Bachkovo

Bachkovo Monastery was founded by Prince Gregory Pakourianos, a prominent Armeno-Georgian statesman and military commander in the Byzantine service, in 1083. He set up a seminary for the youth at the monastery. The curriculum in the first place included Christian religion, as well as mathematics, history and music. A book of the 10th century, the so-called “Shatberdi Collection” (copied in Shatberdi Monastery, Klarjeti) must have been a student handbook, including the literature an educated man had to know at that time – theology, natural science, philosophy, world history and history of Georgia (The Convert of Kartli). In the 13th century, Caucasians lost their domination over the monastery, but nevertheless, Caucasian traditions were preserved until the beginning of the 14th century.

An Armenian manuscript – gospel of the monastery, from the 10th century –is now preserved in the Bulgarian National Library in Sofia. During the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire, Bachkovo Monastery was patronized by Tsar Ivan Alexander, which is evidenced by an image of him on the arches of the ossuary’s narthex. In the 11th century, a school was housed in the monastery. It is believed that the founder of Tarnovo Literary School and last patriarch of the medieval Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Euthymius, was exiled by the Turks and died in the monastery in the early 15th century.Although the monastery survived the first waves of Turkish invasion in Bulgarian lands, it was later looted and destroyed, but restored near the end of the 15th century. The refectory, whose mural paintings by an anonymous painter have significant artistic value, was reconstructed in 1601 and the Church of Virgin Mary, still preserved today, was finished in 1604.