CLEMENT OF OCHRID

CLEMENT OF OCHRID, bishop, translator, St. (?–916). One of the premier saints commemorated in modern Bulgaria, Clement was a disciple of Methodius and colleague of Naum (qq.v.) in the Ochrid school, which translated Scripture and liturgical texts into Glagolitic and Church Slavic. When Methodius died in 885 in Moravia, Clement and Naum were imprisoned and then exiled from the country-Constantine-Cyril and Methodius’s lifework ostensibly in ruins. He and Naum dealt directly with Boris of Bulgaria, and their work was supported by Constantinople (q.v.). In 886 Clement went to Macedonia to the region near Ochrid in order to baptize, serve the liturgy (q.v.) in Slavic, translate Church books, and train indigenous clergy, being appointed bishop in 893 when he was joined by Naum. In this year the Bulgarians also adopted the “Cyrillic” script, possibly following Naum’s initiative. After Clement’s thirty years spent in Christian ministry and teaching (almost 3,500 disciples) in the environs of Ochrid, it became a leading city of Slavic Christian culture in Europe. Clement is remembered as a founder of Slavic literary culture, an enemy of paganism, and a member of a school that anticipated later high institutions of learning. His Vita was written by Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid (ca. 1090–1109), based in part on an earlier Slavic version.