In south-west Macedonia, in the base of Mount Galichica, at an altitude of 695 m is the town of Ohrid. The old part of the town, or Varosh, as the locals call it, is located 740 m above sea level. At the spot of today’s Varosh, there used to be the ancient town of Lichnidon, mentioned 2400 years BC. Ohrid (Varosh) is the “town of light”, which is what Lichnidon means. Another legend says that the town was founded by Cadmus, whereas Lichnid was mentioned during the reign of Phillip II of Macedon.
The true Jerusalem, holy town
In his book “The forgotten Cadmus”, writer Milosh Lindro developed a thesis that the true holy town of Jerusalem was actually the Varosh of today. According to his evidence, this is where Dionysus and other mythical characters were born, and the events from the Bible took place in Varosh, Ohrid, and not in Jerusalem. According to this book, this is where the Crucifixion of Christ happened, at the hill over the famous old plane-tree. That is the place where the author discovered the cave of Joseph, as well as the cave where Dionysus was born, today at the locality of Caneo. The author supports his claims with arguments, photographs of former Jerusalem shown at the same time with photographs from former and present Ohrid.
“At the south-west coast of the Ohrid Lake, beneath the present church, there is a striking rock, standing over the water. To this day, that rock is called Caneo. Above her is St. John’s church from the 14th century. There used to be a church in the cave, which was at the far-most part of the rock. There, a nameless child-hero was born, a nameless child-God, son of Dius, which means carrier of divine forces. According to Balkan mythology that child-God had an older brother – Hermes. He took his divine brother Dionysus and gave him to a nymph to raise him. When he was older, he got a son named Pan, which some call Asclepius, whose statue now stands in the building of the Government of Republic of Macedonia, along with the one of Dionysus. Early Christianity knows him as Pan – telemon, the enlightened. His younger brother Dionysus is known as the “second-born”, but also as the “twice-born”. The first time he was born by the mortal woman Semele, chosen among the mortals to give birth to the child-God, who was turned to ashes the same moment she gave birth to him. Semele was the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia” – Milosh Landro explains the secret about the beginnings of the true Christianity.
“It was in Lichnidon, at the coast of the White Lake, that the mortal Semele, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, gave birth to Dionysus. That is why the child-God was named Dionysus-Lichnid, and it had already been foretold that a savior of the world and that savior would save the human kind from the insatiable Titans. That child-God was born in the cave of Meru, a few steps away from Caneo” – says Lindro.
A church for every day of the year
Ohrid was the capital of Samoil’s Kingdom, and the fortresses are still rising above Varosh. The locals say that there were tunnels, several kilometers long, leading out of the fortress, that would be a safe passage for the king should his kingdom be attacked by an enemy. It turned out that even before Samuil, people lived at that place. Archaeologist Pasko Kuzman found a golden mask there, similar to the world-known masks from Trebenishte.
Under the fortress, at Plaoshnik, is the newly-built holy temple of the Saint Clement, dedicated to the protector of Ohrid. In 886, Clement, one of the smartest students of the brothers Cyril and Methodius, was sent to Macedonia as a teacher in the region of Kutmichevica.
Further down, towards the lake, is the amphitheater, where the festival “Ohrid Summer” is held and is part of the great European summer cultural events. The ancient theater was built two millennia ago, and it was re-adapted after the Romans conquered the region.
Ohrid is also called “The Jerusalem of Macedonia” because there is a church for every day of the year. “I visited the churches in Ohrid, there are about thirty of them. It is the only proof that there was no void between the Byzantine church painting, Ravenna and Sicily on one side, and the Italian renaissance on the other. Ohrid is an important bridge of European art” – said Sir Herbert Read, British historian of art, in 1961.
Throughout the centuries, Ohrid was a town with rich medieval painting tradition. It has the largest collection of Byzantine icons from the 11th to the 19th century, along with Sinai and Athos. The ancient and medieval Ohrid was an important art capital on the south of Europe. “I came to Ohrid in 1945 because of the frescos. The West doesn’t know our renaissance at all and for a long time it didn’t understand the Slavic national contribution to the modern painting” – said the Russian writer Ilya Ehrenburg.
So, I go towards Samoil’s fortress. During his reign, the former Ohrid and the present Varosh, became a religious center and capital of the kingdom. It was the most important town in the region and the most important educational center and the source of literacy of all Slavic people. The oldest university in Europe (11th century) was here, and some findings indicate that at Plaoshnik, where the restored church of Saint Clement is located, there was a university in the 18th century.
And, of course, I go to Caneo, to one of the oldest churches dedicated to St. John, where I tell myself the story of Klime, the fisherman. Then I continue further down to the small church which is almost in the water, and then to the cathedral of Saint Sophia, the long-standing seat of the Ohrid Archdiocese.
“Today, it is impossible for one to study Byzantine art without visiting Macedonia. Looking at the frescos at Saint Sophia in Ohrid, the way that the unknown artists reached their artistic solutions in the compositions is particularly noticeable” – said David Talbot Rice, British art historian.
The church was dedicated to Saint Sophia, or Christ as a divine wisdom. It was built on the foundations of an old sacred building from the time after the great mission of the Saint Brothers Cyril and Methodius, when the Macedonian Slavs took the Christianity on Slavic language.
The great divine silence
“Everything is wonderful here! I can go to the coast near-by and watch the lake between the mountains, which seems to be taking a nap in his bed under the veil of the morning mist. I can go to the town among the old houses, which look so young with their southern style and rise one above the other. It makes me want to run to the western part of the town that enters a rocky wall where the poetic temple of Saint John is located and listen to the great divine silence over the lake’s surface, and to look down to the famous ohrid lake springs where you go to fill water or to wash your clothes as in the famous folk song about Biljana… The medieval fortress’ foundations are much older because the old fortress Lichnid was there, famous since the 3rd century BC. It was under Roman reign for 100 years. The legendary martyr Erasmus introduced the Christianity here in the 3rd century AD. He was the first Ohrid bishop, whose success forced the emperor Maximilian to order that 20.000 of his believers be killed.
The fortress wasn’t revived until the time of the Slavs. King Samoil (considered an heir of Alexander the Great) raised Ohrid to the highest glory, ruling almost the whole Balkans. Down there, we can see the thousand year-old basilica of Saint Sophia, whose time of foundation is unknown, and it treated men like masters, and Gods like tenants” – wrote the Czech painter, traveler and researcher Ludvik Kuba in “Book of Macedonia” – travels and studies from 1925 to 1927.
