Kiril Pejčinović

Saint Kiril Pejčinović was a monk, writer and teacher of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, linked to the Lešok Monastery near Tetovo. He reposed on 12 March 1845.

He was born in 1771 in the village of Tearce in Polog and studied in the neighbouring village of Lešok. Together with his father, Pejčin, and his uncle, Dalmant, he went to the Hilandar Monastery on Athos, where all three became monks. He then returned to Tetovo and worked at the Kičevo Monastery. In 1801 he became abbot of the Monastery of Saint Mark near Skopje, which he restored. Later he set out for his native village to restore the monastery of Saint Athanasius at Lešok, where he moved in 1818 and which he rebuilt with the help of the Serbian prince Miloš Obrenović. There he opened a school, tried to establish a printing house, urged the younger monks to study, and preached. He also helped restore the burned printing house of Theodosius of Sinai in Thessaloniki. He wrote three religious books, among them "The Mirror" and "A Word for the Feasts", in the vernacular of Tetovo, and a "Life and Service of Tsar Lazar", which stayed in manuscript. He was buried in the churchyard at Lešok. The Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church canonized him on 10 May 2022.