Boyana Church in Bulgaria

Boyana Church in Bulgaria

Short Report

Located on the outskirts of Sofia Boyana Church consists of three buildings. The eastern church was built in the 10th century, then extended to the beginning of the 13th century by Sebastocrator Kaloyan, who ordered a second building with two floors built. The frescoes of this second church, painted in 1259, one of the most important collections of medieval paintings. The ensemble is completed with a third church, built at the beginning of the 19th century. This site is one of the most complete and perfectly preserved monuments of eastern european medieval art.

Wonderful Universal Importance

There are multiple layers of murals in the passenger compartment from the 11th, 13th, 15TH - 17th and 19th century witnesses to the high level of mural painting in the different periods. The paintings with the most striking artistic value from the 13th century. While they interpret the Byzantine canon, the images have a special spiritual expressiveness and vitality and are painted in harmonious relationship.

Wide Report

In the Middle Ages the strong Bulgarian fortress of Boyana (Batil) was on the lower slopes of the Vitosha Mountain in what is now the suburb of Boyana Sofia. This name is mentioned for the first time in 969. Boyana was one of the 35 forts and settlements which the enrichment of the town Sredets (Sofia). Boyana Church was built within the fortress and is a beautiful example of medieval architecture and monumental art.

The church has many modifications and extensions, and thus also the current complex part differs significantly from the original. New buildings have been added to the first (East) Church, architectural transformations have taken place, and the device is changed. Currently Boyana Church consists of buildings from the 11th, 13th and 19th century.

The oldest Boyana Church, the so-called East or First Church, was designed and used as a chapel. It was a typical Greek cross with a dome, and a hidden internal cross without detached support and without a narthex. It is built entirely of brick. The north and south facades are expressed on the outside with three blind arches, each with the central arc higher than the side; the arches are not related to the structure of the building. The masonry decorations are Es Figural Beach: archivolts with 'wolf's tooth' and concentric rows of stone above the arches.

The plan of the decor is reminiscent of a Greek cross and is scantily clad young lit by long narrow openings (one in the north and south walls, four on the dome) as well as by a triforium on the apsis. The entire interior of the walls and the dome was covered with murals. Some of the larger fragments are preserved in the apsis. The First Church was re-painted in the middle of the 18th century, traces of the original paintings are only noticeable when the top layer of murals is destroyed.

In the 13th century the feudal ruler of the western region of the Second Bulgarian State, Sebastocrator Kaloyan and his wife Desislava, which were closely related to the royal family, the construction of the extension of the church. The builders a new two-storey building on the western wall of the First Church. The ground floor has direct access from the first Church and was intended as a narthex. It is rectangular, covered with a cylindrical archive. On the inside, the walls are decorated with two niches on the southern and northern sides respectively, probably for a family tomb. The upper floor of Kaloyan's Church has a virtually identical architectural composition of the older building, in the form of a Greek cross, and has been used as a family chapel. It was dedicated to the martyr healer or St Panteleimon. Access to the chapel is via outside stairs to the southern wall. It is possible that the stairs connected the chapel of the house of the nobleman. There are reasons to believe that in the case of danger, the mobile stairs was removed, so above the chapel can also be used as a defense tower.

The articulation of the facades is Es Figural beach in the First Church. The northern and southern facades have four blind arches each at the level of the second floor. One of the arches on the southern wall is wider and was used as access to the chapel on the second floor. The eastern facade of Kaloyan Church rises above the roof of the First Church. On the outside surface is interrupted by a small semi-circular apse. The western entrance facade is the most representative and has a distinctive monumental character. The new church, expanded and renewed by the family of the Sebastocrator, was decorated with paintings and inaugurated in 1259.

The Boyana frescos are an example of the icon-painting which was later adopted as such mural and mark the beginning of the specific characteristics that strongly influenced the Tirnovo artistic school. The icon-style murals that has become in the Serbian, Russian and Athos monasteries during the 14th to 16th century are closely related to this innovation.

Source:whc/unesco