Razboishte Monastery

During Ottoman bondage, Razboishte Monastery suffered devastation and lamentation. Information about it has survived mainly through oral traditions and legends, since almost all written evidence and documents were irretrievably destroyed. Repeated plundering was followed by rebuilding, underlining this Bulgarian monastery's importance and resilience.
The monastery, also known as Kurdzhilovo Monastery, belongs to the Sofia Diocese of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and celebrates its patronal feast on 21 November. The Church of the Presentation of the Mother of God, built into the rocks above the monastery, has witnessed the centuries and the different periods of this sacred site's history.
Surviving fragments of old paintings in the church, dating from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, reveal part of the religious complex's rich history. In the eighteenth–nineteenth century, the hermit tradition in the rocks flourished, and following renovation in 1841 the monastery acquired a new appearance and became an important centre.
Despite the destruction of wall paintings when new plaster was applied in 1941, remnants of older paintings survive in the building. Today the monastery preserves an early printed Bulgarian menaion from 1869 and impresses through its rich history and cultural significance.
Legends further enrich its history, recounting three occasions when it was burnt and rebuilt. Preservation of the old nineteenth-century iconostasis and the new iconostasis of 1950 contributes to the site's authenticity and deep religious tradition.
During Ottoman bondage the monastery sheltered historical figures such as Vasil Levski and Father Matey Preobrazhenski. The preserved grave of a revolutionary detachment member in its courtyard adds to the religious complex's historical renown.