Everything about Ohrid totally explained
Ohrid is a city on the eastern shore of
Lake Ohrid in the
Republic of Macedonia. It has about 42,000 inhabitants, making it the
seventh largest city in the country. The city is the seat of
Ohrid municipality. Ohrid is notable for having once had 365 churches, one for each day of the year, and is referred to as the Macedonian
Jerusalem. The city is rich in picturesque houses and monuments, and tourism is predominant. It is located southwest of
Skopje, west of
Resen and
Bitola, and east of
Elbasan and
Tirana in
Albania.
In
1980, Ohrid and Lake Ohrid were accepted as a
World Heritage Site by
UNESCO.
Name
In
Macedonian and the other
South Slavic languages the name of the city is Охрид. In
Albanian the city is known as
Ohër or
Ohri. See also
other names. Historical names include
Dassaretis, the latin
Lychnidus or the
Greek names
Lychnidos (Λύχνιδος),
Ochrida (Οχρίδα, Ωχρίδα) and
Achrida (Αχρίδα), the latter two of which are still in modern usage.
History
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 and founded the town of Lychnidos on the shores of Lake Ohrid .
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 (for example, the
Polyconhous Basilica from 5th century) prove early adaptation of Christianity in the area. Bishops from Lychnidos participated in multiple
ecumenical councils.
The Bulgarians conquered the city in 867. The name
Ohrid first appeared in
879. Between
990 and
1015, Ohrid was the capital and stronghold of the
Bulgarian Empire. From 990 to 1018 Ohrid was also the seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. After the
Byzantine conquest of the city in
1018, the
Bulgarian Patriarchate was downgraded to an
Archbishopric and placed under the authority of the
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
The higher clergy after 1018 was almost invariably Greek, 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 Bulgarians, 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).
Ecclesiastical history
Its first known bishop was Zosimus (c. 344). In the sixth century it was destroyed by an earthquake (
Procopius, Historia Arcana, xv), but was rebuilt by
Emperor Justinian (527-565), who was born in the vicinity, and is said to have been called by him Justiniana Prima, for example the most important of the several new cities that bore his name. Duchesne (
Les églises séparées, Paris, 1856, 240), however, says that this honour belongs to ancient
Scupi (Skopje), another frontier town of Illyria. The new city was made the capital of the prefecture, or department, of Illyria, and for the sake of political convenience it was made also the ecclesiastical capital of the Illyrian or southern Danubian parts of the empire (southern Hungary, Bosnia, Serbia, Transylvania, Moldavia, Wallachia). Justinian was unable to obtain immediately for this step a satisfactory approbation from
Pope Agapetus or
Pope Silverius. The Emperor's act, besides being a usurpation of ecclesiastical authority, was a detriment to the ancient rights of
Thessalonica as representative of the Apostolic See in the Illyrian regions. Nevertheless, the new diocese claimed, and obtained in fact, the privilege of
autocephalia, or ecclesiastical independence, and through its long and chequered history retained, or struggled to retain, this character.
Pope Vigilius, under pressure from
Emperor Justinian, recognized the exercise of patriarchal rights by the Metropolitan of
Justiniana Prima within the broad limits of its civil territory, but
Gregory the Great treated him as no less subject than other Illyrian bishops to the Apostolic See (Duchesne, op. cit., 233-237).
The inroads of the
Avars and Slavs in the seventh century brought about the ruin of this ancient centre of religion and civilization, and for two centuries its metropolitan character was in abeyance.
But after the conversion of the new Bulgarian masters of Illyria (864) the see rose again to great prominence, this time under the name of Achrida (Achris). Though Byzantine missionaries were the first to preach the Christian faith in this region, the first archbishop was sent by Rome. It was thence also that the Bulgarians drew their first official instruction and counsel in matters of Christian faith and discipline, a monument of which may be seen in the
Responsa ad Consulta Bulgarorum of
Nicholas I (858-867), one of the most influential of medieval canonical documents. However, the Bulgarian King (
Knyaz) Boris was soon won over by Byzantine influence. In the
Eighth General Council held at Constantinople (869), Bulgaria was incorporated with the Byzantine patriarchate of Constantinople, and in 870 the Latin missionaries were expelled. Henceforth Byzantine metropolitans presided in Ohrid; it was made the capital of Bulgaria during the rule of
Samuil and profited by the tenth-century conquests of its warlike rulers so that it became the Metropolitan of several Byzantine dioceses in the newly conquered territories in the wider region of
Macedonia,
Thessaly, and
Thrace. Bulgaria fell unavoidably within the range of the
Photian schism, and so, from the end of the ninth century, the diocese of Ohrid was lost to Western and papal influences.
The overthrow of the Bulgarian empire in 1018 by
Byzantine Emperor
Basil II revovered Ohrid . It became a seat of the
Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid. At a later date some of the great Byzantine families (for example the Ducas and the Comneni) claimed descent from the Emperors, or Cars, of Bulgaria. In 1053 the Metropolitan
Leo of Ohrid signed with Michael Caerularius the latter's circular letter to
John of Trani (Apulia in Italy) against the Latin Church. Theophylactus of Ohrid (1078) was one of the most famous of the medieval Byzantine exegetes; in his correspondence (Ep., 27) he maintains the traditional independence of the Diocese of Ohrid. The Bishop of Constantinople, he says, has no right of ordination in Bulgaria, whose bishop is independent. In reality Ohrid was during this period seldom in communion with either Constantinople or Rome. Towards the latter see, however, its sentiments were less than friendly, for in the fourteenth century we find the metropolitan Anthimus of Ohrid writing against the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. Yet Latin missionaries appear in Ohrid in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, mostly Franciscan monks, to whom the preservation of the Roman obedience in these regions is largely owing. In the thirteenth century, the noted judge
Demetrios was archbishop of Ohrid.
The Latin bishops of Ohrid in the seventeenth century are probably, like those of our of own time, titular bishops. The ecclesiastical independence of Ohrid seeming in modern times to leave an opening for Roman Catholic influence in Bulgaria, Arsenius, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, had it finally abolished in 1767 by an order of the Ottoman
Sultan Mustapha III. At the height of its authority, Ohrid could count as subject to its authority ten metropolitan and six episcopal dioceses.
Buildings and museums (selection)
There is a legend supported by observations by Ottoman traveller from 15th century, Evlia Celebia that there were 365 chapels within the town boundaries, one for every day of the year. Today this number is significantly smaller. However during the medieval times, Ohrid was called Slavic Jerusalem.
Note: Besides being a holy center of the region, it's also the source of knowledge and pan-Slavic literacy. The restored church at
Plaoshnik, previously destroyed by the Ottoman army, was actually one of the oldest Universities in the western world, dating before the 10-th century.
There is a nearby
airport,
Ohrid Airport (now known as Apostle Paul Airport) that's open all year round.
Recurring events
Ohrid Summer Festival, annual theater and music festival from July to August
The Balkan Festival of Folk Songs and Dances, annual folklore music and dance festival in the beginning of July
Balkan music square festival, music festival in August in which ethno musicians from the whole Balkan peninsular participate
Sister cities
Piran; Slovenia
Podolsk; Russia
Wollongong; Australia
Budva; Montenegro
Katwijk; Netherlands
Vinkovci; Croatia
Plovdiv; Bulgaria
Dalian; China
Windsor; Canada
Pogradec; Albania
Kragujevac, Serbia
Zemun, Serbia
Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria
Gallery
Image:View from the Lake.jpg|View from the Lake
Image:Ohrid1.jpg|A view of the Samuil's Fortress from the lake
Image:Ohrid StJohn Kaneo.jpg|The church of St. John at Kaneo high above the lake
Image:Jovan_Kaneo.jpg|Church of St. John at Kaneo
Image:Saint.Pantheleimon.JPG|Church of St. Panteleimon
Image:IMG 0957.jpg|Lake Ohrid
Image:Ohrid in Macedonia3.jpg|The fortress of Tzar Samuil
Image:Ohrid in Macedonia2.jpg|Samuil's Fortress
Image:IMG 0862.jpg|Ohrid
Sources and External links
Ohrid Summer Festival
Ohrid including information in English
Municipality of Ohrid
Ohrid Photo Gallery
Ohrid Photo Gallery by mil4oFurther Information
Get more info on 'Ohrid'.
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