Chiprovtsi Monastery (Bulgarian : Чипровски манастир, Chiprovski manastir) is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery 5 kilometres northeast of the town of Chiprovtsi in Montana Province in northwestern Bulgaria. It belongs to the diocese of Vidin and lies in the valley of the Ogosta river.
Bulgarian, is an Indo-European language and a member of the Southern branch of the Slavic language family.
Chiprovtsi is a small town in northwestern Bulgaria, administratively part of Montana Province. It lies on the shores of the river Ogosta in the western Balkan Mountains, very close to the Bulgarian-Serbian border. A town of about 2,000 inhabitants, Chiprovtsi is the administrative centre of Chiprovtsi Municipality that also covers nine nearby villages.
Montana Province is a province in northwestern Bulgaria, bordering Serbia in the southwest and Romania in the north. It spreads its area between the Danube river and Balkan mountain. As of February 2011, the province has a population of 148,098 inhabitants, on territory of 3,635.5 km². It was named after its administrative centre the city of Montana.
According to Petar Bogdan, the monastery was built in the 10th century and remained a religious and cultural centre despite Tatar and Magyar raids in the 13th century, the Ottoman invasion in the 14th century and Michael the Brave's raids in the 16th century. The monastery has been razed six times, in 1412, 1688, 1806, 1828, 1837 and 1876, with the one of 1688 after the Chiprovtsi Uprising being particularly devastating. The current monastery church was built in 1829.
The Tatars are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in Russia and other Post-Soviet countries. The name Tatar first appears in written form on the Kul Tigin monument as 𐱃𐱃𐰺 (Ta-tar). Historically, the term Tatars was applied to anyone originating from the vast Northern and Central Asian landmass then known as the Tartary, which was dominated by various mostly Turco-Mongol semi-nomadic empires and kingdoms. More recently, however, the term refers more narrowly to people who speak one of the Turkic languages.
The Ottoman Empire, also historically known in Western Europe as the Turkish Empire or simply Turkey, was a state that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Oghuz Turkish tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror.
Michael the Brave was the Prince of Wallachia, Prince of Moldavia (1600) and de facto ruler of Transylvania (1599–1600). He is considered one of Romania's greatest national heroes, and he is seen by Romanian historiography as the first author of Romanian unity.
The Chiprovtsi Monastery consists of a church dedicated to Saint John of Rila, residential buildings, a small graveyard and a three-storey tower featuring an ossuary, a chapel and a belfry.
Saint Ivan of Rila was the first Bulgarian hermit. He was revered as a saint while he was still alive. The legend surrounding him tells of wild animals that freely came up to him and birds that landed in his hands. His followers founded many churches in his honor, including the famous Rila Monastery. One of these churches, "St Ivan Rilski" was only discovered in 2008 in the town of Veliko Tarnovo. Today, he is honored as the patron saint of the Bulgarians and as one of the most important saints in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
