Rila Monastery
UNESCO-listed monastery in the Rila mountains, with striped arcades and a fourteenth-century stone tower.
The monastery traces its origin to the hermitage of St John of Rila, who withdrew to the mountain in the tenth century; his followers founded a community near his cave. The oldest surviving structure is Hrelyo's Tower, a fortified stone keep of 1334–35 built by the feudal lord Hrelyo Dragovol, together with its small chapel. Successive fires and raids destroyed most of the rest, and a fire in 1833 left only the tower and a few outbuildings standing.
Rebuilding began in 1834 under the master builder Alexi Rilets, producing the four-storey residential ranges with their black-and-white striped arcades and about 300 rooms around a cobbled courtyard. The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin, finished in 1837, carries external frescoes painted in part by Zahari Zograf and a gilded iconostasis carved between 1839 and 1842. The complex was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983 and holds a museum of manuscripts, icons and ethnographic material.
Highlights
- Hrelyo's Tower of 1334–35, the oldest building on the site
- Striped arcaded galleries around the cobbled courtyard
- External frescoes of the main church, partly by Zahari Zograf
- Museum holding Rafail's Cross and monastic manuscripts
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