Clement of Ohrid

Saint Clement of Ohrid, Equal of the Apostles, was a disciple of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a teacher of the Slavs, a man of letters and the first Slavonic bishop. He founded the school of letters at Ohrid, translated and wrote books for worship in Slavonic, and is counted among the seven apostles of the Bulgarian Church. In North Macedonia he is the protector of Ohrid and of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. The Church commemorates him on 27 July and on 25 November.

Early life

The place and year of his birth are not known with certainty. Most scholars think he was a Slav of southern Macedonia, perhaps from near Thessalonica, born between 830 and 840, at a time when much of Macedonia had come under Bulgarian rule. He was among the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius and took part in their mission to Great Moravia, for which the two brothers translated the Holy Scriptures and the services into Slavonic. In 867 or 868 he was ordained priest at Rome, with Gorazd and Naum. After Cyril's death in 869, he accompanied Methodius to Pannonia and Moravia.

Exile and Bulgaria

After the death of Methodius in 885, the German clergy began the persecution of his disciples. Clement was imprisoned, by some accounts tortured, and then expelled. Some of the disciples were sold, says the synaxarion, as slaves at Venice and ransomed by the envoy of the Byzantine emperor. Clement, Naum and Angelarius reached Belgrade, then within the borders of Bulgaria, in 885 or 886, where Prince Boris I received them gladly. Boris wanted servants of the Church who would serve in the language of the people, to weaken Greek church influence. Naum went to Pliska, then to Preslav, where he opened a school. Angelarius died soon after. Clement was sent to the south-⁠west, to the Kutmichevitsa region, in today's Macedonia, to Ohrid.

The work at Ohrid

From 886 to 893 Clement taught in Slavonic, according to tradition, some three thousand five hundred disciples, opened the school at Ohrid, built churches and monasteries, among them the monastery of Saint Panteleimon at Ohrid, and set the services in order. He made separate schools for children and for adults. He translated and wrote sermons, hymns and lives of saints. He is credited with the Life of Saint Methodius, the Life of Saint Clement of Rome, the oldest service of Saints Cyril and Methodius and the Flowery Triodion. In 893 he was consecrated bishop of Dremvica (Velika), the first hierarch to serve, preach and write in Slavonic, and Naum took his place at Ohrid. He is believed to have taken part in perfecting the Slavic script. Some ascribe the Cyrillic alphabet to him, but it was most likely shaped at the school of Preslav at the beginning of the tenth century.

As he grew old, he asked Tsar Simeon to let him retire, but the tsar begged him to stay. He then withdrew to the monastery he had founded at Ohrid, where he continued translating, among other things parts of the Pentecostarion.

Repose and veneration

Clement departed to the Lord in 916, after a serious illness. His body was laid in a coffin he had made with his own hands and buried in the monastery of Saint Panteleimon at Ohrid. He was counted among the saints soon after his death. In November 2008 the Macedonian Orthodox Church gave part of his relics to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The cathedral of Saint Clement in Skopje is the largest church of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, and the University of Sofia bears his name. In 2018 it was announced that on a stone plate in the ruins of the Ravna monastery in Bulgaria the signature of Clement had been identified, dated 24 April 889.