Lina Mendoni visits Kurbinovo after fresco conservation completed

Greece's culture minister Lina Mendoni visited the 12th-century church of St. George in Kurbinovo, Prespa, accompanied by North Macedonia's culture minister Sedat Sulejmani. The visit highlighted a cross-border restoration project that ran from 2022 until 2025 and focused on the church's important fresco program.

Joint restoration and visible results

The stone church, dated to 1191, houses a series of Byzantine frescoes including the famed angel above the altar often called the Angel of Kurbinovo; that image also appears on North Macedonia's 50 denar banknote. Teams from both countries worked on-site to conserve and restore the paintings, a process completed in 2025.

The restoration was carried out in partnership with the European Centre for Byzantine and Post‑Byzantine Monuments (EKBMM) in Thessaloniki and local Macedonian specialists. Conservators used modern materials and new technologies to stabilise the paintings, secure fragile edges and undertake painstaking cleaning that revealed vivid colours and fine details.

"During the conservation of the frescoes in Kurbinovo our team used the most advanced methods in documenting the pathology and the most advanced technological tools on such a large scale, so we consider Kurbinovo the best‑studied monument of the Byzantine world. The cooperation with colleagues from Bitola was excellent and was based on mutual respect. The result of this bilateral cooperation is extremely successful," said Dr. Flora Karajani, a Byzantinist from Thessaloniki, in 2024.

The Greek delegation included Taxiarchis Kolias, chairman of EKBMM's board, Flora Karajani, director of the centre, Janis Malukos, Greece's ambassador to Skopje, and Olympia Vikatu, secretary‑general of the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Officials noted that Mendoni and the Greek team were the first to pass through the Markova Noga‑Lemos border crossing, currently under construction and expected to be completed by the end of 2027. The ministers stressed that the restoration work is a tangible result of shared expertise and institutional cooperation between the two countries.

Work still remains on the church exterior. Conservation of the outer façade has been delayed because the building borders private land and the paperwork is incomplete: the Cultural Heritage Protection Authority said it received a statement from only one of several owners, and that the company that certified the restoration project does not hold the required licence for project documentation and authorisations. On 22 June 2026 former culture minister Zoran Ljutkov claimed that the long‑standing 13‑year issue over a protective canopy had been resolved and that permissions had been obtained from the parcel owners, but the authority's findings differ.

The visit followed a recent meeting in which the culture ministers of Greece, North Macedonia and Albania signed a declaration to submit a joint nomination to inscribe the Prespa region on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Photo: SDK.MK)