The Virgin of Ljeviš: King Milutin's cathedral, its frescoes, and survival

The Church of the Virgin of Ljeviš in Prizren was built by King Milutin between 1307 and 1309 on the foundations of a three-aisled basilica from the tenth and eleventh centuries. That earlier basilica was likely dedicated to the Virgin Eleusa and stood on an even older cult site. The basilica was partially renovated in the thirteenth century during the reign of King Stefan the First-Crowned, when the Prizren bishopric joined the autocephalous Serbian Church.

Inscriptions on the east facade, made in brick, record King Milutin's reconstruction carried out with the support of Prizren bishops Damjan and Sava, the latter later becoming Archbishop Sava III. The inscriptions also name the builder Nikola and the painter Astrapa as the Byzantine masters responsible for raising and decorating the episcopal seat in the fourteenth century.

The preserved frescoes in the church date from different periods. A fresco of the Virgin Eleusa with Christ the Nourisher was painted in the third decade of the thirteenth century. Two other frescoes from that time, the Wedding at Cana and the Healing of the Blind, are now kept in the Fresco Gallery of the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade.

The remaining frescoes, created between 1307 and 1313, are the work of the renowned Thessalonian painter Michael Astrapas and his assistants.

Like many other Serbian Orthodox shrines, the Virgin of Ljeviš was desecrated during the pogrom of March 2004, carried out by Albanian extremists against the Serbian population and holy sites. Its frescoes were heavily damaged by fire but were fortunately preserved and restored in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The restoration was conducted by the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments.

The post also notes related frescoes from King Milutin's era in the monastery of St. John the Theologian in Poganovo.