Church of Saint Nicetas in Banjane (Macedonian and Serbian Cyrillic: ''Свети Никита'') is a medieval

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...

church in the village of Banjane, midway between this and the villages of Čučer-Sandevo and Gornjane (thus it is also often referred to as Saint Nicetas in Čučer). The church and all the villages are a part of Čučer-Sandevo municipality,

North Macedonia North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...

. The church nowadays belongs to the Skopje diocese of the Ohrid Archbishopric.

History

The monastery and church, dedicated to Saint Nicetas, was built by the

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

king Milutin Stefan Uroš II Milutin ( sr-cyr, Стефан Урош II Милутин, Stefan Uroš II Milutin; 1253 – 29 October 1321), known as Stefan Milutin ( sr-cyr, Стефан Милутин, Stefan Milutin), was the King of Serbia between 1282& ...

ca. 1300 on the ruins of a previous church. The monastery was donated by

Milutin Milutin ( sr, Милутин) is a Serbian masculine given name of Slavic origin. The name may refer to: *Stephen Uroš II Milutin of Serbia Stefan Uroš II Milutin ( sr-cyr, Стефан Урош II Милутин, Stefan Uroš II Milutin; 125 ...

short after their construction to the Serb monastery

Chilandar The Hilandar Monastery ( sr-cyr, Манастир Хиландар, Manastir Hilandar, , el, Μονή Χιλανδαρίου) is one of the twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Mount Athos in Greece and the only Serbian monastery there. It wa ...

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; el, Ἄθως, ) is a mountain in the distal part of the eponymous Athos peninsula and site of an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism in northeastern Greece. The mountain along with the respective part of the peni ...

. St Nicetas was thoroughly renovated in 1484.

Architecture

Saint Nicetas has a simple cross-in-square base with a central come standing on pandantifs and four columns. The outer decoration is typically

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

, done in layers of stone and red brick. The nicest decoration is to be found on the wall of the apse.

Fresco paintings

The signature on the shield of St Theodore reveals that the church was painted by the famous Michael, son of Eutichios, the favorite court painter of

King Milutin Stefan Uroš II Milutin ( sr-cyr, Стефан Урош II Милутин, Stefan Uroš II Milutin; 1253 – 29 October 1321), known as Stefan Milutin ( sr-cyr, Стефан Милутин, Stefan Milutin), was the King of Serbia between 1282& ...

who painted many other of his churches as well (for example

Staro Nagoričane Staro Nagoričane ( mk, ) is a village in North Macedonia and the seat of the Staro Nagoričane municipality. The village is primarily known for its 11th century Church of St. George, first constructed in 1071 during Byzantine Macedonia, and rec ...

). The frescoes are well preserved and all date from around 1324, except those in the dome which are from 19th century, done by the well-known Dimitar "Dičo Zograf" Krstević. One of the reasons for their good condition was the renovation of 1484 done in an astonishingly modern manner by the group that fresco painted

Treskavec Monastery The Monastery of Treskavec ( mk, Манастир Трескавец), or St. Bogorodica, is a monastery situated on the rocky Mount Zlatovrv, 8 km north of Prilep, in North Macedonia. Built in the 12th century, it currently has only one ...

(1483), old katholikon of the Monastery of Great Meteoron (1483) and the church of St Nicholas of the Nun Eupraxia in Kastoria (1486). In the lowest section are represented life size figures of saints. In the middle section we see

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

's miracles while in the upper parts of the church are representations of Passion. The inscriptions are in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Church Slavonic Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Her ...

of Serbian redaction.

Iconostasis

The

iconostasis In Eastern Christianity, an iconostasis ( gr, εἰκονοστάσιον) is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. ''Iconostasis'' also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed a ...

of the church was painted in 1846/47 by Dičo Zograf.

References

{{Authority control Čučer-Sandevo Municipality Macedonian Orthodox churches Byzantine church buildings in North Macedonia Nemanjić dynasty endowments Churches completed in 1307