Painting 'windows to heaven'

Artist's three-year project brings ancient Byzantine icons to St. Sophia's in Albany

By MARC PARRY, Staff writer
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First published: Saturday, March 15, 2008

ALBANY -- The artist's routine begins with a prayer.

Then Altin Stoja sets to work, mixing pigment and gloss varnish in a plastic cup. He shades an image of the Virgin Mary's birth on a half-blank, 8-foot-wide canvas.

The scene unfolding off his brush exists in a Greek monastery. Stoja copies a calendar picture to recreate it at Albany's St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church.

The Albania-born artist is deep into a three-year project. His assignment is to paint eight giant murals for the domed nave, modern reproductions of ancient Byzantine iconography mounted on the walls of a church built in 1969.

"It's like technology -- the technology of 1,000 years ago," Stoja said.

Stoja, 34, is here on a special visa to paint in a style unfamiliar to many American artists, said the Rev. Pat Legato. His work is remaking the worship space of the area's biggest Greek Orthodox Church, a 400-family congregation on Whitehall Road.

Now is a special time of year for Christians.

The Western branch of the faith observes Palm Sunday this weekend followed by Holy Week which culminates next Sunday on Easter. For members of St. Sophia and other Orthodox Christians, who rely on the Gregorian calendar, Easter falls this year on April 27.

Stoja speaks softly and goes by his baptismal name, Efthimi. He listens to church music as he paints. He works in a makeshift studio filled with art books and pencil sketches.

His paintings outline the story of Christ's life in bright colors that both decorate the church and educate its members, especially the children, Legato said.

"When he put the baptism up, I said it looked like Jesus was going to jump off the wall," Legato said. He added, "It's part of our worship. We call them the windows to heaven."

Stoja, who is of Greek descent, couldn't worship growing up in Albania. The Communist government declared the country atheist. It closed mosques and churches. It persecuted believers.

As a budding high school art student in Tirana, the capital, he studied classic Byzantine icons. In 1993, after the government abandoned its anti-religion policy, Stoja was baptized. The reopening of Albania's borders allowed his family to emigrate to Greece in 1994.

How did he wind up in Albany?

The story dates to a reception in Stuyvesant Plaza, where Legato learned of Stoja through the artist's cousin, the party's caterer.

Legato was in the market for icons. He'd spoken with Greek artists who wanted nearly $1 million for the project.

But Legato liked Stoja's work. Now Stoja, who trained with Greek iconographers outside the town of Marathon, is on salary at the church.

Now, because of Stoja's work, Albany Aqua Ducks tours stop by the Whitehall Road church.

His most recent work went up last month. The painting depicts the recently deceased Virgin Mary, her body surrounded by robed apostles. Mounting the finished canvasses on the rough, rounded walls of the incense-thick sanctuary is one of the trickiest parts. He glues the paintings with silicone.

With another year left, he has three more murals to go. He hopes to stay in America and find work at other churches.

Legato thinks the artist should also undertake another project: marriage.

"Put that in there," the priest said. "Needs wife."

Marc Parry can be reached at 454-5057 or by e-mail at mparry@timesunion.com.

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