Orlitsa (The Eagle) Convent

Overview

Orlitsa is a functioning convent of the Rila Monastery near the town of Rila. According to the description of the Rila Monastery by Neofit Rilski, the so-called Hrelyova Magernitsa was preserved in the convent (ie a room named in honor of the medieval Hrelyo Voivode, in a religious building where food was stored and prepared). This building still exists today. It is a two-storey building with a cellar on the lower level and a large room with a monastery dome in one corner. It is accessible through a veranda. The architecture of the building categorically reveals its medieval pre-Ottoman origin, which confirms what Neofit Rilski wrote in the middle of the 19th century that it dates from the 1330s. Some walls built into the later Metoch constructions also date from that period. There are such in the northern outer wall of the church and at the eastern end of the ground floor of the monastic corps. But from there up these 2 buildings were upgraded in their current form in 1478 and the sixteenth - eighteenth century, respectively. The other Metosh buildings date back to the 19th century. In the convent in 1469 he spent the night in a solemn procession with the remains of St. John of Rila, which transported them from Tarnovo to the Rila Monastery. The convent is a trapezoidal complex, closed on most sides with buildings and on the others with stone walls. Particularly impressive is its fortified view from the road, with the high southern walls of the residential buildings located along it and with the main entrance to the ensemble, formed in an underpass under the guard. It consists of several buildings. The church "St. St. Peter and Paul ”is a small, single-nave cult building, built in 1478 on parts of walls from an earlier time, painted in 1478 and completely in 1491. In 1863 it was re-painted by Nikola Obrazopisov - an artist from the Samokov School of Painting, as some of the medieval frescoes (above the entrance and in the apse) have been preserved. More than 300-year-old vines have been preserved in the yard of the convent. Some of the scenes from the movie "The Goat's Horn" were shot here.