Ohrid - Saint Sophia

Ohrid became a "polis" under the name Lychnidos after Alexander the Great conquered the area around 335 BC. Around 148 BC, Lychnidos became part of the Roman Republic and thus a "colonia".

When the empire was divided in 395, Lychnidos was awarded to the Eastern Roman Empire. Lychnidos became a bishopric under the Byzantines in late antiquity. Lychnidos was destroyed by a devastating earthquake and it is unclear whether the city continued to exist or was re-founded by Slavs. The place was first mentioned under the name Ohrid around 880.

Ohrid was developed into a cultural and religious center of the Bulgarian Empire.

Today, a citadel, built on the walls of an ancient fortress, towers over the city. When Emperor Basil II incorporated Ohrid into his empire in 1018, he had the fortress demolished. At the end of the 12th century, the Bulgarians regained their independence and reconquered Ohrid in 1198.

The Ottomans took possession of Ohrid in the years around 1400. In the following centuries, the city became a supra-regional center of Islam, where mosques and places of the dervish cult were built. The city also remained a center of Christian art until the middle of the 15th century.

The conversion of St. Sophia's Church into a mosque took place during the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed I (1413–1421). In 1462, the Albanian resistance fighter Skanderbeg conquered the city. But it was recaptured in 1466. Around 1568, the city was badly damaged by an earthquake.


The present St. Sophia Church was built on the foundations of a cathedral destroyed in the first decade of the 6th century by the invasions of the early Slavs. The next church was built during the First Bulgarian Empire after the official conversion to Christianity. Some date the construction of the church to the reign of Knyaz Boris I (852 – 889). It was essentially rebuilt as a patriarchal cathedral in the form of a domed basilica in the last decade of the 10th century. It was then, under the rule of Tsar Samuil (958–1014), that Ohrid became the Bulgarian capital. It was the seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate.

During the rule of the Ottoman Empire, it was converted into a mosque. Inside the church, frescoes from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries have been preserved, representing some of the most significant achievements of Byzantine painting of that period. The main part of the church was built in the 11th century.
The numerous frescoes with which the walls were painted in the 11th century can now be seen again in the church.

The frescoes are to be seen in the context of the iconoclastic controversy against the emperors Leo and Constantine, who were both iconoclasts.

All of the frescoes in St. Sophia's Church were painted over during the rule of the Ottoman Empire and the use of the church as a mosque and were forgotten. The frescoes were rediscovered between 1950 and 1957.