High hopes for Voskopoja’s revival

The Institute of Monuments of Culture, in cooperation with the Foundation, “Patrimoine sans frontiers” (Inheritance without Boundaries) (PSF), organized a Conference last Wednesday at the National Gallery of Arts. The paper called, “An unprecedented post-Byzantine Church: Saint Thanas in Voskopoja,” was delivered by Professor Maximillian Durand, Professor at the School of the Louvre. Through the Conference and the photo exhibition, the values of this city were exhibited and the contribution made by the PSF for its preservation, something which has allowed it to survive.
In 1999 Patrick Chrismant, Ambassador of France to Albania asked the PSF if this association together with the Albanian Institute of Monuments of Culture (IMC) could intervene to bring out the values of Voskopoja. In the 17 and 18th Centuries, Voskopoja was the most flourishing city in the Balkans. It was located right on the trade route which linked Venice with Constantinople and it had an Academy and a Printing Establishment, and many beautiful churches decorated by the greatest of painters, the Post Byzantine Masters David Selenica, Kostandin and Thanas Zografi. An encircled Christian territory in the very bosom of the mighty Ottoman Empire, this city attracted the intellectuals, artists, traders. The rapid decline of the city during the last decade of the 18th Century, earthquakes, two World Wars, devastated the most important part of the monuments. Today, there are only five churches left, Saint Michael and Gabriel the Archangels, Saint Maria, Saint Nikolla, Saint Thanas, the Prophet Ilia Church and a Monastery, the majority of which are adorned in a series of magnificent murals, but in an alarming state, crying out to be saved. Since 2006 and thanks to the support of the “Getty Foundation”, through other projects as well, the PSF and the IMC undertook to restore the Church of the Prophet Ilia, the most original and problematic Church of the zone. In January 2007, thanks to the Regional Directory of the Institute for the Monuments of Culture in Korca, phase one of the preservation plan was completed which was to consolidate the walls of the building and repair the roof.