The frescoes of St Andrew’s Monastery, Volimes, Zante

By: | Post date: June 11, 2023 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: Culture, Greece

The museum features not just entire salvaged iconostases, but an entire fresco chamber from the monastery of St Andrew in Volimes, other side of the island (built 1595).

As I noted, frescoes were a feature of late Byzantine churches, which were not included in the Byzantine revival led by Fotis Kontoglou. I guess they were too impractical for 20th century church building.

As is all too typical of such frescoes, lots of randoms that got to visit, back before respect of old things was a thing, scratched KILROY WAS HERE on the fresco. If you zoom in, you can see an instance from the 1940s, and another from the 1840s.
You can also see a speech bubble from someone in the river of molten lava. The spelling is so bad, and the white paint stands out so much, I presume it is a later interpretation.
As far as I can make out: “Father Abraham have mercy on me, and send some water so I can moisten [can’t make out] my tongue.” Labelled “the rich man”: this is from Jesus’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
“Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.”

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