Troyan Monastery

The monastery Trojan ( Bulgarian Троянски манастир / Trojanski manastir ), formally Dormition of the Mother of God ( Bulg Успение Богородично / Bogorodichno Assumption ), is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery and is considered the third largest monastery in Bulgaria.

Location

The monastery Trojan lies between the villages Cherni Osam and Oreshak, about 10 km from the city of the same name in the northern slopes of the central Balkan Mountains, approximately in the center of Bulgaria on the left bank of the river Cherni Osam. From the city, public bus services run regularly and marked hiking trails to the monastery ( about 4 hours).

Name

The name of the town and the monastery is derived from the ancient Roman road, the Via Traiana, which combined with Moesia, Thrace and the Aegean Sea. The origins of the monastery, up to the time before 1600, back to track. Written records are but only assume from the 17th century.

History

After the conquest of the Second Bulgarian Empire by the Ottoman Turks, the monastery was destroyed several times and killed the monks living in them. Only in the era of the Bulgarian Revival period the monastery was built with new homes again, as most are from the 30s and 40s of the 19th century. Over time, the role of the monastery as an educational center is growing. There was a printing company that manufactured punching with Abbey views. 1869 a monastery school was founded in some cases up to 100 students were taught from the surrounding villages. In the 1870s the monastery was active in the Bulgarian liberation struggle against the Turks involved and offered many times accommodation for revolutionaries and guerrillas. Thus, the Bulgarian freedom fighter Vassil Levski founded here, with the support of the monks a revolutionary committee (→ Internal Revolutionary Organization).

Worth to see the murals in the courtyard, especially the monastery church, which was built in 1835 by Master Konstantin from Peschtera. Your written around 1849 murals are the work of the eminent Bulgarian icon painter Zahari Zograph. Of great artistic value is the wood-carved iconostasis, the work of a local wood carver, as well as the wood carvings in St. Nicholas Chapel, which were created in 1794 by the monk Kiprijan. In addition, the monastery is known for its miraculous icon of the Mother of God with three hands.