Subscribers to the Yugoslav magazine Svet in March 1964 experienced excitement: the magazine presented them with an amazing message, bordering on a sensation. Readers have seen exciting headlines, strange illustrations and comments on the pages of the weekly:
The "Miracle" in Decani was opened in early 1964. Aleksandr Paunovich, a student at the Yugoslav Academy of Painting, made photographs of frescoes, including the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, using a telephoto lens. What was previously not possible to consider in detail, since the frescoes are at a height of fifteen meters, has become accessible to the ordinary naked eye. Details were revealed that no one had noticed before …
The Svet magazine has placed a number of photo reproductions on its pages and accompanied them with strange headlines:
"Spaceships on the Dechansk crucifix?"
"Satellites in our frescoes"
"Did the ancient icon painters paint spaceships in Dechany?" and etc.
Promotional video:
Several issues of the magazine were devoted to the sensation. Of greatest interest are numbers 385 of March 10 and 386 of March 17, 1964. In them we see pictures of frescoes depicting angels flying in … spaceships that look like modern satellites. The magazine even included a drawing of the first three Soviet Earth satellites for comparison.
There are two "ships" on the frescoes, both fly one after the other. In the first one sits a man without an angelic halo. He holds on to the invisible "control lever" with one hand and looks back. One gets the impression that the "cosmonaut" is watching the flight of the comrade following him.
In the rear "ship" there is a similar character, who also does not look like a traditional angel. He also holds on to the "control system" with one hand.
Both "ships" are streamlined. The "jet" jets are clearly visible, further emphasizing the swiftness of the flight. The magazine notes: "Saints in flying machines are in pilot positions."
The "angels" watching the flight closed their eyes and ears with their hands and recoiled from the spectacle in horror, as if fearing that this spectacle might blind them, and the sound made by unknown flying bodies would deafen them.
Below are two groups of people. The figures standing on the ground are painted with great realism and expressiveness. Their faces reflect bewilderment, fear, confusion.
The center of the panel composition is the figure of the crucified Jesus.
Thus, along with the traditional "canonical" details, the panel contains a number of apocryphal episodes, that is, interpreted differently from the official church dogmas.
The fresco "The Resurrection of Christ" under the "Crucifixion" also looks strange:
The magazine explains: "At the moment of resurrection, the Messiah is as if in a rocket that has not yet moved." Indeed, the resemblance to the outline of a rocket ship is complete if we add that two stabilizer wings are depicted in the upper part of the "ship". Christ with his right hand with an effort drags one of the people on earth with him into the “ship” for the journey to the “kingdom of heaven”.
One of the frescoes of the monastery also contains a "plot" that is not quite usual for this kind of painting: on it we see a picture of some workshop or laboratory. Among the tools, one can recognize wrenches, a caliper, something like universal wrenches, a jack, clamps, calipers, clamps, etc. The master (or owner) of the workshop is depicted sitting, wearily leaning on his left hand.
Decani monks, when experts asked them for explanations about the drawings of the "ships", replied that these were, apparently, images of the sun and the moon, because, according to the New Testament legend, when Christ was crucified, there was an eclipse of the sun.
In other places of the temple there are also images of the sun, but in the usual manner. There is an opinion that these drawings depict comets, however, the question immediately arises on the basis of what the artist's wild fantasy placed people in the “comets” ?!
The magazine naturally asks:
1. What do the “satellites” depicted in the frescoes really represent?
2. What inspired the creator of the fresco to depict the heavenly bodies?
3. Is it known who the artist was?
In one of the publications about the "Decan miracle" there is a reference to the hypothesis according to which Christ was a man who supposedly came from outer space. The magazine calls such ideas “more than daring”, believing that the confirmation of this hypothesis “would fundamentally change the biblical story about Christ” (Svetlana Levashova gives truthful information about Jesus Christ in the 1st volume of her book “Revelation”). argues: “It is known that our masters of frescoes drew their inspiration mainly from apocryphal stories (these stories popularly, visually, with a great deal of imagination interpret the Bible). Meanwhile, we do not know of such literature, on the basis of which the artist from Dechansk painted such details on the frescoes”. It is also noted that the frescoes represent “a complete surprise for both uninformed persons and specialists,since the similarity of the drawings with satellites is obvious.”The magazine also refers to the hypothesis that at some time the Earth was visited by a mysterious spacecraft …
An hour and a half from Moscow, in Zagorsk, in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, in the church-archeological office of the Moscow Theological Academy, there is an icon "Resurrection of Jesus Christ" dating back to the 17th century:
In this icon we see Christ in a kind of streamlined container, which also vaguely resembles a spaceship standing on the ground. Smoke emanates from the bottom of the container in both directions, covering the legs of the angels standing on each side. As in the Decan fresco, Christ with his right hand carries a person with him (according to the church version, this is Adam; Eve, on the other hand, is waiting for her turn).
The icon undoubtedly has an apocryphal character. It can be assumed that there was a written apocryphal, which interpreted the "resurrection" and "ascension" of Christ in an unusual way, different from the canonical church version. The fate of this apocryphal is unknown to science. Perhaps it was destroyed by the church censorship or died as a result of the unforgiving time. It is also possible that it is still kept somewhere undiscovered. He could have inspired some icon painters and masters of temple painting who painted "cosmic" plots. In any case, there is a basis for curious reflections on the possibility of interpreting this apocryphal plot. As in the case with the images of "light bulbs" in ancient Egypt [1], we can talk about the penetration of some secret, much more ancient images copied by artists on the frescoes of the Decan monastery.
Of course, Jesus was not a spaceship pilot or an alien who descended from heaven, but when they began to create the first icons and frescoes, in an attempt to emphasize the divine-heavenly origin of Jesus, they began to draw him against a kind of "canonical background" - the true origin of which is revealed here. Many Hindu gods are written against such a "canonical oval background", but more about them and the origin of "halos" …
More about Dechansky monastery
In southern Yugoslavia, in Kosovo Metohija, between the towns of Pecs and Dzhakovitsa, there is the Dečany Monastery, founded in the 14th century under King Stephen III.
The construction of the monastery lasted eight years - from 1327 to 1335. On one of the portals, there is an inscription that says that the monastery was built by “Fra Vita, a monk of the Order of the Little Brothers, a protomaster from Kotor, the royal city”. It is also known that the monk-builder had assistants - proto-master George with brothers Dobroslav and Nikola. They were all experienced craftsmen who had already built several Serbian churches by that time. By 1350, the interior of the monastery church was painted with numerous frescoes. It is believed that by the number of frescoes (there are over a thousand of them here), Dechany is one of the richest monasteries in Europe.
In 1389, "the sun of Serbian freedom went down": in the Kosovo field, Turkish troops defeated the army of Serbs and Bosnians, and for Serbia almost five centuries of Turkish slavery began. The monastery also suffered in the battle. The widow of the Kosovar hero Prince Lazar, Princess Milica, with her two sons, hurried to Dečany to put the monastery in order, and under the Turks the monastery remained the center of medieval Serbian writing, arousing the wrath of the enslavers who sought to kill the passionate desire for independence in the Serbs. The Turks brutally persecuted the Dechan monks: they persecuted them, tortured them, executed them. It is known that in the 16th century, work was carried out to restore the monastery. Goldsmith Kondé Vuk and painter Longin worked here. In addition to them, the painting was carried out by a Serb artist named Srdj, who left his mark on the capital of one of the columns. The frescoes painted inside the monastery church in Decani are diverse in theme. Approximately twenty different cycles are illustrated, covering scenes from the Old and New Testaments, from the life of John the Baptist, St. George, the Acts of the Apostles, from the church calendar. Many historical figures are depicted here: church dignitaries, almost completely the family tree of the first rulers of the Serbian kingdom - Nemanichi is presented. Among the historical portraits is the image of the founder of the monastery, King Stephen III of Decansky.church dignitaries, the genealogy tree of the first rulers of the Serbian kingdom - Nemanichi is almost completely represented. Among the historical portraits is the image of the founder of the monastery, King Stephen III of Decansky.church dignitaries, the genealogy tree of the first rulers of the Serbian kingdom - Nemanichi is almost completely represented. Among the historical portraits is the image of the founder of the monastery, King Stephen III of Decansky.
Decani has always attracted many tourists, both domestic and foreign, not counting the pilgrims. The monastery retained its importance not only as a place of worship for religious people, but also as a monument of medieval Serbian architecture and painting.
