Career
He was a bishop under Samuel of Bulgaria, and remained in office, becoming the first Slavic Archbishop of Ohrid, after the fall of the First Bulgarian Empire to Byzantium. According to 17th-century French historian du Cange John was born in a village around the town of Debar in present-day Republic of Macedonia. John was chosen to be the first Archbishop of Ochrid.
Prior to this he had been hegumen in a Debar monastery.
He remained head of the Archbishopric until his death in 1037.
