Procession in Tivat

Djordje had a plan for us today. It all starded inocuously, with a visit of a monastery of St. Archangel Michael at the Miholjska Prevlaka peninsula near Tivat, north of Petrovac. We passed around the neglected gate from the pompous times of socialist tourism, which was more in the way than celebrating the treasure it gated, and went up a winding street along houses that reminded of hotel bungalows or housing projects. It turned out that the people living here are Serbs who came from Kosovo. At the end of the road, a small church appeared and nearby, behind the ruins of an old monastery, a few stone houses. The whole place gave the impression of nothing special, yet it had a long and dramatic history. Since the 13th century, it had a powerful monastery, which was shelled and destroyed in the 17th century by the Venetians. The reason was that it was said that plague broke up in the Monastery, but recently it was proven, that the 70 monks living there at the time were actually poisoned by arsenic. Few centuries later, a miracle happened here, when a special beautiful smell lead to the discovery of the bones of the monks who died here. The bones gave out kind of a dew, which had the power to heal any ailment. The sacred bones still give out this odor of unknown origin. After we smelled the sacred bones, as one should at this place of pilgrimage, Djordje arranged with the monks to let us see a small museum housing archaeological findings, including tombstones with old cyrilic inscriptions.
We got engaged in a conversation with sister Stefanida, who lives here. She told us about the history, and also said that time to time, the special smell still comes out from the place were the massacred monks were burried. A moment of coincident synchronicity happened when we talked, that gave the whole situation an unexpected dimension. This was all about the letter T, which sister Stefanida, originally called Tatjana in her civic life, chose as her favorite letter of the cyrilic alphabet. She was telling us how before becoming a nun, she studied theology in Belgrade, and how she was also interested in theater, and even wrote a theater play herself. At that moment, Sasha’s cell phone rang. His friend, who is a taxi driver in Toronto was asking him if he knows this monastery in Tivat. Sasha told him that not only does he know the monastery, but also that we were at the very place right now. His friend did not believe, so Sasha passed the phone on to sister Stefanida, who confirmed. This moment of synchronous presence of smell-giving medieval bones, slightly hunched-over fragile nun in black, and a mobile phone with a voice of the taxi driver in Toronto was quite funny, with all respects.
In a few moments, something started happening. We had no idea that today was the Day of Martyrs, celebrated across Serbia and Montenegro in honor of St. Sava, at the anniversary of the burning of his bones by the Turks. Moreover, we turned out to be at the place, where a procession is about to set out to carry the sacred remains from the church Archangel Michael into the town of Tivat. On the stony path, the archbishop was coming towards the church in his white and gold attire, and monks who were accompanying him just had to run back to fetch the cross, which they forgot home. The bells were ringing, and the decorated remains, along with a sacred icon, were being carried out of the church. The procession embarked on a boat, and we caught up with it again in Tivat, as the bones, the icon, and the monks along with the archbishop were ceremonially disembarking from their little boat on a pier right next to a huge transport ocean cruiser, all welcomed by the town religious authorities.
The theme of the day—Tatjana, theology, theater, sacred body (Telo), Tivat, taxi Toronto and Tibet….the neighboring town anyway was Budha, I mean, Budva.