According to another tradition, the Byzantine Emperor donated the miracle-working icon of the Virgin, known as Labovitissa (Greek: Λαμποβίτισσα).

[7] Each year on the day of the Dormition of the Theotokos, a procession of the Holy Cross fragment with the Labovitissa icon took place to the adjacent villages.

According to claims in the Albanian press, it was stolen by the daughter of Enver Hoxha, former head of the People's Republic of Albania.

[12] Several architectural elements found at the exterior of the building, such as the dome, the windows and the combination of brick- and stonework, are influenced from contemporary Byzantine churches in western Macedonia.

[14] The fishbone pattern of the exterior is also found in a number of contemporary church buildings in Epirus, western Macedonia and Lakonia, in Greece, although not a quite common feature in Byzantine architecture in general.