return. The shabby priest, with the gallows look, then sang a song of his own composition, on their return.

A. A. (Andrew Archibald) Paton - Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family : or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.

No sooner had the Igoumen gone to superintend the arrangements of the evening, than a shabbily dressed filthy priest, of such sinister aspect, that, to use a common phrase, "his looks would have hanged him," now came up, and in a fulsome eulogy welcomed me to the convent.

A. A. (Andrew Archibald) Paton - Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family : or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.

I took off my fez, and said, "Do you know, Father Igoumen, what has given me the most pleasure in the course of my visit?" Ig. "I can scarcely guess." Author. "I have seen a large assembly of peasantry, and not a trace of poverty, vice, or misery; the best proof that both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities do their duty."

A. A. (Andrew Archibald) Paton - Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family : or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.

The Igoumen then publicly expressed the pleasure my visit had given to the people, and in their name thanked me, and wished me a prosperous journey, repeating a phrase I had heard before: "God be praised that Servia has at length seen the day that strangers come from afar to see and know the people!"

A. A. (Andrew Archibald) Paton - Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family : or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.

He related how he had been born in Syrmium, and had been thirteen years in Bosnia; but I suspected that some screw was loose, and on making inquiry found that he had been sent to this retired convent in consequence of incorrigible drunkenness. The Igoumen now returned, and gave the clerical Lumnacivagabundus such a look that he skulked off on the instant.

A. A. (Andrew Archibald) Paton - Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family : or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.

The Igoumen, or superior, received us at the foot of the wooden staircase which ascended to the gallery.

A. A. (Andrew Archibald) Paton - Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family : or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.

The Igoumen, smiling with satisfaction, made a short speech to the people. I mounted my horse; the convent bells began to toll as I waved my hand to the assembly, and "Sretnj poot!" The scene was so moving that I could scarcely refrain a tear. Clapping spurs to my horse I cantered over the bridge and gave him his will of the bridle till the steepness of the ascent compelled a slower pace.

A. A. (Andrew Archibald) Paton - Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family : or, A Residence in Belgrade and Travels in the Highlands and Woodlands of the Interior, during the years 1843 and 1844.