Реставрация на свети двери от църквата „Св. Параскева” в град Бяла
Restoration of the Royal Doors from the Church of St Paraskeva in the Town of Biala

Summary/Abstract: The unexamined until now doors of the iconostasis at the Church of St Paraskeva in the town of Biala with the representations of the Annunciation, St Basil the Great, St John Chrysostom, Gregory the Theologian and St George, were restored in 2013 by the National Academy of Art. Following in-depth analyses, removal of a thick layer of over-paintings and the overall restoration, some important facts of the monument’s past were established alongside its stabilization. A donor’s inscription was discovered in the area with the figure of Archangel Gabriel featuring the name of the donor, Sfrancis Reidzis. Despite the missing year of painting, on the base of a comparative analysis of the saints on the doors of the iconostasis at the Church of St Stephen from Nessebar (National Museum of History), the doors from Biala could be dated too. According to the existing publications, the doors at the Church of St Stephen were painted in 1660 or 1661, yet a careful perusal of the donor’s inscription on them reveals that they have been made in 1606. The paint technology and the similar manners of the two monuments under consideration show that the doors from Biala also date from the early seventeenth century being part of the production of the Nessebarbased icon-painting workshops of the late sixteenth and the early seventeenth century.

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