The Orthodox population was adherent to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the district being ecclesiastically supervised by the churchwarden (ikonom) and archpriest Dimitrije Mladenović since 1833.

[1] With the Serbian advance into the Kosovo Vilayet during the Serbian–Ottoman War (1876–78), and atrocities carried out by retreating Ottoman Albanian troops in the region, the Kumanovo Uprising broke out in the districts of Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka and Kratovo.

It was organized by leading citizens of the districts, and was fought in the Serbian cause; the rebels sought the annexation of Macedonia to the Principality of Serbia.

[2] After the death of churchwarden Dimitrije (1880), Denko Krstić succeeded as the ikonom of Kumanovo.

[3] Krstić was an influential merchant and Serbian national worker, who as a patron of Serbs in the Kumanovo region and involvement in the Kumanovo Uprising and Brsjak Revolt was imprisoned by the Ottomans, having died in prison in 1882.