He received a good education in Sarajevo and Mostar, and the intellectual and altruistic interests of his later life are attested by his classical study and his membership in the Russian Royal Society.
The important events in his life are reflected in his writings, which mark his shifts in religion and politics of the period.
As a monk, he gained a considerable reputation as a traveller who raised funds for Serbian Orthodox Church, and Serbian schools for women and children in Bosnian schools in Herzegovina before he achieved the beginning of his real fame as a chronicler and historian.
Prokopije Čokorilo, the rector of the Orthodox Church and Seminary in Mostar, had personal and literary links with Alexander Hilferding, the first Russian consul in Sarajevo (1856-1859).
There, he wrote how Christians were forced to pay disproportionately higher taxes than Muslims, including the intentionally degrading non-Muslim poll-tax.