The monastery was built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries on a hill 400 meters above sea level. Its architecture clearly shows the features characteristic of the Bulgarian Renaissance. The main church was built in 1835 on the site of an earlier, destroyed temple.
The residential buildings where the monks live form a quadrangle with a decorative cloister in the center. It is covered with frescoes by the 19th-century Bulgarian painter Zacharia Dimitrov. He was also the creator of the church iconostat and fresco depicting 27 monks living in the monastery at the time when the artist worked there. It is also worth mentioning that the icons were painted by his brother, Dimityr.
The monastery houses one of the most valuable icons of Bulgarian Orthodoxy, depicting the Three-Handed Mother of God, dating from the 17th century. According to legend, it was donated to the monastery by a monk who stayed there during his pilgrimage to Mount Athos.
Attractions inside
