Location: 11 km (7 mi) Northwest of Teteven Map
Tel. (01960) 388
Open: 6am- 9pm daily
Constructed: 13th century
Vasil Levsky (1837- 1873)
Vasil Drumev (1838- 1901)
Glozhene Monastery is a Bulgarian Orthodox religious complext located 11
km (7 mi) Northwest of Teteven. Despite its modest size it played an
important role in the history of Bulgaria. Glozhene Monastery was named
after its founder, Russian knyaz (Russian title equaling of the Western
"duke") Georgi Glozh who managed to flee Kievan Rus after it was overrun
by the Mongol hordes in 1239. Bulgarian king Ivan Asen II was generous
enough to accept his fellow Orthodox ruler to his land and build a
castle- like monastery here. He dedicated Glozhene Monastery to a
Romanian martyr George the Victorious who was executed during Christian
persecutions under Ancient Roman Emperor Deoclitian.
Among other
things Russian knyaz brought an icon of the saint that he gave to the
monks that soon moved to Glozhene Monastery. During struggle for
independence from the Turkish rule the monastery hid several
revolutionaries including Vasil Levsky. It also became famous as a
prison for Vasil Drumev who was sent here by king Ferdinand in 1893.
Monks eased the sufferings of the political prisoner by bringing food
despite official prohibition to do so.
The main church of the
Glozhene Monastery was destroyed by the earthquake of 1913 and rebuilt
here in 1951.
Glozhene monastery is located near the village of Glozhene, Teteven municipality, Lovech district, 12 km from the town of Teteven. It is located on the northeastern slope below the stone plummets of Kamen Lisets peak (1073 m), on a rocky outcrop on a mountain hill, descending from it. The access to the entrance of the monastery was blocked by rocks, which were broken in order to make a road later, and deep ravines descended from its other sides. Thus, it can be seen from afar as perched on a rock, which distinguishes it from other Bulgarian monasteries, usually built in closed, secret places. The view in all directions is remarkable.
Establishment
According to unproven
data, Glozhene monastery was founded in the early thirteenth
century. The frescoes of the old church, according to Nikola
Mihailov, sent to study them in 1905 by the Ministry of Public
Education, are from the era of the Boyana Church (the period of the
Boyana Master). Legend has it that the monastery was built by the
Kiev prince George Glozh, who came to Bulgaria, persecuted by the
Tatars, and Tsar Ivan Asen II offered him land here. According to
another version of the legend, the prince and his retinue helped
Ivan Assen II to overthrow Boril, who ascended the throne, and
received this land as a token of gratitude. On it, on the present
place, in 1223 he founded a settlement and it was called Glozhene.
High on a rock he built a monastery, resembling an impregnable
medieval castle fortress - Glozhene Monastery. According to legend,
the prince began to build the monastery below in the lowlands, but
the icon of St. George, which they carried from their homeland,
disappeared and appeared above the rocks; they took this as a sign
and built it there. Another settlement, on the western side of Kamen
Lisets Peak - Kievski Izvor, according to legend, belonged to the
Russian masters who built the monastery. It is a historical fact
that Ivan Assen II regained his father's throne after about 10 years
of exile, mainly in the Russian lands, leaving Kiev in 1217, with
the help of Russian (Kiev) troops, and that they at least partially
remained in Bulgaria. It is also possible that the land was part of
the personal possessions of one of the royal family Assenevtsi and
the names in the area are related to the donations that Ivan Assen
II made to the Glozhene Monastery. In all cases, the toponymy of the
region is associated with the times of Asenevtsi: the forest
Azanitsa (Asenitsa) near Glozhene, the neighborhood Asen (Asen),
near the ancient fountain Tsarichin (royal). And the settlement of
Kievski Izvor has existed for many centuries, there was even a
province of Kiev; In Kardzhali time, some of its inhabitants
dispersed and founded two other villages - Golyam Izvor and Malak
Izvor, and began to call their old place Staro Selo.
Under
Ottoman rule
There is not much information about the history of
the monastery during the Ottoman invasion and after the fall of the
Second Bulgarian Kingdom. The building and the church were not
destroyed, not even the tower. It is assumed that due to its
inaccessible location, on the one hand, and on the other hand, due
to the lack of strategic importance, no difficult siege and
demolition was undertaken. An ancient manuscript states that the
monastery property was confiscated and the monastery fell into great
misery. It is assumed that only a few monks remained, subsisting on
alms, to maintain it, in the XVI and XVII centuries.
Then
comes the rise. Through the donations the monastery regained land,
the monks increased and the monastery became a spiritual center for
the surrounding kaazi - Zlatitsa, Lovchanska and even Pleven, an
attractive center for worshipers dissatisfied with the Greek clergy
and wishing to speak in Bulgarian. At the end of the 18th and the
beginning of the 19th century the monastery had wide connections all
over Bulgaria and even in Romania and Russia, as can be seen from
its kondiki. Two old seals from those times have been preserved, in
which it is called the Kiev Monastery. He is known to have owned
many manuscripts and old printed books.
The monastery opened a number of cell schools. It
is believed that the school in the monastery itself has existed
since its founding and has continued to train novices for monks,
priests and teachers with short breaks until the Liberation;
teachers were the monks themselves, they used church books for
textbooks. In the nearby village of Malak Izvor he found a convent
with a cell school. In Lovech, the Glozhene Monastery also opened
its own convent, and to it - the first cell school in the city (in
the plague of 1828 it already existed), which then turned into a
mutual and mixed school. He hired the best teachers in this area for
him: teacher Pavlin (Serbian), Hristo P. Popovich, teacher Kosta,
teacher Ruscho, priest Lukan, Parashkeva Neykova, who taught boys
and girls, and then only girls, and others. The Troyan and Rila
monasteries also opened metos in Lovech, but without schools, with
only one confessor.
The Glozhene Monastery also sent three of
its novices to study in Russia - Lilo Kanchev from the village of
Glozhene (later Metropolitan Antim Tarnovski), Dimitar Sekov from
the village of Malak Izvor, hieromonk Dionysius Simeonov, who taught
for 14 years in the villages of Malak and Golyam Izvor. 1894 abbot
of the monastery) and Miho Dinov from Glozhene (with the monastic
name Evtimiy, teacher in Braila and elsewhere, deacon of Exarch
Joseph, priest, abbot of "St. Elijah" in Teteven and the Glozhene
monastery 1911 - 1914 .).
The monastery found the funds for
this activity from donations from all over the country (during the
time of the abbot healer Hadji Evtimiy even a Turk made a large
donation), good management of the vast lands, forests, mills, etc.
and the strong support of the local population. When in 1856 or 1857
a fire destroyed a large part of the cells, the monastery incurred a
debt, which was quickly repaid through the voluntary, willingly
given aid by the population of the Lovchanska and Zlatitsa kaaza.
Several monuments with the names of donor worshipers from the 18th -
19th centuries have been preserved from older times. In them are
found names from villages from Teteven and Lukovit, which today are
Pomak.
The bishops and monks of the Glozhene Monastery are
supporters of an independent Bulgarian church. Abbot Ioannicius (c.
1840 - 1864) did not allow any interference of the Greeks in the
monastic affairs and gave a lot of money for the monastic schools,
where anti-Greek sentiments were created. The next abbot, Hadji
Evtimii, acted directly as a representative of the Bulgarian
Exarchate even before its recognition.
During the national
liberation struggles the monastery was one of the safest bases of
Vasil Levski. Hadji Evtimiy, his close friend, had extensive
connections around the area and his information about reliable
people helped to establish village committees. The abbot himself and
the monk, priest Kiril, are members of the Glozhene private
revolutionary committee, as well as priest Mihail Stefanov and
priest Nikola Tsakov. The first revolutionary district was created
in this region. The hiding place of Vasil Levski is preserved -
under his cell there was an underground tunnel, dug during the
construction of the monastery. Levski's visits were kept in the
deepest secrecy (including because of the Greek monk Hilarion and
the monastery servants), Dimitar Obshti was not ordained and
therefore his betrayal did not directly affect the monastery.
After the Liberation
After the Liberation, Vasil Drumev
(Metropolitan Kliment Tarnovski) was exiled here. On February 14,
1893, he delivered a sermon against Catholicism, defending
Orthodoxy. This reached the Roman Catholic Prince Ferdinand through
the Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov, the Metropolitan was sentenced
to eternal exile and sent to the Glozhene Monastery. After the fall
of Stambolov's government, he returned to Tarnovo. Now the monastery
has a small museum for him.
In 1904 an earthquake caused serious damage. In
1908, Abbot Dionysius managed to restore the cells, built a stone
tunnel in front of the church (until then it was wooden). In 1913,
in a new earthquake, debris fell from the rock on which the north
wall of the church rests, as a result of which in 1915 it and the
south wall partially collapsed. There is a decline, many monastic
properties are sold, and the money goes to the Holy Synod. For 15
years - from the spring of 1915 to the autumn of 1929 - no one,
neither the Archaeological Museum nor the Church Museum, removed the
valuable frescoes of the ancient temple. In 1929 everything was
demolished and the place cleared for the construction of a new
church. It was built two meters further south, lit in 1931. The
monastery tower, which withstood the earthquakes, was also destroyed
in order to expand the monastery yard.
During the clearing, a
tomb carved into the rock was found inside the church itself, under
its floor at the foundations of the north wall. A skeleton of a very
tall and large man was found in a coffin made of solid oak planks.
The silver buttons on the outer garment are gilded. No other tomb
was found in or around the church and no one knew anything before it
was discovered. Since it is from the time when the church was built,
it is assumed that either its founder, Prince Glozh, or another
prominent person was buried there.
After 1989, the monastery
sued for the return of its property. On August 3, 2008, the abbot,
hieromonk Pankratiy, started a fire in the monastery and was
detained by officers of the Teteven Regional Police Department. He
was deposed from church rank and brought to justice.
The old church and the tower
The old church was built on the high front rock part of the mountain
massif, and the northern and eastern foundations were caught in the
vertical rock. On them was then built the fence of the new church of
travertine stone, taken from the destroyed church and tower. It was
small, single-nave and single-apse, vaulted, 5.10 long and 4.30
wide, with a window on the south side and two small niches. Its
construction is made of crushed stone mixed with lime and sand,
larger pieces of red stone and cut travertine blocks. The vaulted
part is made of bricks. According to archaeologists and engineer
Yanakiev, who studied the building before its demolition, it was
built 700 years ago.
To the west, as a continuation of the
same church, a porch (6 x 3.70 m) was later built (according to
legend two centuries later), with a south window. It was built
without quarry stone, with larger blocks of red stone mixed with
travertine blocks, as a result of which it was very strong. The
cylindrical vault is made of cut travertine stone, not bricks. The
vault of both rooms is 2.75 m from the floor.
The walls of
both compartments were 90 cm thick. The church itself was covered
with massive sandstones, which withstood strong winds and torrential
rains.
The irregular shape of the two buildings is due to the
insufficient space and the need to adapt the plan to it, which has
changed the eastern direction of the church.
The whole
church, with the narthex and the vault, was painted. The temple
itself (without the narthex), as evidenced by the plaster and
frescoes, is of very old origin. Nikola Mihailov, who visited the
monastery in 1905, sent by the Ministry of Public Education, found
that the painting was the same as that of the Boyana Church and was
made during the same era. The apse was later repainted, but not the
other walls. Petar Mutafchiev visited the monastery in 1913 and also
noted the different origins of the painting - in the apse itself,
where the layer of frescoes was torn off, an older layer can be
seen, identical to the one on the other walls; the newer layer in
the apse in terms of execution, pattern and color is worse than the
old one. According to him, "drawings, proportions, tones and style"
speak in favor of an older than XV - XVI century origin.
After a 1913 earthquake destabilized part of the rock base beneath
the church, large parts of its north and south walls collapsed in
1915, the frescoes on the walls were exposed to the weather for 15
years. However, they not only do not fade, but become more and more
beautiful and clear, without the slightest damage to the tone and
color of the colors; apparently the paints of the old masters were
made of a special substance.
Of the oldest iconostasis of the church, only the
royal doors and a huge cross from the temple with the crucifix have
been preserved. The next iconostasis of the old church, with bronze
carvings, is probably from the beginning of the XVII century. The
middle and upper part of it, with few exceptions, are preserved and
adapted in the new church, together with the royal doors and the
crucifix.
The tower of the monastery was 1.50 m thick and
4.50 - 5 meters high. It was located 7-8 m west of the old church,
in the southwestern part of the upper monastery yard. The
construction and the material, identical with the oldest part of the
church, are considered to be from the same time. It was an irregular
quadrangular building with a massive door on the east, clad in iron
and wrought nails. There was a loophole at the top of the east wall.
Inside the vault was cylindrical, made of travertine stone. The
tower was divided into two floors, and the upper one (with a wooden
floor) was reached by a wooden staircase.
It is built on a solid reinforced concrete foundation, made of stone
and bricks. A stone staircase leads to a wide platform with a
balustrade of travertine, which covers the church on three sides and
from which beautiful views are revealed. The church is single-nave,
with a small porch, on one side of which is the staircase to the
bell tower - the pointed tower on the facade of the church. The
length of the church is 11 m, the width is 6 m, the height - a total
of 11 m, that of the tower reaches 15 m.
Part of the
iconostasis and some of the icons are from the old church, and
others from modern times. In a small iconostasis on the left is the
icon of St. George the Victorious, made of boxwood. Only the head is
visible from it, the rest is in silver casing from the XVIII
century, made with donations from Teteven. According to legend, it
was brought by Prince Glozh in the 13th century; the theologian P.
Stefanov suggests that it is from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, from the
first half of the XVIII century.