Zaum, or the Church of the Mother of God of Zahumlje, is located on the eastern shore of Lake Ohrid, at the foot of Mount Galičica. Owing to a fresco inscription in Greek on the western wall of the church, we learn that the church was built by Kesar Grgur, and painted in 1361 by Grigorije, bishop of Devol, “during the reign of Stefan Uroš”. The question of the identity of the founder Grgur has long been a subject of controversy in historiography, but today the generally accepted view is that he was Kesar Grgur Golubić, a high dignitary at the court of Emperor Dušan. Although this nobleman is mentioned in several written sources of that time (letters of Pope Clement VI, the inventory of the crypt of the Church of St. Nicholas in Bari where he is mentioned as a donor, the founding charter of the Monastery of the Holy Archangels near Prizren...), his origin and other details of his life still remain in the realm of hypotheses, such as the assumption that he came from the Hum area. From there, he could have brought the cult of the icon of the Mother of God of Zahumlje to which the church is dedicated.

The church was built in the form of a developed inscribed cross with a dome. The dome is octagonal and rests on four columns. The altar apse is three-sided on the outside, with the proskomedia and the diaconicon covered by a barrel vault. The western part of the church is vaulted with calottes, and the narthex was added later. The entire church is built with alternating rows of stone and brick, with decorative bricks around the window openings.

The frescoes suffered great damage. The prophets in the dome have been preserved, as have the evangelists in the pendantifs. In the sanctuary, a representation of the Mother of God wider than the heavens, figures of holy hierarchs, and roundels with busts of saints have been preserved. In the nave, fragments of the cycle of Great Feasts and the Passion of Christ have been preserved in the vaults and upper surfaces of the walls, as well as scenes from the life of the Mother of God in the middle zone. In the lower zone with standing figures, the Ohrid saints Clement and Nahum can be recognized, and rarer representations of saints such as Saint John the Forerunner with wings and Saint Anne breastfeeding the little Mary can also be seen. In the much-damaged narthex, above the door of the nave, a Deesis with the Mother of God as Empress is painted.

The work of the painter responsible for the frescoes of the Church of the Virgin of Zahumlje shows certain stylistic inventions in the treatment of figures and draperies, and indicates that he received his education in one of the larger Byzantine centers, most likely Thessaloniki. The input of the theologically well-versed founder, such as Bishop Gregory certainly was, can be recognized in various iconographic details and unusual epithets of the Virgin in the fresco icons in the nave.

Zaum is under the jurisdiction of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

(This collection is not complete)