St. Pantheleimon - Imaret
The Clement's monastery of St. Pantheleimon will be known as the Imaret mosque during the Turkish period and later.
Today on the original location of the monastery there is a conserved mosque whose vault and minaret are ruined. The terrain around the building is well maintained. There are traces of earlier buildings within the mosque's interior. These are remnants of the earliest Slavonic monastery of St. Pantheleimon, built in 893 A.D. by Clement of Ohrid as his memorial.
On this spot the first Slavonic University was located, the heart of Slavonic literacy and culture, the foundations of the Ohrid Literature School. Here Clement of Ohrid, the first writer among the Macedonian Slavs, was creating his literature works. One of them is "The Panegyric to Cyril", - a masterpiece of the medieval Slavonic literature. Within the first Slavonic University also the first medical school in Europe was established. The Archbishop of Ohrid Theophilact (XII century), and Dimitrius Homatian (XIII century), Clement of Ohrid's biographers, rather realistically describe his hospital where the healing was rendered free of charge, by means of hypnosis, various teas, and herbal elixirs - without the use of magic. Clement of Ohrid is also deemed as the first Slavonic composer and music teacher. He composed songs and taught generations of singers necessary for the church service. At Clement's monastery fundamental training was also rendered to future painters and other artists, much demanded for decoration of churches, icon painting, and for transcription and decoration of manuscripts. Many educated young people were shaped in the Clement and Naum's school and in the region of Kutmichevica.
Among the archeological remnants in Clement's church of St. Pantheleimon is also his tomb. According to the Archbishop Theophilact's work "The Life of St. Clement of Ohrid", this remarkable Slavonic educator built his own tomb himself, and was buried in it in 916 A.D.
In the interior of the building there is a display of photographs that show the phases of the archaeological excavation and conservation process of Clement's monastery, a number of fragments from the frescoes, as well as of other artifacts found during the research.
One of the displayed reconstructed frescoes contains the portraits of the XIV century renovators of Clement's monastery, the noblemen Kesar Duka with his son Dimitrija. In the upper left corner of this donor composition there is a scene with Clement of Ohrid who blesses Kesar Duka and his son.
The frescoes of the original Clement's church are not preserved. The fragments of the discovered frescoes date from three different phases of the reconstruction and expansion activities carried out over Clement's monastery. The earliest preserved frescoes comprise the figures of the first layer in the altar area. These frescoes have all features of the subsequent aspirations of the XIII century Komneni style. In contrast, the sections of the frescoes from the altar and column areas, as well as the aforementioned donor composition with portraits of Kesar Duka and his son, date from the second reconstruction phase carried out during the third decade of the XIV century. The third phase, i.e. the last reconstruction, that was finished immediately before the arrival of the Turks, comprises the frescoes discovered during the archaeological excavations in the northern section of the church.
The folk story, according to which this was the spot of Clement's church and his tomb, was confirmed with the initial archeological excavations in 1943, when Prof. Dimce Koco discovered the foundations of Clement's church and concurrently also his tomb. After the arrival of the Turks, Clement's relics were relocated to the church of St. Bogorodica Perivleptos. Twenty two years later, in 1965, the Ohrid Institute for Protection of Monuments of Culture continued the excavations near the Imaret mosque which resulted in the restoration of this cultural and historic monument. On 10 September 1966, the 1050th anniversary of Clement of Ohrid's death was marked by grand celebrations in Ohrid.
Professor Dimce Koco found out that Clement's church was built over the foundations of an early Christian basilica whose remainders are preserved. Clement built his church in a triconchal shape (a trefoil), a shape cherished in Macedonia during Clement and Naum's time. The church was reconstructed several times, which is obvious from the before mentioned fragmented frescoes, as well as from the traces of the subsequent addings-on and expansions.
