The Monastery of Saint Naum is one of those places that stays etched in your memory. It stands at the southern tip of Lake Ohrid, on a rocky headland almost on the border with Albania, with the vast blue lake on one side and, on the other, springs of crystal-clear water that seem straight out of a fairy tale. Founded around the year 905 by Saint Naum, a disciple of Saints Cyril and Methodius, it is one of the oldest and most revered sanctuaries in North Macedonia.
The complex has a special charm: the domed church, with its spiritual atmosphere and the saint's tomb; the gardens where dozens of peacocks roam freely, fanning their tails among the visitors; and, above all, the Saint Naum springs, where the water that feeds much of Lake Ohrid wells up, so clear you can see the bottom several metres down. A rowing-boat ride through these springs is the highlight of the visit.
This guide covers Saint Naum: how to get there by boat or by road from Ohrid, what to see at the monastery and the springs, how much the boat ride and admission cost in denars, and why this waterside corner is the must-do day trip on the lake. Spiritual, natural and stunningly beautiful, Saint Naum is one of North Macedonia's treasures.
The Monastery of Saint Naum was founded around the year 905 by Saint Naum of Ohrid, one of the main disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius and a companion of Saint Clement in the great task of spreading Slavic writing and liturgy across the Balkans. Naum chose this remote spot, at the southern tip of the lake next to the springs, to build a monastery and a school that, like the one in Ohrid, became a centre of Slavic culture. The saint himself was buried here, and his tomb, in a chapel of the church, is a place of pilgrimage: tradition says that if you put your ear to the stone you can still hear his heart beating. The present church, dedicated to the Holy Archangels, was rebuilt in the Ottoman period (16th-17th centuries) on the original foundation and preserves frescoes and icons. For centuries the monastery also marked the border area of the lake. Today it is a revered sanctuary and one of the major attractions of the Ohrid region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The country's spiritual cradle: Lake Ohrid, its Byzantine churches, the Monastery of Saint Naum and Struga, where the Drin flows out of the lake. The heart of Christianity and Slavic culture.
Read the history of Ohrid and the southwest →If you only have one day, take a guided tour on the first one: it sets up the rest of your trip and saves you a lot of walking. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. There are not many in San Naum, but the ones there are worth it. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Tap the cards below and have a look.
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No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The story of the monastery begins with the story of one man: Saint Naum of Ohrid, one of the most important figures in medieval Slavic culture. Naum was one of the main disciples and collaborators of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the brothers from Thessaloniki known as the 'apostles to the Slavs'. In the 9th century they created an alphabet (Glagolitic) and translated the sacred texts into the Slavic language so they could evangelise these peoples in their own tongue.
After Methodius died, his disciples were persecuted and expelled from Great Moravia. Naum, together with Saint Clement and other companions, headed south to the lands of the First Bulgarian Empire, where they were welcomed. In the Ohrid region they found fertile ground to continue their work. While Clement built a great school and monastery in Ohrid itself, at Plaošnik, Naum also devoted himself to teaching, translation and organising monastic life. He was part of the extraordinary cultural surge that made Ohrid a cradle of Slavic writing.
Naum is remembered as a scholar, a writer and a holy man. His work, together with Clement's, was decisive in allowing the liturgy and written culture in the Slavic language to take root and spread across the Balkans and the Orthodox world. Towards the end of his life, he looked for a beautiful, secluded place to found his own monastery. He found it at the southern tip of Lake Ohrid, beside the springs, where the shrine that bears his name still stands today.
Saint Naum founded his monastery at the southern end of Lake Ohrid around 905. He had the support of Prince (later Tsar) Boris-Michael and his son Simeon, rulers of the First Bulgarian Empire who protected and promoted the work of the disciples of Cyril and Methodius. The location was no accident: a rocky promontory above the lake, next to springs of crystal-clear water. It was a place of great beauty and also secluded, well suited to contemplative life and study.
Like Clement's monastery in Ohrid, the monastery of Saint Naum was much more than a place of prayer. It worked as a centre for teaching and for copying manuscripts, helping to train clergy and scholars and to spread texts in the Slavic language. Naum spent his last years there, and when he died, around 910, he was buried in the monastery itself, in the church he had built. His tomb soon became a place of veneration and pilgrimage.
Over time Naum was canonised and became one of the best-loved saints of the Orthodox Church in the Balkans, especially venerated as a healer. For centuries the sick and pilgrims have come to his tomb seeking healing and comfort. One of the place's most endearing traditions is linked to his tomb: the belief that if you put your ear to the stone, you can still hear the saint's heart beating, a sign that he is still present among the faithful.
Over the centuries, the monastery of Saint Naum lived through the ups and downs of the region's turbulent history. After the First Bulgarian Empire fell to Byzantium in 1018, the area came under Byzantine rule. Later, in the 14th century, it passed through the hands of the Serbian empire of Stefan Dušan. Through all these changes the monastery kept its spiritual role and its prestige as a shrine tied to the memory of Saint Naum, although it had to endure destruction, looting and rebuilding.
With the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans towards the end of the 14th century, Saint Naum became part of the Ottoman Empire, like the rest of the Ohrid region, and remained so for almost five centuries. Despite Muslim rule, the monastery remained an important centre of Orthodox worship and pilgrimage. The church we see today, dedicated to the Holy Archangels, was rebuilt in its current form during the Ottoman period, mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries. It stands on the foundations of Saint Naum's original church and follows the medieval Byzantine style, with its domes and characteristic floor plan.
Inside, the church holds frescoes, a carved iconostasis and icons from different periods, and of course the chapel with the saint's tomb. The monastic complex gradually grew with outbuildings and walls and, eventually, the gardens and terraces overlooking the lake that give it its look today. For centuries Saint Naum was also a landmark in a border area people passed through, beside the roads that ran along the lake towards the south.
Saint Naum's position at the southern tip of Lake Ohrid placed it right on an international border in the 20th century. After the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and the First World War, the border drawn between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) and Albania left Saint Naum on the Yugoslav side, very close to the line. In fact, who would get the monastery and its surroundings was the subject of diplomatic negotiations in those years, given its strategic position beside the water and the border.
Under Tito's socialist Yugoslavia, with neighbouring Albania under Enver Hoxha one of the most isolated countries in the world, the border next to Saint Naum was for decades one of the most closed and closely guarded in Europe. The monastery remained a place of worship and pilgrimage, but it also gradually opened up to tourism, which was drawn by the exceptional beauty of the spot: the shrine on the promontory, the crystal-clear springs, the gardens and, in time, the famous peacocks that now stroll around the grounds.
With Macedonia's independence in 1991 and the opening up of Albania, Saint Naum became one of the major tourist attractions of the Ohrid region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today it welcomes both pilgrims who come to the saint's tomb and travellers who arrive by boat from Ohrid to admire the monastery, take a rowing boat around the springs and enjoy the lake. More than eleven hundred years after it was founded by that disciple of Cyril and Methodius, Saint Naum is still what Naum wanted it to be: a place of peace and beauty on the shore of the ancient lake. Here spirituality, history and nature come together in one of the loveliest corners of North Macedonia.
