Glozhene Monastery "St. George the Victorious"

Overview

The Glozhene Monastery was founded in the middle of the 13th century by the Kiev prince Georgi Glozhe, who, with the permission of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II, settled in the lands around the present-day village of Glozhene and built a monastery dedicated to the icon "St. George the Victorious. Legend has it that the icon was constantly disappearing from the monastery and the monks found it on a nearby hill. They interpreted this as a sign of God and at the end of the 14th century built a new monastery there, where it is still located today. Thus, for a short time, two monasteries (in the village and on the hill) existed in parallel, connected by a tunnel cut into the rock. The tunnel called "Prosechnik" is the only one left from the time of construction of the monastery and only through it you can reach its terrace. This pass was used many times by Vasil Levski to escape from the Turks. The tunnel was covered by an earthquake in 1928. The Glozhene Monastery is active and consists of a church and two-storey residential buildings, which form a closed yard, which gives the monastery the appearance of a castle.