[2] The first fortress was built in 6th century AD on a land that was inhabited during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages (roughly 4000 BC onwards).

[10] On February 10, 2011, late at night, a crowd of about 100 ethnic Albanians converged on the site to find over 50 construction workers from Bitola working on the steel church museum.

[11] When questioned who ordered the construction the workers refused to answer but revealed that they were instructed to start building from 10:00 PM over the night.

[11][12] Some of the crowd proceeded to destroy and vandalize parts of the scaffolding, the same day restoration was resumed after it was officially halted by the government.

Members of both groups arrived almost simultaneously on February 13 and a violent clash erupted, leaving around 10 injured, including 2 policemen.

[10][15][16] The opposition, Macedonian and Albanian, condemned the violence, criticized the prime minister Nikola Gruevski for creating inter-ethnic tensions and called on the government to take responsibility for it.

[17] The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted: "The decision of the Government of Macedonia to construct a church-museum on the Skopje Fortress on its most visible spot is going to create serious tensions in the society.

Turkey pays special attention to preserving and protecting the cultural heritage that is left in Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire.

"[18] Various political analysts claimed that the incident was orchestrated by the Macedonian and Albanian governing parties, namely VMRO-DPMNE and the Democratic Union for Integration.

[19] Vlado Dimovski, head of the "Center for inter-ethnic tolerance" in Macedonia, stated that "the coalition partners (VMRO-DPMNE and DUI) orchestrated the violent event on the Skopje Fortress to distract the public from the problems that the country is facing".