Description of the attraction
The Sopot Monastery of the Ascension of Christ (or Holy Savior) is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery located in the immediate vicinity of the city of Sopot. Founded at the end of the 12th century. Throughout the Ottoman rule, it was a repository of the Bulgarian spirit and book tradition. The monastery had scriptoria (special places for copying books), from which we got dozens of books, most of them date back to the 15th century. The Russian researcher of ancient writing Viktor Grigorovich, who visited Sopot in 1845, noted that services were held in the monastery only in Church Slavonic and never in Greek. This is confirmed by the data of the liturgical books stored there.
In 1879, through the efforts of Abbot Raphael, the monastery church and fountain were restored. The painting in the church belongs to the brush of the artist Georgy Danchov, and the large bell, located on the south side of the church, was cast in Craiova in 1875 and donated to the monastery by a former resident of Sopot.
Interesting fact: on December 7, 1858, in this monastery, the national hero of Bulgaria, the famous revolutionary and organizer of the Bulgarian national revolution Vasil Levski took monastic vows under the name of Ignatius.
