Gornoezerovo Manastir: Church of the Holy Archangel Michael in Serbia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Serbia
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Serbian
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
History
Gornoezerovo manastir is the Church of the Holy Archangel Michael in Prilike, Serbia, a Serbian Orthodox sanctuary dated to the fifteenth or sixteenth century and noted for its very old architectural conception. It belongs to the Žiča Eparchy, an administrative diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and is dedicated to the Archangel Michael.
The church was probably destroyed during the Ottoman occupation. After the restoration of the Peć Patriarchate, the Serbian Orthodox patriarchal institution restored in the sixteenth century, a new church was probably raised on the foundations of an earlier sanctuary. The building was renovated in 1860.
The interior walls have not been investigated, so the question of fresco decoration remains unresolved. An icon of the Virgin and Child dated 1814 is preserved on the iconostasis, the screen separating the sanctuary from the nave and bearing icons.
Remains
The church is a single-nave building organized around a principal worship space and a semicircular altar apse, the sanctuary end of the church. A dome rises above the nave and is carried by four arches. Pendentives, curved structural elements that transfer the dome’s weight to the arches, support the transition between the square support system and the dome.
The dome rests on a nine-sided drum, the supporting section beneath it, with a visible four-sided base. Each side of the drum has one window. Around the exterior walls runs a cornice of blind arcades, shallow decorative arches that do not open through the wall. This feature is characteristic of medieval Serbian sacred architecture. The 1814 icon of the Virgin and Child remains associated with the church’s iconostasis.
