Ohrid - Macedonia

Ohrid is a city on the eastern shore of Lake Ohrid in the Republic of Macedonia.

In 1979 and in 1980, Ohrid and Lake Ohrid were accepted as a Cultural and Natural World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. In fact, Ohrid is one of only 28 sites that are part of UNESCO's World Heritage that are both Cultural and Natural sites. - in: wikipedia

On this card, sent by Ana "anagahan", there's the Saint Panteleimon monastery. Ana always sends me great cards and this time she tagged on a favorites tag with this one.

The monastery is believed to have been built when Saint Clement arrived in Ohrid, at the request of Boris I of Bulgaria and restored an old church. Sources say that Saint Clement was not satisfied with the size of the church and therefore built a new one over it and assigned Saint Panteleimon as its patron saint.

Saint Clement used his newly created monastery as a liturgical building and a place for teaching his disciples his variation of the Glagolitic alphabet, known as the Cyrillic alphabet. Clement personally built a crypt inside the monastery in which he was buried after his death in 916, his tomb still exists today.

In the 15th century, Ottoman Turks converted the monastery into a mosque but during the beginning of the 16th century allowed ruined churches and monasteries to be restored, therefore, so was Saint Clement's monastery. The monastery was again ruined during the end of the 16th century or the beginning of the 17th century and yet another mosque, called Imaret Mosque, was erected by the Ottomans, this mosque still exists to this day.

As the monastery is the most sacred of all the churches in the Republic of Macedonia, thousands of Macedonian Orthodox Christians gather at Plaošnik during large religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas to celebrate and take part in the liturgies. - in: wikipedia