The fresco painting of the narthex of Zrze and the liturgy of Holy Week

Abstract

The frescoes in the narthex of the Church of the Transfiguration at the Zrze Monastery near Prilep (1368/1369) depict several unusual themes, as well as a very rare iconography. The holy monks painted in the lower zone of frescoes can be interpreted as the three categories of monasticism: anchorites, representatives of coenobitic monasticism and monks who became the bishops and teachers of the Church. The remaining frescoes - an abbreviated cycle of Christ’s Passion with the Anapeson, the Holy Trinity in guise of the Hospitality of Abraham, with a heifer lamenting over a slaughtered calf, and the Communion of Apostles, with Judas heading communion with the wine - were painted under the influence of the liturgy served during Holy Week.

Keywords

• Byzantine painting
• Serbian art
• medieval art
• iconography
• liturgy of the Holy Week
• monastery of Zrze