Gradska opstina Palilula

The commander of the Land Serbian Army, Lieutenant General Milisav Simovic with associates and president of Palilula Municipality Aleksandar Ždrale, attended the saint ceremony, at the Monastery of St. Petka Iverica in Ostrovica dedicated Prepodobnoj marty Paraskeva, popularly known as Sv.Petka Trnovo. On this occasion, the first and only military monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church, was held the appropriate artistic program.

The church of St. Petka, as we know today, was built in 1898 by the engineering units of the Serbian army, which was built by the railroad and the tunnels through the Sicevo Gorge. From the moment of traditional religious opening in 1898 until 1903, the monastery was in possession of the Army of Serbia and in it were a religious service conducted by priests, as evidenced by the command of King Alexander I of 19 February 1901 when the abbot appointed chaplain. In that period, the monastery was named by the Royal Serbian Monastery of St. Petka Iverica. Beside the church is a separate bell tower from 1898, with three bells heavy 400 pounds on the southern border of the monastery courtyard, along the fence near the main road Nis – Sofia, is a large, conical wall, transformed into a chapel, one of the few remaining evidence about this monastery from ancient times.

The history of the origination of the original Church of the Holy Monastery in Ostrovica has not been fully investigated. The fact that with the name of the saint of St. Petka – word Iverica added to a presumption that the old monastery, the foundations of an earlier place of worship, was founded by the monks from Mount Athos monasteries and Iviriona and to the end of the 14th or beginning of the 15th century, when the Ottoman Empire was at the strongest point.