CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS GEOGRAPHY IN THE MEDIEVAL AND NEW AGE PERIOD IN TODAY’S REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

This paper deals with the numerous religious objects built on today's Republic of Macedonia territory from the Ancient times onwards, either well or partially preserved, or ruined, from the aspect of continuity of usage of holy space and reasons for choosing a place for a temple and the meaning of the temple for the community. Some of the Ancient temples and early Christian churches have been excavated or accidently discovered; partly renovated, while in the period of the Ottoman rule most of the large churches were turned into mosques or put down on purpose. A few of them have been given back their primary function in the mid 20th C. Only small churches were permitted to be built by Turkish low, usually 1, 5 m. above the earth, until the first half of the 19th C. when building of new churches was allowed where such previously did not exist. There is also the phenomenon of simultaneous use of a religious object for Christian and Muslim confession. It is obvious there is continuity in using same location for religious objects, and usually profane objects are not erected where previously temples or necropolis existed. I analyze statistically and geographically the density of religious objects from the Ancient period towards modernity, with the accent on the medieval and post byzantine period, and explain the continuity in using the same location for temples of different religions. Ancient temples had prominent place within the city acropolis or were positioned on a mountain and hill top and strategic places outside the cities, along with sites near mighty sources of water. The location chosen by Christians has been related to saint’s grave, martyr’s place of death, or holy water springs. Mosques used to have accompanying baths which is not the case today. Since large number of churches was turned into mosques since the 15th C., there was great decrease in their number, which continued after the world war two. The last decade shows slight increase of churches and enormous increase of mosques. This statistics indicates the political role of the religion and the religious object within a community