Църквата „Св. Николай” в село Катуница
The Church of St Nicholas, the village of Katunitsa

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with a monument, sporadically mentioned in scientific literature, of the earliest period of the Bulgarian National Revival: the Church of St Nicholas in the village of Katunitsa near Plovdiv. Decoration of the church––an iconostasis, icons and murals––has been commissioned on a regular basis well until the end of the period of the Bulgarian National Revival by a number of church donors living mostly in Katunitsa. The iconostasis and the icons in the Deesis tier painted by Zachary Zograph in 1834–1835, were dated to the earliest stage in the decoration of the church coetaneous with the construction of the building. Decades later, the Feast tire of icons were commissioned to be executed by different icon-painters along with the mural paintings at the naos of the church made by Alexy Athanasov. The latter were precisely dated to 1852. The same icon-painter painted the murals flanking the north entrance to the church in 1866. A thorough presentation of the church of the village of Katunitsa is of paramount importance not only because no attempts have been made to record it comprehensively, but also because it adduces examples of the earliest oeuvre of two of the most renowned and prolific icon-painters working in and in the vicinities of the city of Plovdiv, i.e. Zachary Zograph and Alexy Athanasov.

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