We had the baptism of our younger child recently and we decided that we will have this act in the monastery of Bachkovo. I’ll not get into much detail about the baptism, rather than I will share some details about the monastery itself.
The monastery is the second biggest one in Bulgaria and in the recent years it saw a very huge renovation and maintenance. I have visited the place about 3-4 years ago and I can see a huge difference.
In the inner spaces there is a lot of diversity of various trees and plants which are gifted to the monastery from all around the world. The stone pavings look very well maintained and take your spirit in the past when this was the main material for covering outdoor spaces.
The outside-of-room covered areas are quite good and here you can really experience the amount of work that had been done. All the wooden surfaces are in perfect shape and clean. One fact - although the weather was quite hot, all the covered open spaces and the inner rooms are very cool. Maybe because everywhere around there is a forest, the floating air is very fresh and cannot get warm at all.
Alongside the young gifted trees there are some that seem to have been there from the monastery construction. The last photo shows a big platanus tree that is believed to have been planted around 1600th year AC when the monastery was founded by a Georgian monk. You can see the size of the tree in comparison with some humans next to it. Mighty!
In the yard there are some springs where you can refresh yourself. All of them are beautifully designed and built.
My father in law actually is very close to the head of this monastery, so we got the opportunity to get into some rooms that weren’t available for all the people. Rather than they open them for special guests of the monastery. So we really felt a bit more special than the other ordinary visitors.
This small chapel was made in the place of an old storage area and they got all the icons covered in real gold. I think this chapel was opened about two years ago and it’s really like a secret room. You cannot see this kind of chapels everyday, right?
For the guests of the monastery there is this room where they offered us some coffee and water. The place looks like taken out of some movie of some kind. It almost looked unreal with all this furniture and detailing. The inner part leads towards another room where the head of the monastery has some meals with the most close monks and some special guests.
There are three churches that are located on the territory of the monastery. This little one is mainly dedicated for rituals as weddings and baptisms.
The main - bigger church is right after the entrance and it is really beautiful. For being special guests there, our baptism was held there, rather than the smaller church. Actually our son’s name is Boris and the main icon being inside the church is of Tsar (king) Boris who was the main figure in baptism of the whole Bulgarian nation. The church looks really clean and renovated such as the other parts of the monastery. In the main church is located the “Miracle Working Icon” which is believed to have some unnatural powers like healing ill people. The icon was hidden during the Ottoman rule in Bulgaria and now there’s a long trail of people waiting to see the icon literally every single day.
The icon of Tsar Boris is on the right of this photo. So, our son got baptized in from it the eyes of the main figure of Bulgaria Christianity.
And this will officially end my post. Have a nice day and see you soon! Bye!
