ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST MONASTERY OF MOSCOW

Situated at an altitude of 1,320 m, just beyond the Hotel Akademia and on the edge of a pine forest, this Orthodox monastery (Manastiri i Shën Prodhromit) is the oldest building in Moscopole to have survived the great fire of 1916. It was founded in the ^14th century by Bulgarian monks from Boboshtica (near Dardha). In the ^19th century, it was one of the most powerful monastic complexes of the Ohrid archdiocese. After the fountain (below) and the powerful ^14th-century defensive gate, you reach the residential buildings and the catholicon (main church). This is a three-aisled basilica with a cross-shaped plan inscribed in a rectangle, built from an earlier church in 1632. The walls of the narthex are decorated with frescoes painted in the late ^17th or early ^18th century. The nave is decorated with astonishing monochrome frescoes dating from 1659 on the theme of the dormition of the Mother of God. Created by an Aromanian painter from the village of Shipska (5 km to the north), they are composed in a style that evokes the iconography of Roman and Greek antiquity. The original icons have disappeared. But the ^18th-century wooden iconostasis is remarkable. Finely carved - note the dragon heads - it testifies to the skill of the craftsmen of the great cross-border region of Macedonia: the same attention to detail can be found in the churches of Ohrid and Mavrovo, in Northern Macedonia, or in those of Kastoria, in Greece.