At a distance of 5 kilometers northeast of Strumica , in the village of Vodocha, there are restored walls and domes of the church of St. Leontie – the former bishop's basilica- the head office of the Strumica bishopry.The monastery church had been rebuilt on the place of the ruins, which had withstood the ravages of time for centuries, with remnants of frescoes with illustrations of St Isevrios, St Euplos, St Panteleimon and a few compositions of the life of the Holy Virgin. There are not exact historical data available about the date of building the monastery of St. Leontie, but it is presumed that the monastery church dates from the time of tsar Samoil.  According to a legend , after the battle at the mountain of Belasica in 1014 between the Byzantine emperor Vasilij II and the Macedonian tsar Samuel, when he was defeated, 14.000 Samuel's soldiers had been blinded, their eyes taken off, in the village of Vodocha. Hence the origin of the name of the village-“vadiochi”(taking eyes out)-Vodocha. The monastery had been the head office of the Strumica bishops and the Strumica bishopry and it was mentioned for the first time in 1018, when the Samoil's state was destroyed. The Vodoca and Bansko bishopries are mentioned in the Hilandar Act dated 1376, whne the bishop of Vodoca Danil and the bishop of Bansko Grigorie, together with the representatives of the secular authorities had solved the disputes over the border of the Hilandar estates in the region of Strumica. The beginnings of the medieval wall painting in the eastern Macedonia can be observed in this church. This church and its frescoes of the deacons St. Isavrios and St. Euplos belong to the XI century. It's a church where the preserved frescoes of the XI century can be seen for the first time, the observation inevitably points to the analogies with the fresco-paintings in the church of St Sophia in Ohrid and the Church of the Holy Anargyroi in Kostur (today's Greece- Kastoria). In the course of the XII century, the monastery had been extended by building a large eastern cruciform church. The extension of church had been followed by its fresco-paintings. Although the time had its effects in considerably damaging the frescoes, nevertheless, the figures of the holy archpriests in the alter apse have been preserved to the present day to bear witness about a later epoch (the XII century), and about the artistic accomplishment of the zographs. Sometime during the second half of the XIV century, to the western side of the church a nartex had been built and fresco-painted, while to the southern side of the church an open porch had been added at a time of which there are no records. In 1958 the remnants of the fresco-paintings in the monastery have been removed in order to be protected. The church has been fully reconstructed on the basis of the preserved remnants of its architecture, while the domes have been made on the basis of analogies. These works were carried out in the seventies by the Republic Institute for Protection of the Cultural Monuments, and the Council for protection of the cultural monuments in Strumica. At present, there is a monastic life in this monastery and the monastery of Vodocha is the head office of Strumica bishopry.