| Tsarov, however, says that the discovery of the Early Byzantine basilica is a serious achievement on part of the archaeologists of Veliko Tarnovo. Because of this new discovery, the local archaeologists will not be able to gather important information about the history of Veliko Tarnovo not only in the Middle Ages but also in the Antiquity period which is relatively unknown. The 2015 excavations of the monastery have been funded with BGN 12,000 (app. EUR 6,100) by theBulgarian Ministry of Culture, a small sum, to which Veliko Tarnovo Municipality has added another BGN 18,000 (app. EUR 9,200) from its own budget. “The funding for excavations allocated by the state was a lot less compared with last year. This has led us to reduce the scope of our research. I received no [government] funding for the site that I am working on, the [Ancient Roman] city of Nicopolis ad Istrum. Veliko Tarnovo Municipality allocated a small sum to support this research but I gave this funding to my colleague, Prof. Vachev,” Veliko Tarnovo Museum Director Ivan Tsarov states, referring to Vachev’s continuing work on his 2014 discovery. In August 2015, the team of Hitko Vachev found the dining room of the monastery in question. The medieval Mother of God Monastery in Veliko Tarnovo was one of the major archaeological discoveries in Bulgaria in 2014. Its ruins are located to the southeast of the fortress wall of the Tsarevets Hill Fortress, in the so calledFrenkhisar, or “Frankish Quarter”, of the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire Tarnovgrad. The Frankish Quarter is overlooked by the so called Baldwin’s Tower. It is named after Latin Emperor Baldwin I of Constantinople (Baldwin of Flanders), ruler of the Latin Empire of the Crusaders from the Third Crusade, who was kept and died there in captivity, after was taken prisoner by the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan (r. 1197-1207 AD) in the Battle of Adrianople. While it had long been believed that the Frankish Quarter’s name stemmed from the fact that during the High and Late Middle Ages it was populated by Western European merchants trading in the Bulgarian capital Tarnovgrad, in 2010 Veliko Tarnovo archaeologist Evgeni Dermendzhiev carried outexcavations there and found no evidence of Western European presence. |
| Earlier some scholars had hypothesized that the Agathopolis fortress was built during the reign of Emperor Anastasius I Dicorus (r. 491-518 AD). Numerous coins from the reigns of Emperor Justinian I the Great (r. 527-565 AD) and Maurice (r. 582-602 AD) have also been found. They are attributed to the second construction period of the fortress in Ahtopol, the third quarter of the 6th century. The last reconstructions of Ahtopol’s medieval fortifications have been found to have been made during the period from the middle of the 14th century until the beginning of the 15th century, the archaeologists conclude. Background Infonotes: The ruins of the ancient city of Agathopolis, today’s Bulgarian Black Sea resort town of Ahtopolin Tsarevo Municipality, Burgas District, are located on the Ahtopol Peninsula which is about 300 meters long and 150 meters wide, at the foot of the Strandzha Mountain. The site’s civilized life goes back to the Neolithic. During the Iron Age, the area was populated by the Ancient Thracian tribe Thyni. The discovery of a votive tablet with an inscription and the image ofHeros, also known as the Thracian Horseman, the supreme god in the Thracian mythology, attests to their presence. The city itself was most probably founded in 430 BC by Ancient Greek colonists from Athens,potential as part of Pericles’ actions in the Black Sea during the Peloponnesian War. The Ancient Greek polis had its own mint and coins. While it was part of the Roman Empire (1st-4th century AD), the city was called Peronticus. Later, as part of Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, it suffered destruction in the barbarian invasions of Avars and Slavs in the 5th-7th century AD, it was rebuilt by Byzantine general Agathon. Some hypotheses say that he named the city after himself but others say that it was called Agathopolis much earlier, at least since 323 BC. According to one legend, Agathopolis was first established as the home of Delphin, son of Poseidon, and Agatha, daughter of Zeus. Zeus was angered by their relationship so he dispatched an army against them but a burrowing owl woke them up and saved them. Thus, Delphin killed the enemies and founded a city called Agapi-polis (city of love) on the Black Sea coast. |
| Archaeologist Discovers Early Byzantine Basilica In " Frankish Quarter " of Medieval Bulgarian Capital Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo) Source: Archaeology in Bulgaria October 6, 2015 The ruins of an Early Byzantine basilica have been discovered on the same spot in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo where in 2014 Prof. Hitko Vachev found a 13th century AD Bulgarian monastery. Photo: Trud daily An Early Byzantine Christian basilica has been discovered during archaeological excavations the city of Veliko Tarnovo in Northern Bulgaria, southeast of the fortress wall of the Tsarevets Hill Fortress, in the so called Frenkhisar, or the “Frankish Quarter”, of Tarnovgrad, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD). The ruins of the previously unknown Christian temple from the early period of the Byzantine Empirehave been found by the team of Prof. Hitko Vachev from the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History. The discovery has been announced by Ivan Tsarov, Director of the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History, as cited by the Trud daily. The Early Byzantine basilica has been found not far from the spot where in 2014 Vachev discoveredthe ruins of a Bulgarian monastery from the 13th century, the height of the Second Bulgarian Empire. “Expanding the sector of the excavations around the [monastery] church, Prof. Vachev has stumbled upon an Early Byzantine basilica. We did not expect that even though the medieval [monastery] church did have several Antiquity architectural fragments such as pillars and acapital,” Tsarov explains. He points out that the medieval Bulgarian monastery found in 2014 by Vachev, which was called Monastery of the Mother of God (Virgin Mary), has yielded medieval graves with rich funeral inventories, and apparently played an important role in the life of the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire. It is yet unclear if there was any direct connection between the Bulgarian monastery from the 13thcentury AD, and the Byzantine basilica from the Late Antiquity whose ruins have just been found nearby. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Cathedral, Monastery in Russia’s Sviyazhsk Gets UNESCO World Heritage Status Source: Sputnik Natalya Mihailova 11 July 2017 MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Uspensky monastery and its cathedral in the town-island of Sviyazhsk located in Russia " s Republic of Tatarstan was inscribed on Sunday as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the UN cultural organization said. Photo: Sputnik/Vladimir Astapkovich “Just inscribed as @UNESCO #WorldHeritage Site: Assumption Cathedral and Monastery of the town-island of Sviyazhsk, Russian Federation,” UNESCO said on its Twitter page. Sviyazhsk was founded in 1551 as a Russian fortress used by Tsar Ivan the Terrible for the siege of the town of Kazan. Sviyazhsk was initially located on a peninsula, which turned into an island following the construction of the Kuybyshev Reservoir in 1950s. The Uspensky monastery was founded in 1555. The monastery was one of the most significant Orthodox centers used for spreading Christianity to the Volga and Ural regions. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Cathedral, Monastery in Russia’s Sviyazhsk Gets UNESCO World Heritage Status Natalya Mihailova " Just inscribed as @UNESCO #WorldHeritage Site: Assumption Cathedral and Monastery of the town-island of Sviyazhsk, Russian Federation, " UNESCO said on its Twitter page. Sviyazhsk was founded in 1551 as a Russian fortress used by Tsar Ivan the Terrible for the siege of the town of Kazan ... Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Cross set up in Belgrade to commemorate defenders of the city during the First World War Source: Interfax-religion Natalya Mihailova 19 September 2014 Belgrade, September 19, Interfax - A commemorative sign honoring the soldiers who fought in the First World War, defending the Kalemegdan fortress in Belgrade, was inaugurated by Serbian President Tomislav Nicolic and Russian Railways (RZhD) chief Vladimir Yakunin. The monument was set up at the fortress Kalemegdan where the river Sava merges the Dunay river. It was blessed by Patriarch Irinej of the Serbian Orthodox Church, bishop Nazary of Kronshtadt who is the locum tenens of the St. Alexander Nevsky’s Laura of the Holy Trinity, and a Russian Orthodox Church representative in Belgrade Archpriest Vasily Tarasyev. The commemorative sign in the form of a cross featuring the image of St. George the Victor is the collective work made by a group of St. Petersburg-based artists led by painter Albert Charkin and architect Yury Pavlov for the Center of National Glory. Making history a myth and “darkening” heroic deeds of the war are unacceptable, Yakunin said during the conference Great War and the Start of New World: Urgent Agenda for Humanity organized by the Center of National Glory and St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation as he is a chairman of its tutorial board. “Serbia, where the conference is held, survived many troubles, suffered many victims, and now urges offsprings: “It shouldn’t repeat!” Yakunin stressed. Answering the questions of journalists, he said resuming the results of two-day conference that “there is an evident connection with events of the past, which is the First World War and the Second World War.” According to him, wars are the result of a deliberate action by “the global political elite,” Yakunin said. “Historical parallels between today’s situation and that of 100 years ago are obvious,” the RZhD chief said. |
| In July 1991, the remains of nine people were found in a mass grave discovered on the Staraya Koptyakovskaya Road near Yekaterinburg. The investigators believe they belonged to members of the tsar’s family: Nicholas II, his wife, their daughters, as well as their doctor and servants. The remains of the imperial family were buried at a sepulcher of the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg in 1998 after forensic tests. The remains of another two people were found during archeological excavations conducted south of the first grave on July 29, 2007. Numerous expert evaluations indicate that the remains belong to the children of Nicholas II, Alexey and Maria. A governmental working group suggested that the remains of Tsesarevich Alexey and Grand Duchess Maria be interred at the Romanov burial vault at the Petropavlovskaya Fortress on October 18, 2015. The group allowed for the possibility of further inquiries to dispel the Church’s doubts about the authenticity of the ‘Yekaterinburg remains’. The Investigative Committee later reopened the investigation into the killing of members of the royal family. This made it possible to begin additional tests to confirm the authenticity of Alexey and Maria’s remains kept at the State Archive. On September 23, 2015, samples from the presumed skeletons of Nicholas II and his wife, as well as from the clothing of the last emperor’s grand-father, Alexander II, which he was wearing at the time of his murder, were taken in the presence of Church representatives at the Petropavlovskaya Fortress. The new DNA test confirmed the authenticity of the skulls of Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. In November 2015, the tomb of Alexander III was opened. Further work involved comparison of the genetic materials of Nicholas II and his wife to the genetic samples of Alexey and Maria, the establishment of the genetic type of Alexander III, the location of hemophilia in the remains of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, her daughters and Tsesarevich Alexey. It was also planned to complete the studies of the blood from the clothes of Alexander II and work on the servants and associates of Nicholas II who were executed together with the imperial family. |
| While the period of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the 12th-14th century AD, has been more thoroughlyresearched in the archaeological sites in Veliko Tarnovo, this has not been the case with the period ofthe Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. This is the reason Bulgaria’s archaeologists keep making notable discoveries there such as Vachev’s 2014 discovery of an unknown monastery, and the recent discoveries in the Trapesitsa Hill Fortress,and in the nearby fortress Rahovets where Tarnovgrad’s garrison was stationed in the 13th-14thcentury AD. The Early Byzantine basilica, which has given Vachev grounds for his new hypothesis that beforeTarnovgrad became the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire it was the site of a bishopric and amajor heavily fortified Byzantine city, has been found during the continuing excavations of the ruins of the Bulgarian monastery from the 13th century that the archaeologist found in 2014. Upon excavating further the ruins of the Early Byzantine temple, the archaeologist and his team have found that it was 40 meters long and 20 meters wide. The imposing size, among its other features, indicates the importance of the church and the possibility that it may have been the seat of a bishop. It was on top of these Early Byzantine ruins that the church of what was the Monastery of the Mother of God (Virgin Mary) was built in the 13th century AD by the Bulgarians. “If the hypothesis [that the basilica was a bishop’s temple] is proven, and the further excavations show that one of the most fortified Byzantine cities was built on top of Tsarevets as a the center of abishopric, this will provide clarity as to why of all cities [Veliko] Tarnovo was chosen to be the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire,” Vachev explains. The choice of Tarnovgrad as the Bulgarian capital after Bulgaria was liberated from Byzantium in 1185 AD has been thought to have to do with the fact that the first Tsars of the Second Bulgarian Empire,the boyars Asen and Teodor (Petar), were natives of the region located in today’s Central Northern Bulgaria. |
| The Greek colony of Apollonia Pontica emerged as a major commercial and shipping center, especially after the 5th century AD when it became allied with the Odrysian Kingdom, the most powerful state of the Ancient Thracians. As of the end of the 6th century BC, Apollonia Pontica started minting its own coins, with theanchor appearing on them as the symbol of the polis. Apollonia became engaged in a legendaryrivalry with another Ancient Greek colony, Mesembria, today’s Bulgarian resort town of Nessebar, which was founded north of the Bay of Burgas in the 6th century BC by settlers fromMegara, a Greek polis located in West Attica. According to some historical accounts, in order to counter Mesembria’s growth, Apollonia Pontica founded its own colony, Anchialos, today’s Pomorie (though other historical sources do not support this sequence of events), which is located right to the south of Mesembria. Apollonia managed to preserve its independence during the military campaigns of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon under Philip II (r. 359-336 BC), and his son Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BC). Apollonia, today’s Sozopol, is known to have had a large temple of Greek god Apollo (possibly located on the Sts. Quiricus and Julietta Island, also known as the St. Cyricus Island), with a 12-meter statueof Apollo created by Calamis, a 5th century BC sculptor from Ancient Athens. In 72 BC, Apollonia Pontica was conquered by Roman general Lucullus who took the Apollo statue to Rome and placed it on the Capitoline Hill. After the adoption of Christianity as the official religion in the Roman Empire, the statue was destroyed. In Late Antiquity, Apollonia, also called Sozopolis lost some of its regional center positions to Anchialos, and the nearby Roman colony Deultum ( Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium). After the division of the Roman Empire into a Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire (today known asByzantium) in 395 AD, Apollonia/Sozopolis became part of the latter. Its Late Antiquity fortress walls were built during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Anasthasius (r. 491-518 AD), and the city became a major fortress on the Via Pontica road along the Black Sea coast protecting the European hinterland of Constantinople. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Revered Monasteries and Dreaded Prison Camps: Solovetskiye Islands admin 16 September 2013 Photoreport by Constantin Chalabov, RIANovosti The Solovetskiye Islands in the White Sea in the north of Russia are an archipelago of six large islands in the mouth of Onega Bay. A restricted national park area is located on Greater Solovetsky Island Seagulls are one of the symbols of the Solovetskiye Islands. In the early 18th century, the Golgotha-Raspyatsky (Calvary-Crucifixion) priory was established on Anzer Island. In 1923, the monastery was closed, and the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON) – the largest Soviet prison camp of the 1920s – opened on the islands In 1967, all the buildings of the priory became the property of the Solovetsky Museum and Reserve. On July 3, 1994, a cross was erected at the foot of the Golgotha (Calvary) Hill in memory of all martyred Orthodox Christian hierarchs. The Solovetsky archipelago is also home to the Solovetsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky (Transfiguration of Our Savior) Monastery. Today, the Solovetsky archipelago accommodates the Solovetskiye Islands educational center, which comprises a summer university, a summer cultural-environmental school, a summer handicrafts school and a volunteer center. The chapels on Greater Solovetsky Island are located outside the fortress walls of the Solovetsky Monastery. The Konstantin Chapel, pictured, was built in 1844 to commemorate a visit to the monastery by Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, the son of Czar Nicholas I. Monastic life was resumed at the Solovetsky Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery on October 25, 1990. In 1992, the complex of historical landmarks of the Solovetsky Museum-Reserve was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The architectural ensemble of the Solovetsky Monastery is located on the shore of Blagopoluchiya (Prosperity) Bay on Greater Solovetsky Island. |
| Tweet Нравится Dostoevsky and His Theology I. Introduction Alfred Einstein stated: " Dostoevsky gives me more than any other thinker. " 1 Nicholas Berdyaev was professor of philosophy at the University of Moscow until he was expelled by the Communist regime in 1922. Berdyaev testified that Dostoevsky " stirred and lifted up my soul more than any other writer or philosopher has done…when I turned to Jesus Christ for the first time. 2 Some would assert that either The Brothers Karamazov [pronounced kare-uh-MAHT-tsov] or Crime and Punishment is the greatest novel ever written. Some thinkers within the Christian camp would claim Dostoevsky as one of our own, thereby lending added value to such a study as this. II. A Brief Biography Fyodor Dostoevsky 3 (1821-1881) was the son of an ultra-strict Russian Orthodox father who was a medical doctor. He would call his sons names (e.g., stupid) when they got their recitations wrong. He compelled his sons to stand at attention when they spoke to him. Thus, the young Dostoevsky did not receive a very accurate mirror image of God the Father from his harsh human father. When Dostoevsky was 18 years old, one of the most formative events of his life occurred. His severe father was brutally murdered by his own Russian serfs. The corpse lay out in the field for two days, and the police never conducted an investigation or made any arrest. There is evidence that young Dostoevsky felt something of a guilty complicity in this murder—if only, perhaps, as a death-wish. All four of Dostoevsky’s major novels revolve around a murder, and The Brothers Karamazov is constructed around parricide. Dostoevsky hit the jackpot with his first novel, Poor Folk. Russia’s leading literary critic, Belinsky, announced a new star had arisen on the literary horizon. However, because Dostoevsky’s following works were more personally psychological than social commentaries, the radical Belinsky and other Russian writers began to be more severe in their criticism. Eventually Dostoevsky became involved in the sociopolitical ferment of his era. He joined a group known as the Petrashevsky circle, which contained atheists and revolutionaries (during this pre-Communist period). They planned to publish anti-government propaganda on a secret printing press. Then the police stepped in. Dostoevsky was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and a four-month investigation was conducted. Twenty-one of this group were sentenced to die. |
|
|
