Story
The story of Bachkovo Monastery
The story of this monastery begins with a Georgian prince in Byzantine service. In 1083 Prince Gregory Pakourianos founded it on the right bank of the Chepelare River, and he insisted that his monks know the Georgian language; Greeks were generally not allowed to join. He also set up a school for young people, teaching religion alongside mathematics, history and music.
That is why Bachkovo is known for its unique blend of Georgian, Byzantine and Bulgarian culture. The only part left from the original monastery is the ossuary, 300 metres from today's complex: a two-storey building whose ground floor holds 14 burial niches, in a style found nowhere else in the world. Tsar Ivan Alexander was a patron, and his image appears on the arches of the ossuary's narthex.
After being looted and destroyed, the monastery was restored near the end of the 15th century, and the Church of Mary you see today was finished in 1604. Patriarch Euthymius rests here.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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