Monstery and Shën Mërisë Hyjlindëse Church, Zvërnec

The monastery and the church of Shën Mërisë Hyjlindëse, is built on a picturesque site on the northwest part of the city of Vlora. The church is surrounded by monastery environment, a building with traditional architecture, and a shed on the second floor that opens to the church.It is a cross-type church with a dome, a narthex, as well as an exnarthex of an open porch on the north side, which are added later.

The naos has the shape of the cross in planimetry, with the eastern and wastern arms longer than the northern and the south arms. At the end of eastern arm there is absida. The altar environment is separated from naos by a wooden iconostasis engraved with floral and zoomorphic figures. The cylindrical vaults bear the weight of the dome on the tumbler, which rises above the spherical triangles.

The church is a building of architetectural values. The builders have achieved this through the treatment of the arched facades, the fragments of the walls through the wings of the cross and the dome on the drum that underline the verticality, which balances to some extent the extension of the narthex. From the designing form and construction  technique it is thought that the church was built in the second half of the 14th century.