Serbian Orthodox ChurchThe Serbian Orthodox Church (Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodox Christian churches. The majority of the population in Serbia, Montenegro and the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina are members of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It is organized into metropolitanates and eparchies, located primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Croatia. Other congregations are located in the Serb diaspora.
North MacedoniaNorth Macedonia (ˌmæsəˈdoʊniə ), officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Kosovo to the northwest, Serbia to the north, Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, and Albania to the west. It constitutes approximately the northern third of the larger geographical region of Macedonia. Skopje, the capital and largest city, is home to a quarter of the country's 1.83 million people. The majority of the residents are ethnic Macedonians, a South Slavic people.
Battle of KosovoThe Battle of Kosovo took place on 15 June 1389 between an army led by the Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović and an invading army of the Ottoman Empire under the command of Sultan Murad Hüdavendigâr. The battle was fought on the Kosovo field in the territory ruled by Serbian nobleman Vuk Branković, in what is today Kosovo, about northwest of the modern city of Pristina.
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in the Mediterranean world.
Despotate of EpirusThe Despotate of Epirus (Δεσποτᾶτον τῆς Ἠπείρου) was one of the Greek successor states of the Byzantine Empire established in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade in 1204 by a branch of the Angelos dynasty. It claimed to be the legitimate successor of the Byzantine Empire, along with the Empire of Nicaea and the Empire of Trebizond, its rulers briefly proclaiming themselves as Emperors in 1227–1242 (during which it is most often called the Empire of Thessalonica).
NišNiš (ˈniːʃ; Ниш, nîːʃ; names in other languages), less often spelled in English as Nish, is the third largest city in Serbia and the administrative center of the Nišava District. It is located in the southern part of Serbia. , the city proper has a population of 183,164, while its administrative area (City of Niš) has a population of 260,237 inhabitants. Several Roman emperors were born in Niš or used it as a residence: Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor and the founder of Constantinople, Constantius III, Constans, Vetranio, Julian, Valentinian I, Valens; and Justin I.
OhridOhrid (Охрид ˈɔxrit) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording a population of over 42,000 inhabitants as of 2002. Ohrid is known for once having 365 churches, one for each day of the year, and has been referred to as a "Jerusalem of the Balkans". The city is rich in picturesque houses and monuments, and tourism is predominant. It is located southwest of Skopje, west of Resen and Bitola.
Albanian languageAlbanian (endonym: shqipja ʃcipja or gjuha shqipe ˈɟuha ˈʃcipe) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that language family. It is the descendant of a Paleo-Balkan language. Albanian is the official language of Albania and Kosovo, and a co-official language in North Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as a recognized minority language of Italy, Croatia, Romania and Serbia. It is also spoken in Greece and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europe and Oceania.
ZachlumiaZachlumia or Zachumlia (Захумље, zǎxuːmʎe), also Hum, was a medieval principality located in the modern-day regions of Herzegovina and southern Dalmatia (today parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, respectively). In some periods it was a fully independent or semi-independent South Slavic principality. It maintained relations with various foreign and neighbouring powers (Byzantine Empire, First Bulgarian Empire, Kingdom of Croatia, Principality of Serbia) and later was subjected (temporarily or for a longer period) to Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Serbia, Kingdom of Bosnia, Duchy of Saint Sava and at the end to the Ottoman Empire.
DukljaDuklja (Дукља; Diokleia; Dioclea) was a medieval South Slavic state which roughly encompassed the territories of modern-day southeastern Montenegro, from the Bay of Kotor in the west to the Bojana River in the east, and to the sources of the Zeta and Morača rivers in the north. First mentioned in 10th– and 11th century Byzantine chronicles, it was a vassal of the Bulgarian Empire between 997 and 1018, and then of the Byzantine Empire until it became independent in 1040 under Stefan Vojislav ( 1034–43) who rose up and managed to take over territories of the earlier Serbian Principality, founding the Vojislavljević dynasty.
