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Church of St. Sophia (Ohrid)
Church of St. Sophia (Ohrid).jpg

The Cathedral of St. Sophia in Ohrid, perhaps originally built in the 10th century by Boris II, seems to have been rebuilt as a domed basilica and redecorated in the 11th century by the archbishop Leo of Ohrid. A Great Feast cycle decorates the nave; in the conch of the apse an enthroned Virgin holds Christ in a shield-like mandorla; Christ officiates at the Proskomide below. The liturgical nature of the bema program is emphasized by the unusual sequence of scenes from the lives of Abraham and St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom on the bema walls. In the chapel above the diakonikon are scenes of the martyrdom of the Apostles and on the exterior west wall of the nave is a scene of the Philoxenia of Abraham. The outer narthex-portico with its flanking domed bays was added in 1313/14.

Church of St. Sophia (Ohrid).jpg
Church of St. Sophia (Ohrid).jpg
Church of St. Sophia (Ohrid).jpg
Church of St. Sophia (Ohrid).jpg
Georgina Muir Mackenzie (1877).jpg

Lithograph by Georgina Muir Mackenzie (1877)

Postcard 1930s.jpg

Postcard from 1930s

Plan by Curcic - Copy.jpg

Axonometric Plan by Ćurčić

Sources

Byzantine Architecture by Cyril Mango

Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture by ​Richard Krautheimer 

Architecture in the Balkans from Diocletian to Süleyman the Magnificent by Slobodan Ćurčić

Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium edited by Alexander Kazhdan

Resources

St. Sophia Ohrid Album (Byzantine Legacy Flickr)

Ohrid Album (Byzantine Legacy Flickr)

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