It is known, however, that he took orders at the Rača monastery and became a monk-scribe. During the Great Turkish War of 1689-1699 he left central Serbia for Serbian territories up north, bordering Hungary. In Zenta he remained for a while, joining the Christian fray against the Turks in the Battle of Zenta. With Arsenije III Čarnojević he came to settle in Szentendre, where he began to make a name for himself as the dean of a scriptorium, a diligent copyist of manuscripts and books, and writer of one of the early Serbian primers called "Bukvar" in 1717, an adaptation of a Primer by Russian writer Fedor Polikarpov-Orlov (1660-1731).