Ohrid

Ohrid ( mk, Охрид ) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording a population of over 42,000 inhabitants as of 2002. Ohrid is known for once having 365 churches, one for each day of the year, and has been referred to as a "Jerusalem of the Balkans"."The Mirror of the Macedonian Spirit, Zlate Petrovski, Sašo Talevski, Napredok, 2004, , page 72: "... and Macedonia in the Cathedral Church St. Sofia in the Macedonian Jerusalem — Ohrid..." The city is rich in picturesque houses and monuments, and tourism is predominant. It is located southwest of Skopje, west of Resen and Bitola. In 1979 and in 1980 respectively, Ohrid and Lake Ohrid were accepted as Cultural and Natural World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Ohrid is one of only 28 sites that are part of UNESCO's World Heritage that are Cultural as well as Natural sites.

Name

In antiquity the city was known under the ancient Greek name of Λυχνίς (''Lychnis'') and Λυχνιδός (''Lychnidos'') and the Latin ''Lychnidus'', probably meaning "city of light", literally "a precious stone that emits light", from λύχνος (''lychnos''), "lamp, portable light". Polybius, writing in the second century BC, refers to the town as Λυχνίδιον - ''Lichnidion''. It became capital of the First Bulgarian Empire in the early medieval period, and was often referred to by Byzantine writers as ''Achrida'' (Ἄχριδα, Ὄχριδα, or Ἄχρις). By 879 AD, the town was no longer called Lychnidos but was referred to as ''Ohrid''. It has been proposed by Katičić that the modern name is a modified version of the ancient Greek name, where the transition of "Lychnidus" to "Ohrid" presupposes a characteristic sound development from Albanian which may have thereby entered Slavic. According to Doikov, ''Ohrid'' may have originated from the Slavic expression "во рид" (''vo rid'') meaning "on hill". In Macedonian and the other South Slavic languages, the name of the city is ''Ohrid'' (Охрид). In Albanian, the city is known as ''Ohër'' or ''Ohri'' and in modern Greek ''Ochrida'' (Οχρίδα, Ωχρίδα) and ''Achrida'' (Αχρίδα). The name of the city in Aromanian is or .

History

Antiquity

The earliest inhabitants of the widest Lake Ohrid region were the Illyrian tribes of Enchele and Dassaretii. According to a tradition the town, called Lychnidos ( grc, Λυχνιδός) in classical antiquity, was founded by the Phoenician king of Thebes, Cadmus, who, banished from Thebes, in Boeotia, fled to the Enchele to the north and founded Lychnidus on the shore of Lake Ohrid and Budva in Montenegro. Lychnidos was the capital city of the Illyrian Dassaretii.

According to recent excavations this was a town as early as of the era of king Philip II of Macedon.
They conclude that Samuil's Fortress was built on the place of an earlier fortification, dated to 4th century BC. In 210 BCE, Philip V of Macedon raided a number of southern Illyrian communities. He maintained a garrison at Lychnidus but lost control of the settlement in 208 BCE, when its commander joined local leader Aeropus and invited the Dardani in the region.

During the Roman conquests, towards the end of 3rd and the beginning of 2nd century BC, Lychnidus is mentioned as a town near or within Dassaretia. In Roman times it was located along the '' Via Egnatia'', which connected the Adriatic port Dyrrachion (present-day Durrës) with Byzantium. Archaeological excavations (e.g., the Polyconch Basilica from 5th century) prove early adoption of Christianity in the area. Bishops from Lychnidos participated in multiple ecumenical councils.

Middle Ages

The South Slavs began to arrive in the area during the 6th century AD. By the early 7th century it was colonized by a Slavic tribe known as the Berziti. Bulgaria conquered the city around 840.

The name ''Ohrid'' first appeared in 879. The Ohrid Literary School established in 886 by Clement of Ohrid became one of the two major cultural centres of the First Bulgarian Empire. 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 reconquest of the city in 1018 by Basil II, the Bulgarian Patriarchate was downgraded to an Archbishopric of Ohrid, 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 medieval Serbian Patriarchate of Peć, (including Patriarchal Monastery of Peć itself), and even the Orthodox districts of Italy ( Apulia, Calabria and Sicily), Venice and