Maintenance, restoration and consolidation works have started in the church of “Saint Mary”, a category I cultural monument, in the village of Malçan of the municipality of Finiq.

The news was announced by the Minister of Culture, Elva Margariti, who shared on social networks moments of work on the restoration of the church.

“After the design of the project by the Vlora Regional Directorate of Cultural Heritage and the approval by the National Council of Material Cultural Heritage, work has begun to systematize the territory around the monument; for consolidation of wall sections and fractures in the church’s masonry, restoration of doors and windows, tiling of the roof, etc., Margariti was writing.

According to Margariti, this church is another saved cultural monument thanks to the intervention that is being carried out.

Saint Mary’s Church in Malçan is a temple of the post-Byzantine period with special structural characteristics. The altar is lit by three small windows and has frescoes. The church consists of the main nave and the narthex. The nave is cross-shaped with a dome, of internal dimensions of 6.60 x 5.90 m, supported by four columns. On the eastern side, the nave is connected to the narthex.

Judging the way the narthex is structured it seems to have been built at a later stage.

The church does not preserve the date, but from architectural characteristics, as well as from the decorative elements, it shows to belong to the post-Byzantine period, built at the end of the 16-th century and the beginning of the 17-th century.

/a.p./