Ecclesiastical architecture in Macedonia during the period of Turkish domination represents a continuation of Byzantine church architecture. It was now practised on the margins of the official Ottoman state, however, and this exercised an influence on both quantity and quality. Down to about 1700, church building was confined mainly to the erection of monastery buildings on Mount Athos and in inaccessible areas of the hinterland.
In the urban centres, where the Muslim population was in the majority, there was a decline in activity, on account of the law prohibiting the founding of new churches and the repair of old ones.
In contrast, very fine Ottoman buildings, both religious and public, were erected in the first centuries after the conquest, when the Ottoman Empire was at its zenith.
The economic revival of the subject populations and the gradual relaxation of Ottoman central authority in the 18th and 19th centuries directly affected not only ecclesiastical, but also urban architecture.
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