The oldest and most prominent church monument in the vicinity of NP Pelister

The church of St. George – Kurbinovo Village

In the distant 1191 (12th century) a small group of painters has painted the modest temple dedicated to St. George the Victorious, creating the most valuable artistic ensemble of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance pearl of Prespa – the Church of St. George. With an insurmountable contrast between the modest exterior and the magnificent Renaissance interior, in the bosom of Baba Planina, for centuries stands the humble home of the Angel of Kurbinovo under the watchful eye of his patron St. George the Victorious. The style of the master’s studio will be transferred to the cathedrals of Pistoia and Pisa, cities in the Italian region of Tuscany, at the end of the 12th century, where later, based on this type of fresco-painting, will flourish in the world-famous Italian Renaissance.

The monastery of St. Gorgi, which was declared a cultural monument in 1952, is located in the area of ​​the  Kurbinovo Village, near Lake Prespa, on the highway Bitola – Resen, on the former Roman “Via Egnatia” road, at the intersection “Makazi” , where a road separates to Prespa villages. At the village of Asamati, the road divides and one of the left branches leads to the village of Kurbinovo.

About 3 km above the village, under Mount Baba, ie. Pelister National Park has a beautiful panoramic view of Lake Prespa, where the church of St. George is  settled. It is a small, modest, one-nave building that is not known to be a church from afar, until the altar is noticed.

The merit for the introduction of the Church of St. George in science, with the first decryption of the frescoes and the exact dating based on stylistic analysis belongs to the Serbian art historian Radivoje Ljubinkovic, author of the first monograph on Kurbinovo – Old Church of Village Kurbinovo – Prespansko Jezvero – published in 1942. . The first controversy was over the dating of the church. Towards the end of 1958, this dilemma was resolved, with the conservatives under the leadership of A. Nikolovski and Z. Blazic, when a record of the “Honorary Table” was discovered, in the northern part of the altar – April 25, 1191. In 1961, at the 12th Congress of Byzantine Scientists in Ohrid, the first light was shed on the discovery and significance of the Church of St. George.

Read more about the great significance of this monument on the website of the Prespa-Pelagonija Orthodox Diocese (http://www.pppe.mk/2017/sveti-gorgi-kurbinovo-renesansniot-biser-na-prespa/).