However, rich ore in the vicinity of the town and the wealth that stemmed from this source made it an important center for various arts, not least literature.

In 1466 the Archbishop of Ohrid, Dorotheus, was searching for a learned man to translate the Syntagma of Matthew Blastares from Greek into Serbian because his cathedral seat did not have that book in the language that would be understood by natives.

When Dimitar started the translation, he said that he began to translate the "Law Book" for Archbishop Dorotheus of Ohrid "from the Greek language into Serbian" (v eže sastaviti mi pisaniem srbskoga jezika sočinenie, rekše knigu imenuemu zakonik) since the Cathedral Church in Ohrid did not have that book "in Serbian" (po jeziku srbskom) but only in Greek.

After translating the Syntagma, Dimitar continued and in its nine pages (out of ten that survived) he noted down a list of metropolitans and archbishops under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

This is followed by his “Epilogue” — an original literary text — in which Dimitar told the story of how the book came to be translated and gives us his thoughts on life, morals, religion, Church and society of his day and age.