Source: National Geographic
December 23, 2022
Preservationists in Albania’s Voskopojë are racing to save hundreds of 18th-century Orthodox masterpieces in time-ravaged churches.
Photo: wiki2.org
Deep in southeastern Albania, a tiny hamlet holds five churches that have one of the most magnificent concentrations of Orthodox Christian fresco art in the world.
From the outside, the churches in Voskopojë resemble stone barns, a reflection of their 18th-century heritage as Christian gathering places in the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Inside, however, they reveal painted masterworks of brilliant blues, reds, and yellows that come to life in themes both awesome (Christ the Almighty, or Pantocrator) and eccentric (St. Nicholas outsmarts the goddess Artemis). “For us, it’s like the Louvre,” says Albania’s Minister of Culture, Elva Margariti.
Read the rest at National Geographic.
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