The complex of churches of the 15 tiberiopolian martyrs
Sturmica (Tiberiopolis) in the old Christian period had a very important role in the christianizing of the population in the southeast territories of Macedonia. Because of that, the town represented a very important church / religious center with an Episcopal seat in the east of the river Vardar.
In the town itself, as well as in its suburbs and surroundings, numerous churches dedicated to the local martyrs and to other significant saints from that area were built. Thus, this town, following the example of Constantinople and many other towns on the coasts of Small Asia, Africa, has become the town of martyrs - martyropolis.
| The discovery of the complex of churches dedicated to the 15 tiberipolian martyrs, with the central tomb in which their relics are found, located in a late antique necropolis, indicates the cult towards these martyrs created in this Macedonian town where they were killed. According to the hagiographic manuscript of Teofilact of Ohrid, during the persecution of the preachers of the Christian faith, in the time of Julian Apostata (361, 363), a group of 15 martyrs perished. They were buried in the late antique necropolis out of the town where the Christians were buried. The necropolis lies on an older archaeological structure with a multicolored mosaic floor, whose motives indicate of a building technique of the 3th and 4th centuries. Among these motives, we find a cross, which suggests a cult Christian construction. |
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| St. 15 Tiberiopolian martyrs |
On the graves of these martyrs a cult church was erected. Around 1930, on the same place, a chapel was built, and around 1970 a temple, dedicated to the 15 martyrs. The excavations during the construction of this temple, have discovered a complex of church buildings, in the center of which, in the naos before the altar partition, a large tomb was found and nineteen standard graves. These graves were discovered just under the foundations of the church itself and around it.
In the larger vaulted central tomb, the bodies of the 15 martyrs were buried. The tomb is built of broken stone and mortar and the vault was made of bricks. On its north and south sides, crosses with widened ends were drawn. On the west side, in a collective portrait, the 15 martyrs are painted, represented from the waist up and arranged in three zones (4-6-5, from top to bottom). In this fresco-painting, with a genuine painting technique and use of a wide spectrum of colors, with emphasized individuality, in a posture of praying and out of any action, clearly shaped halos and gospels in their hands, are represented 15 martyrs who have sacrificed themselves for a high ideal - the approach to one faith and believing in one God.
Over the graves where their relics lie, a three-nave basilica was constructed, of which only a fragmented apse in the east has been preserved, and the north stilobat with two, different in style, fragmented marble bases. The basilica represents a cult construction - martyrium, built on the bodies of martyrs, which represents the oldest way of building a Christian temple in the Christian world on the Balkans and in the whole Mediterranean.
Over this basilica, a cross-shaped church was built with a central dome and four secondary domes in the shape of the legs of the cross. Its position regarding the central tomb is the same as the previous, three-nave basilica. The narthex is situated on its west side. The solution for the floor in the presbytery is with white and gray marble plaques in the opus sectile technique. Stone, bricks and mortar were used for the construction of this temple. The construction of a crypt is interesting - a relicviar in the shape of a cross with proportionally equal legs. Its purpose was to keep the relics of a martyr.
There is a possibility that its construction dates from the time of emphasized building activities carried out by Justinian in the construction of edifices of sacral character. Afterwards, the transformation of the basilica-type church in a crosslike temple inscribed into a rectangle is a characteristic of the same period. It is left to the archaeologists to discover this mystery in the future, and to the faithful to observe this cult.
D. Kareva
About the churches in Macedonia
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