John of Debar (;

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1018–1037) was an 11th-century Bulgarian

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

man. He was a bishop under Emperor Samuel of Bulgaria. According to Srđan Pirivatrić he became the last Bulgarian patriarch David in 1016. He remained in office, becoming the first Archbishop of Ohrid, after the fall of the

First Bulgarian Empire The First Bulgarian Empire (; was a medieval state that existed in Southeastern Europe between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. It was founded in 680–681 after part of the Bulgars, led by Asparuh of Bulgaria, Asparuh, moved south to the northe ...

Byzantium Byzantium () or Byzantion () was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' continued to be used as a n ...

. When in 1018 Emperor

Basil II Basil II Porphyrogenitus (; 958 – 15 December 1025), nicknamed the Bulgar Slayer (, ), was the senior Byzantine emperor from 976 to 1025. He and his brother Constantine VIII were crowned before their father Romanos II died in 963, but t ...

managed to conquer Bulgaria, he issued a decree to downgrade the Patriarchate of the

Bulgarian Orthodox Church The Bulgarian Orthodox Church (), legally the Patriarchate of Bulgaria (), is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction based in Bulgaria. It is the first medieval recognised patriarchate outside the Pentarchy and t ...

to the

Archbishopric of Ohrid The Archbishopric of Ohrid, also known as the Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid *T. Kamusella in The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe, Springer, 2008, p. 276 *Aisling Lyon, Decentralisation and the Management of Ethni ...

, which remained autocephalous and corresponded to the newly formed theme of Bulgaria. John was chosen to be the first Archbishop of Ohrid by Basil II.McKitterick, Rosamond; Abulafia, David; Allmand, C. T. ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 4, C.1024-c.1198, Part 2, Cambridge University Press, 1995, , pp. 263–265. According to 17th-century French historian

du Cange Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange (; December 18, 1610 in Amiens – October 23, 1688 in Paris, aged 77), also known simply as Charles Dufresne, was a distinguished French philologist and historian of the Middle Ages and Byzantium. Life Educate ...

, John was born in a village around the town of Debar in today

North Macedonia North Macedonia, officially the Republic of North Macedonia, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe. It shares land borders with Greece to the south, Albania to the west, Bulgaria to the east, Kosovo to the northwest and Serbia to the n ...

and had been a

hegumen Hegumen, hegumenos, or igumen (, trans. ), is the title for the head of a monastery in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, or an archpriest in the Coptic Orthodox Church, similar to the title of abbot. The head of a convent of ...

in a Debar monastery.Du Cange. Familiae augustae Byzantinae, I. 174-175. He remained head of the Archbishopric until his death in 1037. John of Debar is canonized as a saint by the

as Saint David of Bulgaria and is commemorated on June 26th.

References and notes

10th-century births 1037 deaths 11th-century Byzantine people 11th-century Bulgarian people Archbishops of Ohrid People from Debar Municipality People from medieval Macedonia {{EasternOrthodoxy-bishop-stub