Sv. petka, Brajcino

In the village of Brajcino, one of the wonderful villages in the vicinity of Prespa, famous for their wonderful architecture and residents’ hospitality, there is a monastery and church dedicated to St. Petka located immediately above the highest houses in the village. If you visit the monastery, you will find out that besides the great cultural and historical significance, it is also one of the most frequently visited places by the locals. It is a place of worship and reverence. The church has been well preserved and maintained. Its overnight shelters have been nicely redecorated and the yard carefully tended.

Sveta Petka - Brajcino

Although the overnight shelters are renovated, monks do not live there today. It is certain that it was once the case, probably until the time when the monastery was abandoned and the monks deserted it for unknown reasons.

Looking back into the history of the monastery, we cannot trace the time in which the church was constructed. Over its west entrance to the Naos, on the inside, there is an inscription from the time when the church was constructed. Unfortunately, the inscription was rather damaged in the part where the year of its construction was written.

The Church of St. Petka is a small single-nave building, not vaulted, with a hemispheric apse on the outside and an irregularly prolonged elliptical look on the inside. A narthex was added on the west side at the time of its renewal. The walls of the church are made of plaster and covered with lime on the outside.

The interior and the west facade are painted with frescoes. There are frescoes in the Naos that date from two periods: the first is the 16th century, and the second from the 18th century. The first set of icons is of higher artistic value and done on examples from the classical period.

The frescoes from the west facade are divided into three zones. The portrait of the patron of St. Petka Church is depicted in the nisa. All frescoes are of the same time as the first level of frescoes in the naos.

Today, visitors can see the remains of the iconostasis in the church. They are, however, the iconostasis made in the 18th Century, the time when the church was renovated, while we have neither information nor remains of icons from the old decorations of the church. In the new iconostasis in the church we can see the icons of Jesus Christ, St.Petka, the Royal Gates and half of the act.

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