A monastery in the mountains

In the tenth century, a man named Ivan fled from the court of the Bulgarian kings to live a life of penitence in a remote valley of the Rila massif, whose summit is the highest peak in Bulgaria (2,925 metres), about 100 kilometres south of Sofia. A growing number of disciples joined the hermit, who took the name of Ivan Rilski, or John of Rila. They settled a few kilometres below his grotto on a site where they laid the first foundations of the future monastery.

Ivan Rilski died in 946. His relics were first taken to Sofia and then removed elsewhere. They were eventually returned to Rila in 1469, and his tomb attracted many devotees. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the monastery became a great spiritual centre and, thanks to donations from several Bulgarian kings, a power in the land. Though repeated conflicts set them apart over ownership of the land, Serbian and Bulgarian sovereigns were equally devoted to Rila. This is confirmed by their presence, side by side, on the monastery frescoes.

The ancient monastery was ravaged by fire in 1335, but saved by Khrelio, a feudal lord who chose it as a fortress and refurbished the buildings. In particular, he built a 22-metre-high keep followed, in 1343, by an adjoining chapel.

In the late fourteenth century, the Ottoman Turks advanced into the Balkans, but they respected the Christian faith and left the monastery its freedoms and prerogatives, confirmed in the next century by the Sultan's written order.

THE BULGARIAN NATIONAL RENAISSANCE

From the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries, as part of the Ottoman empire, the monastery became the leading cultural centre of southeast Europe. Books were written there and then circulated throughout the Slav Orthodox world. The monastery housed a library and archives; religious and secular schools were founded there, and icons and wood carvings were made. Festivals at the monastery attracted pilgrims from the whole Balkan peninsula. Rila had links with the other great centres of Orthodox Christianity - Constantinople, Mount Athos and Ohrid - and the old Bulgarian liturgy was preserved intact.

The role of the monastery broadened considerably from the eighteenth century onwards. Under the guidance of Neofit Rilski, a monk and pioneer of what came to be known as the Bulgarian Renaissance (second half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century), the monastery was enlarged and modernized. Such famous master-masons as Pavel Milenko, Alexi Rilek and Kristju Debirlju helped to ornament it, while popular devotion attracted a host of volunteer workmen. Three wings were added between 1816 and 1820.

But in 1833 these new structures were destroyed by fire. The catastrophe aroused intense emotion throughout the country. Gifts, materials, builders and workmen poured in, and the damage was repaired in less than two years. This rapidity symbolized the national awakening in Bulgaria, of which the first signs had appeared at Rila with the publication in 1762 of the History of the Bulgarian Slavs by a monk, Paisij.

In the early nineteenth century, the monastery saw itself as a kind of enclave of national awareness and attracted the great thinkers and artists of the Bulgarian Renaissance. This cultural vocation is the main reason why it still has an important place today in the collective consciousness of the Bulgarian people, and enjoys such exceptional prestige.

NINE CENTURIES OF MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE

There is little trace of the early buildings erected between the tenth and fourteenth centuries because of the many fires and successive modernizations. However, a number of historical layers can be defined.

Between 1834 and 1860, various builders constructed the monastery complex that can be seen today. The main building is a rectangular fortress covering 4,500 [m.sup.2], with two main entrances for protection against hostile incursions. Its four four-storey wings are surrounded by great portico balconies giving onto a vast inner courtyard (3,200 [m.sup.2]) with polychrome facades. Each balcony is reached by a series of external staircases.

The monastery has more than 300 monks' cells and guest rooms, built and decorated in the styles of various Bulgarian towns (thus offering an architectural geography of the country), four chapels in the wings, the library, parlours, refectories and other utility rooms. The ground floor opens onto a gigantic kitchen where meals could be prepared for hundreds of persons. The domed chimney is built to a bold design; supported by arches, it is 22 metres high.

Lord Khrelio's keep, a stone tower in the internal courtyard, has survived the fire and the vicissitudes of history since 1335. It has five storeys. On the top floor, the family oratory is adorned with fourteenth-century frescoes representing a circle of (lancers and a group of musicians, a very unusual theme in mural painting in the Byzantine tradition in this region.

The chapel which once flanked the tower was destroyed in the early nineteenth century to make room for the main church of the Dormition, completed in 1837. The church has three central domes, three naves and choirs. The walls and galleries are decorated with frescoes representing 1,200 different scenes and a group of portraits. The carved wood iconostasis (a partition covered with icons which separates the nave from the sanctuary) is one of the largest and finest in the Balkans.