Memorial House of Mother Teresa

Skopje


This extraordinary retro-futuristic memorial is the most unique church you'll see in North Macedonia. Inside the building there's a small 1st-floor museum displaying memorabilia relating to the famed Catholic nun of Calcutta, born in Skopje in 1910. On the 2nd floor there is a mind-boggling chapel, with glass walls wrought in filigree (North Macedonia's revered traditional craft). Silhouettes of doves are worked into the filigree to symbolise peace, as an homage to Mother Teresa.

The memorial sits on the site of a much earlier church, where Mother Teresa was baptised; a plaque around the corner commemorates the spot where she was brought into the world. Look out for the Mother Teresa quotations on plaques around the city centre as well.

Round the back of the memorial, take a peek at the 17th-/18th-century feudal tower that housed the nun's memorial before the ultra-contemporary version was built in 2009. The tower, with its stooped wooden balcony, is now crumbling and condemned but it still has city historians confounded: nobody knows why it was built, as this side of the Vardar River was thought to be uninhabited at the time of its construction. There are gun holes in the tower walls, so it's clear it was used for defence: somebody had something to protect, it's just not clear who or what.


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