Sopot Monastery "Introduction to the Mother of God"

Overview

Sopot Monastery "Introduction to the Mother of God" is a Bulgarian Orthodox convent in the Plovdiv Diocese of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The monastery was founded in 1665 by the nun Susana (according to other sources - in 1404, but there is no reliable data). The Hilendar convent, which was burned down by the Kurds in 1794, but left the name "convent", was transferred to the Virgin Monastery (without being a convent of any monastery). In this Hilendar convent came Fr. Paisius brought his "Slavo-Bulgarian History", which was repeatedly copied and there are preserved two transcripts-revisions from 1828 and 1845, which burned during the burning of Sopot by the Turks in 1877.

The church of the monastery "Introduction to the Mother of God" has been preserved since the third quarter of the 17th century. Only another such church is known within Bulgaria - the one in the village of Dobarsko (Razlog). The frescoes from the 17th century preserved in it are interesting - the so-called "Saints without heads", and the painting of the "royal order" of the iconostasis.

Also interesting is the preserved residential building with verandas from the XVIII century, which miraculously survived with the burning of Sopot by the Turks in 1877 and in which is preserved the cell of the girls' cell school (operated until 1850), the hiding place under the cell of the abbess Hristina (in which Vasil Levski hid).

The monastery had a scriptorium for copying church literature, as well as an icon-painting school for nuns, which operated until the 1930s.

Today the monastery is active and is under the authority of the Plovdiv Metropolitanate.

Here is also preserved the oldest vine in all of Southeast Europe (and perhaps in all of Europe), which is 350 years old and continues to bear fruit.