St. Ahac's Church
St. Ahac’s Church in Prilesje is the real gem of the municipality’s cultural heritage. The church is renowned for its frescoes dating back to 1560, which had a significant impact on Slovenian painting.
Location: Prilesje
Branch church of St. Ahaca is one of the more interesting rural architectural and art-historical monuments in Primorska. Surrounded by a wall and a cemetery, it stands a bit far from the village of Prilesje pri Plava. Its characteristic appearance – with a bell tower on a horsehair with double, segmentally finished lines – can also be seen from the road leading from Nova Gorica towards Kanal. There is a stone sprinkler in front of the entrance to the church, and we enter it through a pointed Gothic stone portal covered by a shed at the same height as the nave of the church. This is a feature that is rarely found in sacral objects. On the walls of the shed are visible the remains of the frescoes of St. Kristofa, which was restored years ago by Rudi Pergar.
The greatest value of the building are the paintings inside. Frescoes decorate the entire presbytery with vault, triumphal arch and nave. According to experts, they were created around 1460-1470 and are the work of a succession of Friulian masters. However, since they show a great kinship with the paintings on Suha near Škofja Loka and Bodešče, the term Suška-Prilješka-Bodaš fresco direction has become established in the literature. The iconography of the frescoes shows connections with the cultural circle of Gorenja, but according to experts, the roots of this group of painters are from Posočje. Namely, it is assumed that this group of frescoes is the local succession of masters from the Friuli workshops, since they traveled through this part of Primorska towards Gorenjska from the second half of the 14th to the beginning of the 15th century and created on this way. This Suška-Priješka-Bodeška group is characterized by a realistic plastic style with pronounced idealistic tendencies of Gothic realism, and the special color in the images of the paintings shows the influence of the Friulian style of painting. The same group probably also painted the presbytery in the Avče and Goljevica nad Anhovi churches.
About the church of St. A legend circulates around Ahaca, which says that it was built by a certain count who, along with his horse, was swept away by a swollen stream on the way from Tolmin to Brdo. Baje still had time to make a vow during the water fight, which he later fulfilled, otherwise this beautiful Gothic monument would not have existed.
The story of St. Ahac and his fellow martyrs, which was the basis for the work of the fresco masters in this church, probably arose from the desire to instill courage in the soldiers. St. Ahac - the warrior - is still worshiped today in Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Austria. On the day of St. Ahaca on June 22, the Slovenian army is said to have defeated the warriors of the Bosnian Pasha Hasan, who wanted to invade today's Croatian and Slovenian territory.
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