Description of the attraction
The Church of the Ascension of Christ in Ahtopol is located in the eastern part of the peninsula where the city is located. It stands on a high seashore, which goes down almost vertically from one side.
The exact date of the construction of the temple is unknown. Presumably, the church was erected in 1796, since this date is indicated in a commemorative inscription in Greek in the apse. However, it is not about the construction of the temple, but, most likely, about the time when the walls inside the building were painted. There is a point of view that the Church of the Ascension of the Lord was installed on the foundations of another ancient temple during the Middle Ages.
The church is a small rectangular building with an apse. The length and width of the temple is 17x7 meters, the height is 2.3 meters. The walls, about a meter thick, are built of large stones of irregular shape, between which a cement mortar is poured. In two places, at different heights along the perimeter of the entire building, there are wooden slats - a decorative architectural element. The structure is crowned with overhanging cornices and a hipped tile roof. In the eastern wall of the temple there is an apse - a semicircular extension, but it is almost invisible from the side of the street, so outwardly the church can be mistaken for an ordinary residential building. The entrance to the temple is located on the south side. Like many other churches built in Bulgaria during the years of Ottoman rule, it is partially - 40-50 cm - dug into the ground. In order to maximize the security of the building, only two small windows were made in it under the very roof, facing the western and northern sides.
Ancient frescoes of Deesis have been preserved in the apse part of the temple. It is worth noting that the images of the saints on the frescoes are made according to the canons of the Byzantine rather than Bulgarian icon-painting style.
The Church of the Ascension of the Lord is a unique architectural monument not only because of its impressive age. In 1918, as a result of a strong fire, Ahtopol almost completely burned down. The building of the church on the seashore is one of the few structures that miraculously managed to escape the fire element. Now this temple is almost the only evidence of the peculiarities of architecture that existed in the city until the beginning of the 20th century.
