Church of the Assembly of all Saints
Location: Balta Berilovac
Year of construction: 1876.
The Church of the Assembly of All Saints is located on the left bank of the Crnovrška River, on the right side of the road to Stara Planina, at the end of the village.
The beginning of its construction is taught to be 1872, and it is possible that the church was consecrated in 1876.
In the church there is a bishop’s throne made of wood as well as wooden stasidias along the north and south walls. In the churchyard, to the north of the church, there is the priests’ residence, in the form of a Moravian house with a porch and arches, built of post and petrail.
North-west of the church is a belfry of light wooden construction with a four-pitched tiled roof.
Gallery
Architecture
The church in Balta Berilovac is a long one-nave building. It is vaulted with a semi-circular vault and covered with a two-pitched roof made of tiles. It is built of solid material, plastered and painted outside and inside. It basically consists of an altar apse in the east and a nave of the church.
A smaller altar apse is somewhat narrower in relation to the width of the nave of the church, and lower in relation to the roof of the church. The apse is semi-circular on the outside and inside, it is arched with a semi-domed dome and covered with tiles.
In the altar apse, there are shallow semicircular niches for proscomidia on the north side, and a smaller square niche for the diaconicon on the south side. Above the altar apse, on the eastern wall of the church, there is a small circular window opening. In the nave of the church, in the higher areas under the vault, you can see wooden beams and iron weights. The facade of the church is simple, without additional decorations and architectural plastic. Under the roof cornice, along the side walls of the church, there is a system of wooden beams – weights attached with iron connectors.
Beneath this system, there are simple arched window openings placed slightly higher than usual, three each on the north and south sides. There is also a side entrance on the south wall of the church, indicated by a very shallow arched niche.
On the west side is the entrance to the church above which is a niche with the icon of the patron saint of the temple, above it is a small circular opening, and to the south is another shallow niche. The entrance is marked by a shallow portal recessed in relation to the mass of the walls, finished in an arch.
The iconostasis of the church in Balta Berilovac is the work of a painter (“zograf”) from the end of the 19th century. It is a simple wooden altar partition that can be divided horizontally into three zones. The iconostasis has suffered some inadequate interventions and some parts of the iconostasis have been painted over with oil paint.
The lower zone includes parapet panels decorated with floral motifs and richly decorated, gilded royal doors with a representation of the Annunciation above which are presented the Old Testament kings Solomon and David. The icons located north and south of the throne icons belong to this zone. On the north door is the icon of the Assembly of All Saints, then the icon of St. Nicholas, throne icons of the Holy Mother of God and Jesus Christ, and icons of St. John the Baptist. There are no icons or decorative elements on the southern doors.
In the upper zone there is an apostolic row of thirteen icons of saint apostles with icons of the Holy Mother of God and Jesus Christ. Some of the apostles are shown in pairs.
The interior of the church is painted white, but fragments of older paintings can be seen in some places in the church. On the central part of the vault in the nave of the church, there is a representation of God the Father made in egg tempera. On the north wall of the nave of the church there is an inscription above the stasidium: “Village of Mezdreja Zlatko Lukin”.
