In 2011, a fifteen-centuries-old fortress in North Macedonia again became the scene of a clash.

On one side of the dispute were North Macedonians who make up approximately sixty percent of the country’s population. Many are Orthodox by faith. On the other side were ethnic Albanians, composing a quarter of the population. The Albanians identify as Muslims. 

The issue? The government of Skopje, the country’s capital city, had recently approved the restoration of an Orthodox church within the grounds of the fortress as a museum. The church’s foundations, dating to the 1200s CE, had been uncovered by archaeologists.

Anticipating objections to the project, the government sneakily hired out-of-town workers and instructed them to begin work under cover of darkness. 

The Albanians were paying attention. No sooner had the work started than a crowd of a hundred Albanians converged upon the work site, stopped the construction, and vandalized the scaffolding.