St. Mary's Monastery ( sq, Manastiri Shën Mërisë) is a monastery in Kakome,

Vlorë County Vlorë County (; sq, Qarku i Vlorës) is one of the 12 counties of the Republic of Albania with the capital in Vlorë. The county spans and has a total population of 187,675 people as of 2021. It borders the counties of Fier and Gjirokastë ...

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

. It is a

Cultural Monument of Albania In Albania, a cultural monument ''()'' is a construction or work of cultural, historical and artistic value that is built in a visible space, made in memory of important events or prominent people. Cultural monuments are usually under state protect ...

Description and history

The church is a triconch (triple

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...

) edifice similar to the cross-and-dome models of the pre- Ottoman era. The

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

area are separated by a wooden iconostasis. Despite the long, narrow nave, the interior is spacious. The apses are covered by cylindrical arches opening to the central nave. The nave features four windows in the side apses, while the altar is illuminated by three more small windows. Four inner columns create a square platform on which the octagonal dome rests. The double-tiled roof is higher above the northern and southern apses. The church was built by the same craftsmen behind St. Mary's Monastery near

Sarandë Sarandë (; sq-definite, Saranda; el, Άγιοι Σαράντα, Ágioi Saránta) is a city in the Republic of Albania and seat of Sarandë Municipality. Geographically, the city is located on an open sea gulf of the Ionian Sea within the Medi ...

. The church was painted in

1672 Events January–March * January 2 – After the government of England is unable to pay the nation's debts, King Charles II decrees the Stop of the Exchequer, the suspension of payments for one year "upon any warrant, secur ...

by Mihal Jerma. The inscription is among the earliest examples of the

Albanian language Albanian ( endonym: or ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is spoken by the Albanians in the Balkans and by the Albanian diaspora, which is generally concentrated in the Americas, Europ ...

written in the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...

. The church was burned by the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. A 500-page leather-bound copy of the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s was stolen then and ended up in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

. The

bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...

was donated by the

King of Naples The following is a list of rulers of the Kingdom of Naples, from its first separation from the Kingdom of Sicily to its merger with the same into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Kingdom of Naples (1282–1501) House of Anjou In 1382, the Kin ...

1695 It was also a particularly cold and wet year. Contemporary records claim that wine froze in the glasses in the Palace of Versailles. Events January–March * January 7 (December 28, 1694 O.S.) – The United Kingdom's last joint monarch ...

and inscribed “Dedicated to the Captains of

Lukovë Lukovë is a village and a former municipality in the Vlorë County, southern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Himarë. The population at the 2011 census was 2,916.__и_innerhalb_der_historisc ...

” after the seat of the feudal lord of the area.

References

{{Religious Cultural Monuments in Vlorë County Churches in Albania Cultural Monuments of Albania Buildings and structures in Himara