The Sićevo Monastery Church of the Mother of God was frescoed in 1644 in the then prevailing spirit of restoration and return to general prosperity.

Monastery of St. Mother of God in the Sićevačka Klisura Gorge

For the same reason, St. Andronicus was painted in an unexpectedly honorary place, next to Sts. Constantine and Helena, while the Mother of God as the Source of Life is immediately above them. United in the same place, those two images are conceptually connected and brought together in the texts written in the 14th century by the greatest contemporary philosopher Nicephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos.

The naos western wall contains the fresco of St. Andronicus, a less known saint, placed in an important part next to Sts. Constantine and Helena, across from St. Sava and St. Symeon. Such theological freedom is justified in the intention to identify the figure of St. Andronicus with the Byzantine emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus (1282-1328). The reason for this identification is to emphasize the parallel in merits for the Christianity between Sts. Constantine and Helena and the Emperor Andronicus II, which brought welfare both to the people and the Church. Archbishop Danilo calls Andronicus II, the father-in-law of the King Milutin, "the ecumenical emperor of the new Rome - Constantinople, Sir Andronicus". His popularity remained unchanged even in the 17th century. Georgije Mitrofanović painted in the Chilandar dining room Milutin and Andronicus II together, the same way as they were painted in the Chilandar parvis, where Milutin proudly underlines that his father-in-law is "the Holy Emperor". The Mount Athos painters brought the cult of Andronicus II to the Balkan provinces in the 17th century. This great admirer of the Mother of God, who heartily supported the Mount Athos, found his place in the Mother of God's Church in the Sićevo Monastery. Out of understandable reasons, the figure of Andronicus II was hidden under the name and figure of the martyr St. Andronicus. His secular nature is insinuated by the type of clothes, as well. The allusion of the political conditions and hope for its improvement, as a noticeable characteristic of the 17th-century art of painting, is also registered in the Church of the Sićevo Monastery.

Monastery of St. Mother of God in the Sićevačka Klisura Gorge, the naos western wall
STS. CONSTANTINE, HELENA AND ANDRONICUS

On the other side, Nicephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos pointed out the building activities of Andronicus II in the restoration and repair of buildings in Constantinople, having called him "the new Constantine" and presenting him as "the picture of Constantine the Great". This text might have served as a literary model for the presentation of Andronicus II beside Sts. Constantine and Helena. Emperor Andronicus II became a synonym for the restoration and repair of temples, feasible even during the period of slavery, both in accordance with the heterodox authority laws and with the capabilities of new founders.

The composition of the Source of Life had the role of emphasizing the importance of the temple reconstruction, as well. The religious service for this feast was composed, again, by Nicephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos in the first decades of the 14th century. We learn from its introductory part that it was written for the feast of consecrating the restored church.

The mentioned manner of painting, intended and skillful, emphasizes the significance of the reconstruction of temples. This is also implied in the founder's note, from which we know that the temple is dedicated to the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, although this composition was not found in the fresco repertoire. This was also done intentionally, as a memory of the former temple. So, the painter offered to the contemporary believer both consolation and indication of the possibility of salvation.

In these troublesome times, the idea and act of reconstruction, as the general state of mind in the occupied Balkans, were of equal importance as the construction of a completely new temple. The aesthetic principles and intellectual aspirations of the Niš Region population originated from this attitude. Thanks to the secondary iconography, the messages of those times are legible even today.