Macedonia is the bride of mythology… It treasures are there for everyone who wishes to explore them…
From the ancient past, from the bosom of its soil, archaeologists have retrieved the Goddess of Fertility, the Tetovo Maenad, the Trebenista masks and the Ohrid Isis in their full originality…
You can participate in the fascinating past of the ancient cities of Heraclea, Stobi, and Scupi and their amphitheaters, and even yourself feel a worthy descendant of Ancient Macedonia, Rome or the Byzantine Empire…
In 653 B.C. King Perdiccas I founded the Macedonian Kingdom.
- At a gentle pace, you can stroll through the magic beauties of its mosaics, take part in the ritual games in its amphitheaters, explore the Early Christian baptistery, the scenes telling stories of love, emperors heads and lachrymatories in which princesses once kept their tears…Gazing at this abundant treasure you will be amazed and overwhelmed by the originality of the terracotta icons uncovered near Vinica Kale…
In the 197 B.C. Stobi is mentioned for the first time,
but the town is believed to have been founded some 400 years earlier.
- You will learn of Christianity preached by the Apostle Paul in Macedonia, where his encounter with the Macedonian woman Lydia is mentioned for the first time, and recorded in Acts of the Apostles in the Bible…
As many as 365 churches exist in Ohrid alone, in a town also known as the Slavic Jerusalem… There, amid the mysticism of the Middle Ages, using the talent and genius, St. Clement was to establish the first Slavic university where 3.500 students completed their education… The oldest Slavonic texts date back to the twelfth century AD…
Among the masterpieces of sacral architecture, to be found in the midst of this Byzantine serenity, we must single out the artistic achievements of the fresco painters Mihailo and Evtihie…
- It is fascinating that the fresco “Lamentation over the Body of Christ” in the church of St. Panteleimon was painted 140 years before Giotto’s painting “Pieta” …Some scholars believe that this fresco represents the roots of European Renaissance…
The monasteries have grown as natural entities amid Macedonian’s mountains and rocks. It seems as if the priests wanted to look down at their believers from above, who would bow before them in the lowlands…
976 AD was the year in which Emperor Samoil’s medieval state became known as the Macedonian Empire.
- Macedonia is a land of lakes and monasteries… Its lakes have sustained the material culture and monasteries and churches the spiritual culture of its people…
- The Turks appeared and flew over the entire land like birds in the air… It was the 14th century… This marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of a new era…Macedonia was not left out of this process…
The Ottomans were to stay for five centuries on the territory of this land… They have left signs of their cultural heritage… It is said that there is no mosque in the world quite like the Painted Mosque, nor is there anything to which it can be compared…
Nearly a third of Macedonia’s population satisfy their spiritual needs in the numerous Moslem religious buildings…