A miskolci ortodox templom és sírkertje (Miskolc, 2001)

A miskolci ortodox templom és sírkertje (Összegzés angolul) Zimányi Katalin

There are a lot of records, notes among the contracts in connection with the building of the church which are related to the origins of the iconostasis, each of the icons and the liturgical works of art. The icons of the same theme, the cult of St. Naum of Ohrid and the survival of this cult have called László Kárpáti'

s attention. Beside the painted panels (a full cycle of paintings), there are two copperplates from the 18

th century calling up the figure and memory of St. Naum. The last two ones were made by Hrisztofor Zsefárovics who had come to Miskolc more than once before his death in 1753. (Consequently his masterpieces had been the embellishments of the St. Naum Chapel once, from where they were taken to the Holy Trinity Church.) The explanation of the cult of St. Naum is that most of the traders had originated from Moszhopolisz (today: Vorskopojë, Albany). The place of their pilgrimage had been the monastery on the bank of the lake near Ohrid, which later became the centre of the archbishopric. It was the monastery named after John the Baptist where the relics of St. Naum were preserved. This way it was not by chance that the people living there and leaving for abroad kept and maintained the cult of the saint as a reminder of the homeland for a long time. A distinguished chapter of the study is concerned with the icons, the devotional pictures of the Greek Orthodox Church. It is obvious since among the relics of the ecclesiastical art the icons are in the centre of interest. The system of symbols and the store of artistic means of expression in icon painting are strictly settled. Therefore the workshops from where some articles of art had got into the church in Miskolc are of great importance. The articles inform us of the person of the master. The rules of the icon painting and the order of the arrangement of the icons were established in the Middle Ages. Up to the end of the 18

th century there were some provincial icon-painting workshops on the territory of Hungary and the communities, in case of need, either invited a painter or gave the work to an itinerant painter. In most of the Hungarian Orthodox churches the signs of the activity of a painter group from Moszhopolisz can be discovered. The head of the group of some masters and assistants was Theodor Gruntovics (Theodor Sina Krudi). Also we have some works of Jovan Csetir Grabován, another painter, Macedovlach by birth. His work in Miskolc is the icon portraying the coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (Experts have assigned this one icon to him though we can attribute some more works to him as well. No doubt he had lived several years in Miskolc.)