Dolna Bela Crkva

Dolna Bela Crkva (Macedonian: Долна Бела Црвка, meaning Lower White Church; Albanian: Bollocërkë e Poshtme) is a village in the Resen Municipality of North Macedonia, north of Lake Prespa. The village, located roughly 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the municipal centre of Resen,[1] has 237 residents.[2]

Dolna Bela Crkva Долна Бела Црква Bollocërkë e Poshtme
Village
Panoramic view of the village Dolna Bela Crkva
Dolna Bela Crkva Location within North Macedonia
Coordinates: 41°02′12″N 21°01′52″E
Country	North Macedonia
Region	Pelagonia
Municipality	Resen
Population  (2002)
• Total	237
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
Area code(s)	+389
Car plates	RE

Demographics

Dolna Bela Crkva has an Orthodox ethnic Macedonian majority, with a significant Muslim Albanian Sunni and Bektashi minority, of whom the latter are known locally as Kolonjarë.[3][4] Sunni Albanians in Dolna Bela Crkva traditionally highlighted their religious identity over a linguistic one having closer economic and social relations with Turks and Macedonian Muslims in the region and being distant from Orthodox Macedonians.[4] Over time these differences have disappeared through intermarriage, closer communal and cultural relations with Bektashi and other Sunni Prespa Albanian communities in the region.[4]

Ethnic group	census 1961		census 1971		census 1981		census 1991		census 1994		census 2002
	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%	Number	%
Macedonians	222	65.1	230	56.9	259	64.8	215	70.7	167	67.1	156	65.8
Albanians	119	34.9	173	42.8	138	34.5	82	27.0	82	32.9	81	34.2
others	0	0.0	1	0.3	3	0.8	7	2.3	0	0.0	0	0.0
Total	341		404		400		304		249		237

Gallery

• 
  Sign on main road hailing entrance into Dolna Bela Crkva
• 
  Architecture of Dolna Bela Crkva
• 
  Dolna Bela Crkva village centre
• 
  Contemporary (left) and traditional (right) architecture of Dolna Bela Crkva
• 
  Streetscape in part of Dolna Bela Crkva
• 
  Orthodox church of Dolna Bela Crkva
• 
  Old village well (built 1888)
• 
  Cut firewood in a field of Dolna Bela Crkva
• 
  Fields of Dolna Bela Crkva
• 
  Apple orchard in Dolna Bela Crkva
• 
  Dolna Bela Crkva river
• 
  Fields of Dolna Bela Crkva

References

1. "Dolna Bela Crkva". Retrieved 24 August 2013.
2. Municipality of Resen
3. Censuses of population 1948 - 2002 Archived October 14, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
4. Sugarman, Jane (1997). Engendering song: Singing and subjectivity at Prespa Albanian weddings. University of Chicago Press. pp. 9–11. ISBN 9780226779720.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)