Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Overview

Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The church was built by people from Pavel Banya, immediately after the settlement was founded in 1879. The territory of Pavel Banya became a vassal of the sultan and although the people of Pavel Banya won the lawsuit for the legality of their new village, they did not receive permission from the Turkish authorities to build the desired church. God, they started the construction of a building, supposedly intended as a village barn, where to store the tax (spahilaka), as they called him. They hired master masons from Macedonia. All the people from the village took part in the construction of the barn. They appointed a priest to take care of the construction - priest Sava Ivanov - a native of the village of Turia, loved and respected by all. Later, due to his God-pleasing zeal, Priest Sava became a hierarch's deputy of the Plovdiv metropolitanate. He was given the rank of archpriest. He personally determined the location of the church and supervised its construction - according to Orthodox canons, with an altar facing east. On March 9, 1879, at sunrise, he struck a thin, tall stake at the designated spot and outlined its shadow cast to the west, and at sunset he did the same with the shadow cast by a car to the east. The foundations of the south long wall were dug in this shape. When the roof was finally ready, the masters opened windows in the walls and in just a few days the "barn" became a church ready for worship.