Enjoy the Bulgarian Black Sea coast with all senses

For Bulgarians, their Orthodox monasteries and churches are more than mere places and symbols of their religion. The monasteries in particular are also regarded throughout Bulgaria as historical nuclei and, in some cases, as living sites of Bulgarian culture that have been preserved to this day. Located mostly in the country's mountains, the strongholds and fortresses of Christian godliness made an important contribution to the country's prosperity and growth from the early Middle Ages onward. During the long period of Ottoman foreign rule, they also developed into centers of resistance that kept the light of Bulgarian independence shining even in the dark night of Turkish oppression.

Follow us on a small monastery tour of Bulgaria. Discover the fascinating, colorful and architecturally uniquely interesting world of Bulgarian monasteries, and learn more about their history, their art treasures and their current importance as contemplative and tourist highlights.

About 120 monasteries still exist in Bulgaria today. Scattered throughout the country, some of them are inhabited to this day by monks who continue to practice there their rituals unchanged through the centuries, sounding their chorales in sacred vaults and over sunny rocky heights. Others have stood abandoned for a long time, inhabited if at all only by a hermit or a cloistered monk. Each of these monasteries is such an elementary part of Bulgarian folk culture also because they are all together among the few constants in the turbulent Bulgarian history, rich in events and changes. The oldest monasteries are even older than Bulgaria itself. As early as in the 3rd century A.D. - and thus more than two hundred years before the first foundation of the Great Bulgarian Empire in 632 - Christians from the Near East came to the territory of today's Bulgaria in the course of the migration of peoples. Among them were many particularly pious men in search of markedly secluded places where they would found religious communities to devote themselves entirely to worship, the study of sacred scriptures, and the virtues of work and prayer. In the wild and, at that time, often completely untouched landscapes of the Bulgarian mountains with their natural caves, they found what they were looking for after a long wandering.

With the beginning of the Middle Ages, many of these initially quite small communities had already developed into prosperous abbeys, which underlined their importance through sometimes magnificent buildings and fortifications as well as through the elaborate design of their church rooms, and increasingly advanced to become economic and cultural points of reference for the villages and settlements in their surrounding areas. In the course of time, the monks also morphed from simply God-fearing and well-read men into a kind of practical and spiritual polymaths. Peasants and simple country people brought them sick people for treatment, learned herbal medicine, distillation and preservation of various foods from them.

There were also two monks who gave the Bulgarians their own written language. Around 900, at the suggestion of Emperor Constantine, the two brothers St. Methodius and St. Cyril created their own system of signs for notation of Slavic languages, independent of the Greek written language - the Cyrillic alphabet. In addition, from 1000 at the latest, Orthodox iconography developed in the monasteries as a sacred cultural technique for venerating saints and illustrating biblical stories. Monasteries, especially those located close to cities, also functioned as flourishing universities for the arts, literature and sciences, thus providing decisive impulses for the formation of high medieval Bulgarian society, which experienced a heyday between the 12th and 14th centuries.

Thus, at the height of the Middle Ages, the Bulgarian monasteries had long since become a reference system of their own, deeply rooted in the Bulgarian nation. However, with the onset of the Ottoman neighbors' rule over Bulgaria at the end of the 14th century, an abrupt caesura occurred. A caesura that was to last for over five centuries, during which the occupiers increasingly openly prevented the practice of the Christian religion and oppressed the Bulgarians with draconian harassment such as the blood toll - the surrender of the firstborn to the Turkish army.

Many monasteries were destroyed during the Ottoman occupation of Bulgaria. As Muslims, the foreign rulers at the time did not think much of Christian communities, for one thing. On the other hand, the monasteries were a thorn in their side as centers of the tenacious, long-lived and passionate Bulgarian resistance. For the majority of the Orthodox monks and popes, above all Bulgarians, did not think of submitting to the Ottomans of other faiths. Stubbornly and without regard to reprisals and threats, they insisted on their role as spiritual and cultural leaders of the Bulgarian people, who thanked them with fervent veneration. Through this stubbornness, despite many centuries of foreign rule and cultural oppression, almost all of what constitutes Bulgarian traditions, as well as the country of Bulgaria in general, has been preserved to this day.

It was not until 1878 that Bulgaria finally gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire after numerous uprisings and battles. But with the Balkan Wars and the Macedonian question, with World War I and World War II, as well as the subsequent phase of communism in Bulgaria, also and especially the monasteries had to endure hard times again. During the anti-religious decades of Soviet rule, many churches and monasteries were demolished, walled up or fell victim to communist prestige projects, such as the church in the village of Zapalnja in the Valley of the Roses, which sank in a reservoir. With the birth of the new Bulgaria in the late 20th century, however, a time dawned in which the monasteries can enjoy general as well as state popularity as symbols of cultural identity.

If you would prefer not only to read about the eventful history of Bulgaria and its monasteries, but to experience it firsthand, we recommend that you follow our small monastery route presented below during your next trip to Bulgaria. As a starting point we have chosen the village of Bassarbowo, located in the northeast, near the border with Romania.

For near this village, in the valley of the Rusenski Lom River, amidst the southern foothills of the Balkan Mountains, lies the Bassarbowski Cave Monastery, dedicated to St. Dimitar Bassarbowski. Spectacularly built into the mountain and its natural caves, its bell tower nestled against rugged rocks is an absolute must-see. In the lush green courtyard of the monastery, which can be reached via serpentine stone steps cut into the rock, there is a well whose water is said to have healing powers. Exploring the cave monastery with the rock church and its numerous terraces connected by stairs directly in the rock is an unforgettable experience in itself. Today, only one monk lives here as the last guardian of the monastery and as a keeper of the Orthodox tradition. Nevertheless, the place including its remarkably diverse iconic murals decorating also the exterior of various buildings is very well preserved and maintained.

According to legend, the present site of the monastery served early Christians as a home for their spiritual community, but was then abandoned for a long time until finally St. Dimitar Bassarbowski discovered it while tending his goats and reactivated it in the spirit of monastic service to the Lord. The first documented mention of the Bassarbowski Monastery as a settlement is already in an Ottoman tax register from the 15th century.

A no less exciting experience, which in its own way seems even more primeval, is a visit to the rock churches of Ivanovo, located only about 15 kilometers from Bassarbowo and declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as early as 1976, which in their diversity and interconnected totality form the Ivanovo Monastery. Here the term rock-hewn church becomes vividly tangible, because despite their treatment and adaptation by man, the caves designed as altar, functional and communal spaces appear largely raw and natural. Unique in the world are the numerous frescoes, some of which date back to the time of the first settlement of these caves by Syrian hermits in the 12th century and make visible a very early stage of development of Orthodox iconography. The most important and central church in the ensemble of rock-hewn churches is the rock-hewn church of the Virgin Mary.

Also in the southern Balkan Mountains, just seven kilometers outside Veliko Tarnovo, the ancient capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, is the Preobrazhenski Monastery, dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ. In this place, situated directly on a steep rock face, the whole radiance of Orthodox monastic culture unfolds in a group of architecturally unique buildings that blend effectively into the rugged landscape. The monastery's inventory includes handicraft treasures of immeasurable value, including numerous folios scribed and illustrated by hand by monks before the invention of printing.

The contemplative atmosphere of the place lives on to this day, the monastery and the surrounding nature, the mountains and forests breathe a kind of common monastic tranquility that blends charmingly with the mild southern European climate and the rich flora and fauna.

Located in southwestern Bulgaria, the Rila Mountains are home to the Rila Monastery, which was the epicenter of monastic resistance during the period of Ottoman rule. Founded in the 10th century, it is still considered the most important and largest monastery in the country, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the course of its history, the Rila Monastery was destroyed several times, the last time by a fire in 1833. Its current appearance corresponds to the new construction from 1834. Only a single building, the famous Chreljo Tower, dates back to the original construction period. The greatest attraction of the monastery, apart from its imposing view against the backdrop of the Rila Mountains and its unparalleled architecture worldwide, are the iconostasis and the narthex in the main church, which, according to unanimous art-historical doctrine, represent a holistic and multifaceted panorama of Bulgarian art throughout the 19th century. Among the subjects thematized by the artists there are also scenes that directly refer to the renewal of the Bulgarian nation at that time, to the struggle against the Turkish rule.

For almost all Bulgarians, the Rila Monastery is therefore a symbol of their national identity, of the indomitability of the Bulgarian soul. For no matter how many times it has been destroyed, suppressed or burned down - it has always risen again like a Phoenix from the ashes. Moreover, its first foundations were laid on the site of the cave where lived for a time none other than St. Ivan Rilski - the first Bulgarian hermit monk, the most important patron of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, founder and first inhabitant of the Rila Monastery.