The wonderful medieval Church of the Dormition of St Mary with its ornate 1807 wooden icon screen is reason enough to enter – and then there's the fabulous collection of 200 Albanian Orthodox icons, many painted by local artist master Onufri. In 1968, a small metal box was discovered in the crypt, holding the invaluable 6th-century Purple Codex of Berat, a book now inscribed on the UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, and safely stored in Tirana's National Archive.