Church of Saint Sophia

The Church of Saint Sophia is the most important medieval building in Ohrid, a 9th-century basilica heavily rebuilt in the 11th century to serve as the seat of the Archbishopric of Ohrid. Its frescoes — completed around 1040 — are among the finest pre-Comnenian Byzantine paintings to survive anywhere.

The interior repays slow attention. The Ascension in the nave, the cycle of saints in the side aisles, and the rare scene of Saint Basil and Saint Chrysostom in dispute are all unusually well preserved. The acoustics are extraordinary, and the church is now used as much for concerts during the Ohrid Summer Festival as for services. Photography is sometimes restricted.

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A story
The frescoes of Saint Sophia survived Ottoman conversion because, when the church was made a mosque in the 15th century, the walls were whitewashed rather than chiselled clean. When the whitewash was removed during 20th-century restoration, the 11th-century paintings emerged largely intact — a serendipity unmatched anywhere else in the Byzantine world.