ДВА НАТПИСА ИЗ ДАНАШЊЕ ЦРКВE СВЕТОГ НИКОЛЕ У СЕЛУ БРЊАРЕ КОД ВРАЊА
TWO INSCRIPTIONS FROM TODAY’S CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS IN THE VILLAGE OF BRNJARE NEAR VRANJE

Summary/Abstract: The lapidarium of the People’s Museum in Vranje keeps two inscriptions from St. Nicholas Church in the village of Brnjare, 23 km south of Vranje. The first is a stone beam with a fresco inscription. The beam is carved from a single block of stone, approximately rectangular in shape, 1.39 m long on one side and 1.46 m on the other, 29–32 cm widе and between 11 and 12.5 cm thick. On one of its sides, along its entire length, fresco plaster was applied, framed by a red border, on which a text was written in three lines (fig. 3–4). The second is the stone plate, almost of a regular square shape, with original dimensions 68 x 67 cm, made of light gray limestone (fig. 2). The letters are of uniform height and are correctly carved with the oblique cut technique with triangular endings of the letters (fig. 5). A short inscription of four words begins with a symbolic invocation in the form of a Greek cross, followed by the name of the saint, and at the end the year from the creation of the world is given in letter values (7031 = 1522/1523). The stone beam with fresco inscription was most likely located above the entrance door in the function of an architrave, while the other slab represented an altar table. The content and scope of the first inscription clearly indicate that it is dedicated to Saint Nicholas, with the year, month and day of its restoration (May 20, 1497). The content of the second inscription is reduced, only the name of the saint and the year are mentioned, which indicates that it was most likely carved during some repair of the church or church mobiliary. The end of the 15th century was a time of restoration of temples in the Pčinja area. As we saw in the year 1497, the church of St. Nicholas in Brnjare was renovated and painted. Already in 1522/23, perhaps due to some unrecorded destruction of the monastery, not only the altar table, but also other parts of church furniture probably were restored. Everything indicates that in that period, the construction of churches was quite common in the Pčinja region even before the restoration of the Patriarchate of Peć. In the absence of historical data, these inscriptions become a valuable source of history not only of the monastery church of St. Nicholas in Brnjare and the Pčinja district, but also for the southeastern part of Serbia.

• Details
• Contents