Troyan monastery

The Troyan Monastery "Assumption" is a stauropegial monastery of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. It was founded around 1600 (Abbot Kalistrat), possibly before that. The legend speaks of monks from Mount Athos who go to Wallachia with the shrine of the monastery - the miraculous icon of the Mother of God Troeruchitsa, which is a copy of the old miraculous icon in the Hilendar Monastery (14th century). The Trojan monastery is growing rapidly. Very soon a wooden church dedicated to the Nativity of the Mother of God, a monastic residential wing and a small inn were built. Not long after, however, during the time of Abbot Callistrius of Lovech, the monastery was defeated by a Turkish gang. The abbot himself was beheaded.

 

In the first half of the 18th century the monastery grew again and became economically wealthy. At that time, a cell school began to function in it, which after 1765, when it was taken over by teacher Nikola Varbanov, became more and more famous. At the same time, the abbot Christopher, a native of Sopot, carried out the first major constructions in the monastery. He erected some new buildings and tightened the wooden church, and in 1771 he built its water supply. Around 1780, another Sopot resident, Abbot Pachomius, organized the construction of a new, already stone cathedral.