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Ohrid – the old city of light
This is not a story,
But a reality, an eternal one, and one which so far no one has managed to retell. Probably no one hasn’t even tried. There are several places in this world which simply cannot be retold. When standing in front of their monuments, the remains of the civilization of old, and the temples where you forget your identity, the only thing your intellect allows you is respect and contemplation, thinking of the things that are yet to be discovered and explored.
Here in Ohrid the smartest and the wisest and the most powerful people throughout the centuries had only one goal – to leave at least their mark.
Ohrid simply couldn’t be conquered, but it would immediately become the seat of the most powerful men and it would continue to live its life where the conqueror entering the city wouldn’t charge in, but bow to the city.
Today it is the same,
In Biblical Macedonia, every path leads to Ohrid. The person coming to Ohrid is at first amazed, and afterwards, deep within his soul, bows to its marks, which simply encourage you to understand or maybe to wonder – why certain places have been chosen to be different, praised and unique in the whole world.
That’s what Ohrid is like,
The ancient Lihnidos, whose fortress is mentioned for the first time by the historian Livius, way back in the third century B.C. According to explorers, this is where apostle Paul has resided on his journey dedicated to teaching and spreading the faith in Christ.
Ohrid is the center of Christianity for all Slavs, an archbishopric seat, a seat of schools and universities, the first ones in this region, and even further. Today Ohrid remains a center of archaeological sites and discoveries. Ohrid is the city of 365 churches. One church for each day of the year.
This fact has been evidenced in the 14th century by Evliya Çelebi in his travel books, and in the Middle Ages Ohrid has been called the Slavic Jerusalem.
The city of the first cave-churches in this region, where one forgets time and space and receives unique answers. The city where monasticism laid its wisdom and God His divine wisdom.
Ohrid is the prize for Biblical Macedonia – can be said or thought of only by those who have seen and felt it. Feel Ohrid for once in your life and you already know why you will return and why it simply cannot be retold.
The contemporary city of Ohrid is a descendant of the antique town of Lychnidos. This was confirmed by several Byzantine sources in which it was written "the town is situated on a high hill near the large lake of Lychnidos, by which also the town was named Lychnis, previously known as Dassaretis. The existence of the ancient town of Lychnidos is linked to the Greek myth of the Phoenician prince Cadmus who, banished from Thebes, in Boetia, fled to the Enchelei[4] and founded the town of Lychnidos on the shores of Lake Ohrid [5].
The Lake of Ohrid, the ancient Lacus Lychnitis, whose blue and exceedingly transparent waters in remote antiquity gave to the lake its Greek name; it was still called so occasionally in the Middle Ages. It was located along the Via Egnatia, which connected the Adriatic port Dyrrachion (present-day Durrës) with Byzantium, who probably had a fortress on the hill even before the fortress of Samuil was erected.Archaeological excavations (e.g., the Polyconhous Basilica from 5th century) prove early adaptation of Christianity in the area. Bishops from Lychnidos participated in multiple ecumenical councils.
The name Ohrid first appeared in 879. From 990 to 1018 Ohrid was also the seat of the Macedonian Patriarchate. After the Byzantine conquest of the city in 1018, the Macedonian Patriarchate was downgraded to an Archbishopric and placed under the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
The higher clergy after 1018 was Macedonian, including during the period of Ottoman domination, until the abolition of the archbishopric in 1767. At the beginning of the 16th century the archbishopric reached its peak subordinating the Sofia, Vidin, Vlach and Moldavian eparchies, part of the former Peć Patriarchate (including Peć itself), and even the Orthodox districts of Italy (Apulia, Calabria and Sicily), Venice and Dalmatia.
As an episcopal city, Ohrid was an important cultural center. Almost all surviving churches were built by the Byzantines and by the Macedonians, the rest of them date back to the short time of Serbian rule during the late Middle Ages.
Ohrid is credited as being the likely birthplace of the Cyrillic alphabet, which was most probably created by St. Clement of Ohrid that further reformed the Glagolic alphabet created in turn by the brothers St. Cyril and Methodius.
Bohemond and his Norman army took the city in 1083. In the 13th and 14th century the city changed hands between the Despotate of Epirus, the Bulgarian, the Byzantine and the Serbian Empires. At the end of the 14th century it was conquered by the Ottomans and remained under them until 1912. The Christian population declined during the first centuries of Ottoman rule. In 1664 there were only 142 Christian houses. The situation improved in the 18th century when Ohrid emerged as an important trade center on a major trade route. At the end of this century it had around 5 thousands inhabitants. Towards the end of the 18th century and in the early part of the 19th century, Ohrid region, like other parts of European Turkey, was a hotbed of unrest. Semi-independent feudal lords such as Mahmud Pasha Bushatlija and Djeladin Beg controlled Ohrid and openly defied the central government by not submitting taxes and by using tax money to bolster their own private armies. By the end of 19th century Ohrid had 2409 houses with 11900 inhabitants out of which 45% were Muslim while the rest was mainly Orthodox Christian. Before 1912, Ohrid (Ohri) was a township center bounded to Monastir sanjak in Monastir province (present-day Bitola). |
mikolaj_cava, cunejo200, liquid_sk, izmirli, taftabit, tanburi, pikas has marked this note useful
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