Lesnov monastery

The Lesnovski monastery, dedicated to St. Gabriel of Lesnovo is a monastery in the village of Lesnovo, Probishtip area.
It is located on the southwestern slopes of Mount Osogovo at an altitude of about 870 meters, in the village of Lesnovo. According to the oldest hagiography of St. Gabriel of Lesnovo, written by Stanislav Gramatik in 1330, it is known that the monastery originates from the 9th century when, by God's grace, the venerable Gabriel of Lesnovo settled in Lesnovo woods and founded the monastery, dedicating it to the Archangel Michael. Saint Gabriel is one of the four Macedonian hermits, along with Saint John of Rila, Saint Joachim of Osogovo and Saint Prohor of Pcinja who are considered to be the founders of hermit monasticism in Macedonia.
He was first mentioned in written monuments in 1330, when the writer Stanislav wrote a prologue in the monastery, in which he included a short hagiography of St. Gabriel of Lesnovo. Today the manuscript is kept in Belgrade. In 1341 the despot Jovan Oliver rebuilt it, and after a few years it was widen with a second part. At the church meeting in Skopje, in 1347, this monastery was appointed by Stefan Dushan as the seat of the newly formed Zletovo eparchy, which replaced the Morodviska eparchy.
The literary school in the monastery was called the Scriptorium. It existed since the middle 11th century; there was also a calligraphy (copying) school, established in the 13th century. Until the 40s of the 19th century, the monastery housed the largest library in the Balkans, with a huge fund of books and manuscripts collected from the earlieset ancient times and the most distant regions, as well as ones created here, on Macedonian land.