The Shirgj Church, also known as the Monastery of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, is a ruined former Benedictine monastery in the village of Shirgj on the river Buna in northern Albania. The church was built by Serbian Queen Helen of Anjou in 1290, dedicated to Saints Sergius and Bacchus, allegedly on top of a pre-6th century basilica according to circumstantial evidence. However, no archaeological evidence exists of a prior structure.
An image of the 1890s by Jules Alexandre Théodore Degrand
The ruins nowadays
The Buna river, also known as Bojana, is a 41-kilometre-long (25 mi) river in Albania and Montenegro which flows into the Adriatic Sea. An outflow of Lake Skadar measured from the source of the lake's longest tributary, the Morača, the Morača-Shkodra Lake-Bojana system is 183 km (114 mi) long.
Buna River near Shkodër
Aerial view the river's mouth, where it flows into the Adriatic
The Buna river in Shkodër, Albania