SAINT-ÉRASME-D'OHRID CHURCH

This Orthodox cave church (Црквата Свети Еразмо Охридски/Crkvata Sveti Erazmo Ohridski) is dedicated to a mysterious local saint, St. Erasmus of Ohrid, a tutelary figure for local Christians since the^5th century. According to legend, the cave and its surroundings were once home to a community of hermits founded by the saint. Extensively altered up to the present day, the church features frescoes painted between the ^13th and ^18th centuries, including a large portrait of Theodore Doukas Comnenus, Byzantine ruler of Macedonia and Thrace after the Crusaders took Constantinople in 1204. It remains one of the country's most important rock churches. Today, it is at the center of a small religious complex. The cult of Erasmus remained strong in the region, even after the arrival of the Slavs. Thus, some 200 m to the south, along the main road, the ruins of a large ^12th-century church, also dedicated to St. Erasmus, were recently uncovered, along with a necropolis containing 124 tombs dating from the ^6th to ^12th centuries. From the St. Erasmus complex, a short cement road (approx. 200 m) leads near the top of the Gabavci hill topped by a cross, where you'll find the rock chapel of St. Catherine (Света Екатерина), where you can enjoy a magnificent panorama of Lake Ohrid. Behind the chapel are the remains of the Engelana fortress founded by the Enhélien tribe in the ^4th century BC.