Peshtera Monastery
Encyclopedia
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
monastery in western Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, located in the Mraka area at the village of Peshtera, near Zemen
Zemen
Zemen is a town in Pernik Province, western Bulgaria. Located near the Pchelina Reservoir on the banks of the Struma River, it is the administrative centre of a municipality....
, Pernik Province
Pernik Province
-Religion:Religious adherence in the province according to 2001 census:-Ethnic groups:Ethnic groups in the province according to 2001 census:145 642 Bulgarians ,3 035 Roma and 1155 others and unspecified .-Economy:...
. , the monastery is not operative.
The monastery was first mentioned in Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria
Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria
Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor of Bulgaria from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on February 17, 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history...
's Oryahov Charter
Medieval Bulgarian royal charters
The medieval Bulgarian royal charters are some of the few secular documents of the medieval Bulgarian Empire . The eight preserved charters all date to the 13th and 14th century, the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire, and were issued by five tsars roughly between 1230 and 1380...
of 1 December 1348, which indicated that that particular tsar of the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...
had donated to the monastery. According to some researchers, the eastern part of the modern church dates to the 14th century, while others claim it belongs to the Mount Athos
Mount Athos
Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the...
architectural type and is similar to Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
churches of the 16th-17th century, as well as the church of the nearby Poganovo monastery
Poganovo Monastery
The Monastery of St. Jovan Bogoslov or Poganovo monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery situated in the gorges of the river Jerma, near the village Poganovo, Dimitrovgrad, Serbia....
in what is today Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
dated to 1500.
The Peshtera Monastery was abandoned during the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria. It was only renovated in 1842 by Dimitar Molerov of the Bansko
Bansko
Bansko is a town and a popular ski resort in southwestern Bulgaria, located at the foot of the Pirin Mountains at an elevation of 925 m above sea level....
artistic school, with the financial aid of the monk Simeon and his son. During the liberational Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, however, it was burned by the retreating Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
troops who hanged
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
Simeon, with his son fleeing to the Rila Monastery
Rila Monastery
The Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila, better known as the Rila Monastery is the largest and most famous Eastern Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria. It is situated in the southwestern Rila Mountains, south of the capital Sofia in the deep valley of the Rilska River at an elevation of above sea level...
.
After the Liberation of Bulgaria
Liberation of Bulgaria
In Bulgarian historiography, the term Liberation of Bulgaria is used to denote the events of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 that led to the re-establishment of Bulgarian state with the Treaty of San Stefano of March 3, 1878, after the complete conquest of the Second Bulgarian Empire, which...
, a prolonged cella
Cella
A cella or naos , is the inner chamber of a temple in classical architecture, or a shop facing the street in domestic Roman architecture...
was added to the old church and it was turned into the altar
Altar
An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...
part. The new entrance from the west was designed as a three-arched portico
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...
with an arc-shaped pediment featuring a round window. A statue of the Ancient Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
god Mithras was unearthed during the reconstruction, leading to the assumption that a pre-Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
sanctuary existed at that place. Until the early 1990s, the monastery had a stone icon of Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas , also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek Bishop of Myra . Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker...
made in 1853 by master Stoimen of Lobosh, but it has disappeared.