Rila Monastery

Rila Monastery or The Monastery of Saint Ivan of Rila is the most famous and the largest Eastern Ortodox monastery in Bulgaria. It is located in the low parts of southwest Rila Mountains, in the boundaries of Rila National Park at an elevation of 1,147m (3, 763 ft). It carries the name of his founder - St Ivan Rilski. Actually he was living in a cave close to the site of the monastery and his students founded it in the 10 century. Today there live around 60 monks.

Saint John of Rila (Bulgarian: Свети Йоан (Иван) Рилски, sveti Ioan Rilski) (876 – c. 946) 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. Source - Wikipedia

For me it is on the other side of the mountain because I live closer to its north part and I've hiked mostly around that part because it is more convenient for me. One of the hikes that I really wanted to do this summer was either from my part to Rila Monastery and back or the opposite way. The problem was that it is really long and not suitable for 1 day hike for me even thought I am fast it is almost impossible unless you are a mountain runner. The better choice is to do it with one night in the mountain and only in one direction, at least for the knees. But to carry camping equipment around the mountain is also not easy at all. Actually I get lower back pain if I carry even not so heavy backpack. That's why instead of stopping hiking I stopped carrying backpack, shoes and poles. (and my lower back problems disappeared of course).

Two months ago I was chatting with a friend of mine and he told me that he was for the first time near a little chapel on a hill in our part of the mountain with amazing view of some high peaks. That little chapel has really interesting story and it is also called St. Ivan Rilski because when people were transferring his remains from the city Veliko Turnovo back to The Rila Monastery they passed by that hill in Rila and after that a big church was built there, later demolished. I'll write more about its story in the next part. My friend is not that religious but more I would call it spiritual. He wanted to go to The Rila Monastery, take an icon from there and bring it to the other side of the mountain and leave it in the chapel - like if Ivan Rilski is crossing the mountain again.Of course I was happy to go on the long hike with him.

So our first step was the monastery a Saturday morning three weeks ago.

We looked around the monastery, took some photos, ate some
мекици (they were so delicious) and were ready to start our long way back home. And of course we took an icon of St Ivan Rilski from the monastery.

The main church of the monastery was erected in the middle of the 19th century.

The tower on the left is the oldest building in the complex now - built in 1334

The tower of Hrelja

Hrelja also known as Stefan Dragovolor was a 14th-century semi-independent feudal lord in the region of northeastern Macedonia and the Rila mountains who served medieval Serbian kings Stefan Milutin, Stefan Dečanski and Stefan Dušan. He is known for reconstructing the Rila Monastery, Bulgaria's largest monastery, in 1334–1335. Source - Wikipedia

Postcards with the monastery

The monastery from the start of our pathway - The Long Ridge

Here you can see our trip from Samokov to the Monastrery, our trek and the chapel