MACEDONIA ~St. Naum Monastery-Ohrid-UNESCO~

...Great aerial view of the monastery on top of a cliff...the view over the lake must be stunning...
Macedonians believe you can hear the saint’s heartbeat by pressing an ear to his stone coffin inside the church... I wonder, did you hear it too Agi?:D Many thanks!!

Lovely stamp:
Macedonian protected flora:Viola kosanini (Issued 15-09-1999)

As with most Byzantine churches, St. Naum was chosen primarily for its location – on a high, rocky outcropping over the lake, above deep forests and the life-giving springs of the Crn Drim. The monastic complex and church of St. Naum were built originally at the turn of the tenth century by the monk of the same name.

The monastery has been renewed and enlarged several times over the centuries. While most of its iconostases and frescoes date from the 16th and 17th centuries, earlier etchings in the Byzantine Greek vernacular also remain. But numerous orthographical mistakes indicate that they were written by Slavic-speaking local monks. Other inscriptions in the church make up some of the oldest epigraphic evidence of Slavic literacy.

Ohrid is one of only 28 sites that are part of UNESCO's World Heritage that are both Cultural and Natural sites.