ÉGLISE SAINTS-CLÉMENT-ET-PANTELEIMON

Offering a beautiful view of the lake, this recent Orthodox church (Црква Свети Климент и Пантелејмон/Crkva Sveti Kliment i Pantelejmon) was completed in 2002. It follows the supposed model of the church of St. Panteleimon erected here by St. Clement of Ohrid in 893 and transformed into a mosque in the ^15th century. The latter, left abandoned since the departure of the Turkish population in 1912, was destroyed and only the base of the old church has been preserved. Of enormous appearance with a narthex (to the north), a porch (to the south), two domes, a bell tower (to the west), an apse and its apsidioles (to the east), the building in fact houses a rather narrow naos. On the lower parts of the walls, a zinc joint is supposed to mark the limit between recent areas and the foundations of the ^ninth century. Mosaics from a^{fifth-century} baptistery are displayed in the porch. In the naos, part of the ancient foundations is visible under glass panels and fragments of ^{fourteenth-century} frescoes remain around the altar. Finally, the relics of St. Clement have been placed in the crypt in which he was buried in 916, to the right of the iconostasis. Outside, opposite the main entrance, is the atrium of the Ohrid literary school. In all likelihood, the first Slavic-language university was founded here by Clement of Orhid in the ^9th century. Classes were held in this double peristyle, some of whose columns have been removed.