The church of Agioi Anargyroi marks the beginning of the walking route along the Great Gorge. It is located at the end of the road, connecting the archaeological site with the modern city of Servia. It is a single-space church built on a small rock outside the external walls of the Byzantine city. The church has a gable roof and a rectangular arch on its eastern side. The church’s rich brick ornamentation was discovered during the restoration works, as the church walls had previously been covered with thick plaster on the outside. Based on its architectural features, the church has been dated to the second half of the 11th century.

The interior of the church is fully wall-painted. A simple iconographic program is applied, developed in three zones on the walls of the church: in the upper zone, there is a narrow band with half-length figures of prophets; in the middle zone, there are scenes of the Twelve Great Feasts, and in the lower zone, which is the largest, there are full-length figures of saints, culminating in the depiction of the Great Deesis on the north wall. On the east side of the church, the program includes the Ascension of Christ and the Annunciation of the Virgin. At the same time, in the niche, the Virgin Mary is painted with reverent angels, and below that, Melism is depicted with concelebrant hierarchs. The church’s west wall is covered by a large composition that includes the depictions of the Assumption of the Virgin and the Transfiguration, and lower down, there are full-faced saints, with the figures of the Prophets being omitted on this wall.

The stylistic analysis of the church’s wall paintings has shown that the currently visible painting constitutes the second layer of frescoes of the church. It was painted by two arists and must be dated to the 16th century. The inscription above the entrance to the church provides additional information about its decoration and reads as follows:

+ This divine and most sacred church / of the holy and miraculous Anargyres Cosmas and Damian / was painted during the god-beloved bishop Gerontius by the effort and resources of the Orthodox Christians / in the year ZIH

Older scholars have read the year of the church’s erection

noted on the inscription as ΖΡΗ, i.e., 1600; the latest research has proved

with epigraphical and stylistic evidence that the year written on the inscription is ZIH, i.e., the year 1510. From this inscription, we learn there was a bishop in Servia called Gerontius during this period, for whom we have no further information from the sources. We also learn that the

wall-painted decoration of the church was made with a collective sponsorship of the Orthodox Christians of Servia, a practice that was not very common in the early 16th century. The wall paintings of the second phase in this church have been associated with the painters of the so-called “Kastoria workshop” and are aligned with the artistic trends of the Orthodox communities in the wider region of Macedonia and Thessaly towards the end of the 15th century and early 16th century.

The first phase of the church’s wall paintings is now covered by

the wall paintings of the next phase, but a small part of the older painting is still visible in the depiction of the Melism on the eastern part of the church. Scholars have dated this first layer between the 11th and the 13th centuries.