Ralitsa Rousseva
The Murals of the St. Demetrios Church in Boboshtica: Local Traditions and Constantinople Influences in the Ecclesiastical Art of the Prespa-Korcha Re
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Summary/Abstract
The St. Demetrios is a one-nave, one-apse church, which has been re-covered with a gable roof. The murals date from different periods. The first layer, which this study dates to around the last quarter of the 14th century, includes murals on the eastern wall of the naos (the Holy Virgin on the throne, Melismos, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Archdeacon Stephan, the Annunciation, the Ascension), on the western wall of the naos (the Dormition of the Holy Virgin, the Judas’s Betrayal or the Mocking of Christ, Christ before Pilate, the Helkomenos, St. Constantine and St. Helena, St. Cosmas and St. Damian), on the church facade (the Donor’s composition, the Baptism of Christ ) and in the entrance - St. Paraskevi and St. Barbara. The other murals in the church date from the 17th-18th centuries. On the western wall of the naos above the entrance there is a one-line inscription, paraphrase the Gospel of Matthew [22:39-40]. The lunette above the entrance of the church represents the Holy Virgin and Child, defined by the rare epithet "The Dwelling-place of the Uncontainable [God]". This is the third such representation in the byzantine art which I know of. The other two are in the Church of the Monastery of St. Saviour in Chora, in Constantinople. This paper has repeatedly drawn stylistic and iconographic parallels with the church of Christ Zoodotes in Embore not only because this is the nearest church in geographical terms, but also because it was probably commissioned by the same donor. Still, I will refrain from advancing the thesis that the two churches were decorated by the same team of painters. The stylistic features relate the murals in this church to the range of monuments in the Kastoria region from the second half of the 14th century. It can be assumed that the painters which painted St. Demetrios church in Boboshtica have also worked in the rock church of the Annunciation near Globochica.