| Archaeologists Find New Fragments of Bulgaria " s Oldest Icon: 10th Century AD Ceramic Icon of St. Theodore Stratilates From Veliki Preslav/Православие.Ru Archaeologists Find New Fragments of Bulgaria " s Oldest Icon: 10th Century AD Ceramic Icon of St. Theodore Stratilates From Veliki Preslav Source: Archaeology in Bulgaria October 1, 2015 The icon of St. Theodore Stratilates, the oldest known Bulgarian-made icon (ca. 900 AD), seen here after its new restoration, with the addition of newly discovered fragments from the saint’s shoulder, beard, and face, as well as the side inscriptions. View below the icon as it was known for about 100 years (since its discovery in the early 20th century), before the adding of the newly found fragments. Photo: TV grab from BNT New fragments have been discovered from the earliest known Bulgarian-made icon – a ceramic icon of St. Theodore Stratilates dating back to the 10th century AD, the height of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) – and the icon itself has been restored for the first time since its discovery in the early 20th century. The restored icon of St. Theodore Stratilates, which is one of Bulgaria’s national symbols, has now been shown for the first time with the added newly discovered fragments at the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. The icon was found at the beginning of the 20th century during archaeological excavations of themedieval Bulgarian monastery Patleyna located 2 km south of Veliki Preslav, today a small town in Northeast Bulgaria which was the glorious capital of the First Bulgarian Empire between 893 and 970 AD, connected with the reign of Tsar Simeon I the Great (r. 893-927 AD) and the period known as the (First) Golden Age of Bulgarian literature and culture. St. Theodore Stratilates was a 3rd century saint from Anatolia, today in Turkey; he died a martyr’s death in the ancient city of Heraclea Pontica in 319 AD as a defender of the Christian faith during the reign of Roman Emperor Licinius I (r. 308-324 AD). |
| Archaeologists Discover Oldest Church of Medieval City Drastar in Bulgaria " s Silistra/Православие.Ru Archaeologists Discover Oldest Church of Medieval City Drastar in Bulgaria " s Silistra Source: Archaeology in Bulgaria October 16, 2015 The ruins of what was the oldest Christian church from the period of the Middle Ages in the ancient and medieval city of Drastar (known as Durustorum in the Roman period) have been discoveredduring the continuing rescue excavations in Bulgaria’s Danube city of Silistra . The rescue digs in Silistra, which was a major regional center in the Antiquity and Middle Ages, have been going on for several months as part of the rehabilitation of the city’s water supply and sewerage system. As a result the local archaeologists from the Silistra Regional Museum of History and their colleagues from the nearby cities have excavated dozens of buildings from the time of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD). The latest discovery in Bulgaria’s Silistra is a church which dates back to the 2nd half of the 9th century AD, the period right after the First Bulgarian Empire formally adopted Christianity as a state religion in 865 AD. This was the earliest medieval church in Drastar, then a major Bulgarian fortress, according to lead archaeologist Prof. Georgi Atanasov from the Silistra Museum, as cited by BTA . The early medieval church was about 6 meters wide, and its walls were 1.3 meters thick. The ruins of the newly found church have been discovered under the floor of another church – a 10thcentury AD Patriarch’s cathedral found at the end of August 2015, which has turned out to be thesecond Patriarch’s temple in the medieval city of Drastar from that period. Back then the archaeologists described the newly found cathedral which is a basilica as “one of the top five temples in Bulgarian archaeology”. At the instructions of a commission of the Bulgarian government, the newly unearthed ruins in Silistra will be conserved by protecting them with sacks of sand; they will be reburied until some major funding is found for their exhibition in situ in the future. |
| They ruled as co-emperors; both of them were murdered, and were succeeded by their young brotherTsar Kaloyan (r. 1197-1207). The Asen Dynasty (House of Asen) that they started ruled the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1185 until 1257 AD. Their empire ruled territories from the Carpathian Mountains in the north to the Aegean and the Adriatic in the south (see the map below) restoring most, if not all, of the territorial, military and economic might of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD). It also spurred the intensive development of Bulgarian culture and literature that later led to theSecond Golden Age in the 14th century (the First Golden Age of Bulgarian culture having occurred in the 9th-10th century AD during the reigns of Knyaz Boris I (r. 852-889), Tsar Simeon I (r. 893-927), and Tsar Petar (r. 927-970). The military campaigns and battles of Tsar Ivan ASen II of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Map by Kandi, Wikipedia A view of the restored St. Dimitar Solunski Church at the foot of the Trapesitsa Hill in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo, with its surroundings. Photo: Magnus Manske, Wikipedia A poster for the celebrations of the 830th anniversary since the liberation of Bulgaria from the Byzantium and the foundation of the Second Bulgarian Empire showing the St. Dimitar Solunski Church. Photo: Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History Background Infonotes: The St. Dimitar Solunski (St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki) Church in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo is arestored church based on the excavations of the original medieval church with the same name which existed there during the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD) with its capital in Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo). The St. Dimitar Solunski Church is connected with the restoration of the medieval Bulgarian Empire,after in 1018 AD Byzantium had conquered most of the Bulgarian territory and destroyed the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD). According to Byzantine chronicler Niketas (Nicetas) Choniates (ca. 1155-1215 AD), the St. Dimitar Solunski Church in Veliko Tarnovo is where in 1185 AD, local boyars (nobles), brothers Asen and Todor (Teodor), who later took the name “Petar” after Tsar Petar I (r. 927-969 AD), becoming Petar IV,proclaimed the restoration of the Bulgarian state. |
| The capitals of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680 – 1018 AD) had been Pliska (680-893 AD) and Veliki Preslav (893-970 AD) in today’s Northeast Bulgaria, and Ohrid (from the end of the 10th century until 1018 AD) in today’s Republic of Macedonia. “Last year, when we started the excavations we knew that Tarnovgrad had three monasteries dedicated to the Holy Mother of God. We didn’t know where they were located. The Virgin Mary was the patron of the city, and the cult for her was very strong there. We have found the church of thismonastery complex, and we have enough data to suggest that this probably is the Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery mentioned by Grigoriy (Gregory) Tsamblak (ca. 1365-1420, Bulgarian cleric and metropolitan of Kiev – editor’s note),” explains the archaeologist. He reminds that upon the discovery of the monastery in 2014 his team also found graves of medieval Bulgarian aristocrats and clerics, and a brick tomb of a noble woman. Under the head of one of the buried men, the archaeologists found a brick with engraved verses 1-4 from the Gospel of John, which is the first time such a discovery has been made in Bulgaria. A map of Tarnovgrad, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), today’s Veliko Tarnovo, showing the location of Frenkhisar (the Frankish Quarter) in the southeast. Map: Martyr, Wikipedia The 2015 excavations were started by Vachev’s team with the goal of studying further the necropolisand the buildings of the 13th century monastery they found in 2014. “[However,] we came across artifacts suggesting that we may unearth [structures from] earlier periods. To my great satisfaction, we have revealed partly this Early Byzantine basilica. Its size is 40 meters by 20 meters, and there is no doubt that this was an extremely important building changing our perceptions about Veliko Tarnovo and the inheriting of the religious sites,” Vachev states. He elaborates that in the Early Byzantine period the Tsarevets Hill towering above the site where the basilica is situated apparently grew into one of the largest fortified cities in provinces of Byzantium, i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire, a successor of the glorious Ancient Roman city of Nicopolis ad Istrum whose ruins are located to the north of Veliko Tarnovo. |
| Tweet Нравится Archaeologists Find New Evidence Ottomans Used Materials from 9th Century Great Basilica in Bulgaria " s Pliska for Railway Construction Source: Archaeology in Bulgaria December 6, 2015 Stones from the 9th century AD Great Basilica in the then Bulgarian capital Pliska which were removed from the building in the 19th century by the Ottoman Turks but were left over from the Ottoman railway construction efforts can still be seen lying around the abandoned Kamenyak train station in Northeast Bulgaria. Photo: National Museum of History Archaeologists and restorers from Bulgaria’s National Museum of History have identified construction materials from the 9th century AD Great Basilica in Pliska, capital of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) between 680 and 893 AD, which were scattered all over Northeast Bulgaria by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in the 19th century during the construction of the Ruse-Varna Railway. The Museum is presently working on the archaeological restoration of the Great Basilica in Pliska, the largest building and the largest Christian temple in Europe until the 17th century, i.e. until the completion of the Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican in 1629 AD. The Great Basilica in Pliska was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14th century even though part of its ruins are known to have survived until the 1860s when the Ottoman Empire built its first railway line connecting the Bulgarian cities of Varna on the Black Sea, and Ruse on the Danube. The Ottoman authorities are known to have used construction materials from the basilica and other marvelous Bulgarian archaeological monuments in Pliska and Veliki Preslav, another early medieval Bulgarian capital, not only for railway construction but also for building military barracks and mosques. In a statement, the National Museum of History in Sofia has announced that its archaeologists and restorers have found that some of the railway stations in Northeast Bulgaria were built by the Ottoman Turks with stones from the Great Basilica in Pliska, and the huge monasteries that surrounded it at the time of the First Bulgarian Empire. |
| [News] Archaeologists and restorers from Bulgaria’s National Museum of History have identified construction materials from the 9th century AD Great Basilica in Pliska, capital of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) between 680 and 893 AD, which were scattered all over Northeast Bulgaria by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in the 19th century during the construction of the Ruse-Varna Railway. [News] On December 13, 2015, the 28th Sunday after Pentecost and the commemoration day of St. Andrew-the-First-Called, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR) and chairman of the Commission on Old Believer parishes and cooperation with the Old Believer community, celebrated Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Protecting Veil in Rubtsovo, at which the Patriarchal Center of the Old Russian Liturgical Tradition operates. [News] In compliance with the decision of the Holy Synod, a delegation of the Moscow Patriarchate took part in a joint conference of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), which was held in Munich on 10-11 December 2015, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. [Homilies and Spiritual Instruction] Fr. John Whiteford Fr. John Whiteford talks about how Orthodox Christians can do when they are under obligation to participate in secular celebrations during the Nativity Fast. [News] The Romanian Orthodox Church celebrated on Monday December 7 the martyr St. Philotheia of Curtea de Arge. Along with other places of worship protected by her, St. Philotheia is also the spiritual protector of the Orthodox Theological Seminary of Pasrea Monastery in Ilfov County. [Saints. Asceties of Piety. Church Holy Days ] Anatoly Kholodiuk According to tradition, holy Empress Helen brought to Trier the sandal worn on the right foot of the Apostle Andrew the First-Called. [News] Regavim seeks to prevent construction work performed by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians without permits. |
| Background Infonotes: The Ancient Thracian and Roman city of Durostorum (Dorostorum) – known as Dorostol or Drastar (Drustur) during the periods of the Bulgarian Empire in the Middle Ages – is the precursor of today’s Bulgarian city of Silistra. It was originally founded as an Ancient Thracian settlement on the Lower Danube. In 29 AD, the Romans built there a fortress keeping the settlement’sThracian name of Durostorum (or Dorostorum). After his victories wars over the Dacians north of the Danube, Roman Emperor Trajan stationed the elite Claudius’ 11th Legion – Legio XI Claudia – at Durostorum, and the fortress remained its permanent seat until the demise of the Roman Empire. In 169 AD, during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180 AD), Durostorum was made a Roman city – a municipium. Between the 2nd and the 4th century AD, it was a major urban and military center of the Roman Province of Moesia Inferior (later divided into Moesia Secunda and Scythia Minor), and amajor Roman stronghold against the barbarian invasions. The earliest 12 Christian saints from the territory of today’s Bulgaria are Roman soldiers executed in Durostorum during the Great Persecution of Emperor Diocletian between 303 and 313 AD, including St. Dasius and St. Julius the Veteran. In 388 AD, today’s Silistra became the seat of a Christian bishopric. Roman general Flavius Aetius (391-454 AD), who is known as “the last of the Romans” for his army’s victory over the Huns in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 AD, was born in Durostorum. During the barbarian invasions of Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars the city was ransacked several times. It was rebuilt during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I the Great (r. 527-565 AD). The Slavs settled in Durostorum around 590 AD, and named it Drastar (Drustur). The city became part of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680 – 1018 AD) around 680 AD. Bulgarian Khan (or Kanas) Omurtag (r. 814-831 AD) is known to have built there a large imperial palace known as the Danube Palace of Bulgarian Khans where later Bulgarian Tsar Simeon I the Great (r. 893-927 AD) resided in 896-897 AD. In 895 AD (during the Bulgarian-Hungarian War of 894-896 AD), the Magyars(Hungarians), allies of Byzantium, besieged the Bulgarian army under the personal command of Tsar Simeon I the Great in the fortress of Drastar but were repulsed. The next year the Magyars were decisively defeated by the Bulgarians in the extremely fierce Battle of Southern Buh (in today’s Ukraine) which eventually led their tribes to retreat to the west and settle in the region of Pannoniaessentially founding today’s Hungary. |
| Instead, he discovered that in the High and Late Middle Ages the quarter was inhabited by Bulgarian craftsmen who specialized in metallurgy and especially in iron production. A map of Tarnovgrad, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), today’s Veliko Tarnovo, showing the location of Frenkhisar (the Frankish Quarter) in the southeast. Map: Martyr, Wikipedia Background Infonotes: The Tsarevets Hill is one of two main fortified historic hills in the medieval city of Tarnovgrad,today’s Veliko Tarnovo, in Central Northern Bulgaria, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empirebetween 1185 and 1396 AD. Together with the Trapesitsa Hill, Tsarevets was one of the two fortressesof the inner city acropolis of Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo). The Tsarevets Hill is a natural fortress on the left bank of the Yantra River, and is surrounded by it on all four sides with the exception of a small section to the southwest. It is located southeast of the Trapesitsa Hill. The Tsarevets Fortress had threegates, the main one being its southwestern gate. The name of Tsarevets stems from the word “tsar”, i.e. emperor. The first settlement on the Tsarevets Hill in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo dates to the Late Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age), around 4,200 BC. The hill was also inhabited during the Bronze Age and Iron Age by the Ancient Thracians, and there have been hypothesis that it was the site of thelegendary Ancient Thracian city Zikideva – even though a recent hypothesis claims that Zikideva was in fact located in the nearby fortress Rahovets. An Ancient Bulgar settlement was built on theTsarevets Hill in the 9th century AD, during the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) which later grew into a city. The Tsarevets Hill rose to prominence as the center of the Second Bulgarian Empire(1185-1396 AD) in 1187, after the successful Uprising of Asen and Petar, later Tsar Asen I (r. 1190-1195 AD) and Tsar Petar IV (r. 1185-1197), who ruled as co-emperors, against the Byzantine Empire in 1185-1186 AD. |
| In 812 AD, Sozopol was first conquered for Bulgaria by Khan (or Kanas) Krum, ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) in 803-814 AD. In the following centuries of medieval wars between the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire, Sozopol changed hands numerous times. The last time it was conquered by the Second Bulgarian Empire(1185-1396 AD) was during the reign of Bulgarian Tsar Todor (Teodor) Svetoslav Terter (r. 1300-1322 AD). However, in 1366 AD, during the reign of Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371 AD), Sozopol was conquered by Amadeus IV, Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383 AD, who sold it to Byzantium. During the period of the invasion of the Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century AD, Sozopol was one of the last free cities in Southeast Europe. It was conquered by the Ottomans in the spring of 1453 AD, two months before the conquest of Constantinople despite the help of naval forces from Venice and Genoa. In Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Sozopol was a major center of (Early) Christianity with a number of large monasteries such as the St. John the Baptist Monastery on St. Ivan Island off the Sozopol coast where in 2010 Bulgarian archaeologist Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov made a major discovery by finding relics of St. John the Baptist; the St. Apostles Monastery; the St. Nikolay (St. Nikolaos or St. Nicholas) the Wonderworker Monastery; the Sts. Quriaqos and Julietta Monastery on the St. Cyricus (St. Kirik) Island, the Holy Mother of God Monastery, the St. Anastasia Monastery. During the Ottoman period Sozopol was often raided by Cossack pirates. In 1629, all Christian monasteries and churches in the city were burned down by the Ottoman Turks leading it to lose its regional role. In the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829, Sozopol was conquered by the navy of the Russian Empire, and was turned into a temporary military base. After Bulgaria’s National Liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, Sozopol remained a major fishing center. As a result of intergovernmental agreements for exchange of population in the 1920s between the Tsardom of Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Greece, most of the ethnic Greeksstill remaining in Sozopol moved to Greece, and were replaced by ethnic Bulgarians from the Bulgarian-populated regions of Northern Greece. |
| Knyaz Boris realized that the Christianization of Bulgaria gave Byzantium great influence over the domestic affairs of the Bulgarian Empire. Thus, juggling the differences of Rome and Constantinople,he eventually managed to get Byzantium’s Ecumenical Patriarchate as well as the Pope in Rome to recognize an independent (autocephalous) Bulgarian Archbishopric, which was created in 870 AD in an unprecedented development for Europe because independent churches had been only those founded by Apostles or Apostles’ disciples. For example, the Papacy in Rome had been challenging Constantinople’s claim of equality to Rome on the grounds that the Church of Constantinople had not been founded by an Apostle of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, this development was also a success forByzantium, and during the decade after 870 AD, Pope Adrian II and his successors kept trying desperately to convince Bulgaria’s Knyaz Boris to leave Constantinople’s religious sphere. Knyaz Boris I Mihail sealed the success of his deed, the adoption of Christianity, in 886 AD whenBulgaria welcomed the disciples of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, St. Kliment Ohridski and St. Naum Preslavski, helping them to teach thousands of Bulgarian clergymen to serve in Bulgarian. Thus,Bulgaria adopted the Bulgarian script, also known as the Slavic script – first the Glagolithic and then the Bulgarian (Cyrillic) alphabet. This allowed Knyaz Boris, and his successor Tsar Simeon I the Greatto declare Bulgarian (also known as Old Bulgarian or Church Slavonic) as the official language of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church during the Council of Preslav in 893 AD (which also moved Bulgaria’s capital from Pliska to Veliki Preslav (Great Preslav)). As all over Europe religious services were held in the “official” church languages Latin and Greek, this “nationalization” of the liturgy language byBulgaria became another exceptional development in medieval Europe after the recognition of the independent Bulgarian church. Tsar Simeon I the Great was the ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) in 893-927 AD. |
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