St.Pantelejmon Plaoshnik-city of Ohrid

admin ♦ August 7, 2010 ♦ 1 Comment

The monastery stands on a hill which is now known as Plaosnik overlooking lake Ohrid. St. Clement built his monastery on a restored church and a Roman basilica of five parts (the remains of the basilicas can still be seen outside the monastery). Sources say that St. Clement was not satisfied with the size of the church and therefore built a new one over it and assigned St Panteleimon as its patron saint. Clement personally built a crypt inside the monastery in which he was buried after his death in 916, his tomb still exists today. From15th to 17th century the monastery was ruined and turned into mosque few times. Apart from the monastery’s many reconstructions during the Ottoman empire, it has recently undergone extensive reconstruction and excavation. Reconstruction started on 2000 and the physical church was fully reconstructed by 2002. Most of St. Clement’s relics were returned to the church. A partially ruined bell tower was restored on the right side of the monastery and the floors of the interior of the church have been reconstructed with marble. Reconstruction was carried out by hand using materials used to build the original church in order to preserve the original spirituality of the monastery.
it is Located in Ohrid’s old town, Plaosnik is an utterly unique phenomenon: it was recently reconstructed, with loving attention to detail, precisely in the style of a Byzantine church, right down to the red bricks and mort An early Christian sacral building dating from the 5th century was discovered here, built over the remains of an older antique building whose cistern was found in the atrium of the newly built temple. Today, Plaosnik is one of the most exhilarating Byzantine-style churches in Macedonia. Its floor is covered with mosaics of twenty wave-shaped tassel interspersed with the figures of flowers, birds and animals.
It has been very important religious center since early Christian times, if not before. It is the site of the first university in Europe, opened in the 10th c. and it is the place where the cyrillic alphabet was created. The church you see is a reconstruction of the church St.Klement built when he came here and opened the university. The 5 nave early Christian basilica in the middle of which the church stands is from the 5th century (interesting mosaics in the baptistery and in the side chapel covered with red plastic roof). The atrium was built on the side since there was no space in the front. It probably was the cathedral in early Christian times. When St.Klement came here in the 10th c. just the small round chapel that today serves as altar existed. Because of the large influx of worshipers that followed him, he enlarged the church by building the central part of the church and turning the existent church into an altar chapel, and he dedicated the church to St Panteleimon (protector of health). The closed porch and the belltower were added later in the 13th century. Before St.Klement died he dig his own grave inside the church. When the Turks came they torn the church down after a rebellion. It still attracted large number of worshipers and pilgrims so they built a mosque above it. Until recently both the mosque and the church were standing in ruins. The reconstruction is a big guess since they didn’t know anything but the shape of the church. The height, the shape of the domes and the decorations are a wild guess. Free entrance.Error processing request