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	+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]

As of the 2021 census, Dolna Bela Crkva had 179 residents.^[5]

Ethnic group	census 1961		census 1971		census 1981		census 1991		census 1994		census 2002		census 2021
	Number	%	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	117	65.4
Albanians	119	34.9	173	42.8	138	34.5	82	27.0	82	32.9	81	34.2	56	31.3
others	0	0.0	1	0.3	3	0.8	7	2.3	0	0.0	0	0.0	0	0.0
Persons for whom data are taken from administrative sources													6	3.4
Total	341		404		400		304		249		237		179

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". Archived from the original on 2018-08-31. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
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.
5. Total resident population of the Republic of North Macedonia by ethnic affiliation, by settlement, Census 2021

41°02′N 21°01′E