Tsurnogorski monastery "St. Kozma and Damian" (Gigini Monastery)

Overview

It is located about 16 km southwest of the town of Breznik and 4 km east of the village of Gigintsi, at the foot of Mount Tumba (1129 m.), in the Bulgarian mountain Tzurna Gora. 1000 m above sea level, it can be reached by 5 km asphalt road.

The oldest monastery buildings are considered to date from the XI-XII century. Since then, excavations have revealed preserved remains of a rectangular monastic wing of the monastery and a rectangular defensive tower. Such protective facilities were common for the monasteries during the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. They had defended the Rila, Hilendar, and Zografski monasteries.

The monastery was not badly damaged during the Ottoman invasion. It had gradually became a community center for the Bulgarians from the neighboring districts - Tsaribrod, Pirot, Breznitsa, Sofia, Radomir.

A big market took place every year close to the walls of the monastery. In the 16th century, the monastery housed a church school. As trade around the monastery flourished, the Pirot Turks began to see the crowded annual market as a competitive market overshadowing their Pirot Fair. They staged a fight near the monastery, killing a Turk. This gave the Ottoman rulers reason to "restore order". A massacre was ordered, the Monastery was set on fire, and the Metropolitan of Sofia was stabbed and died in Vladishka Mountain. The monastery was then looted and destroyed. The flames also destroyed the monastery library with valuable Church Slavonic liturgical books, kondika, and other monastery documents.

Only a few years later, Hilendar monks discovered a healing spring and decided to move the ruined monastery close to it. With the help of the local population, the construction of the buildings and the current church began. The locals from the neighboring villages of Gigintsi, Begunovtsi, Noevtsi, Kosherevo, Selishten dol, Gabrov dol, Berende, Yardzhilovtsi, and others took part in the construction. Initially, cells and buildings were built for domestic and commercial needs (oven, barn, granary).

Later, two priest brothers from the village of Begunovtsi initiated the construction of the current church. Subsequently, they accepted monasticism with the names Chrysanthemum and Hilarion. Chrysanthemum and Hilarion received permission to build the monastery church. The law in the Ottoman Empire did not allow the construction of new temples, so the church was built on the foundations of an older temple, which existed on this site, near the holy spring from the time of the first monastery. The church was completed in 1814 and in two construction periods. The original church was a one-dimensional, one-apse building with a semi-cylindrical vaulted roof. Later, a semicircular porch was added to the west, which was in fact an extension of the original ship. According to Andrey Grabar, the narthex was built around 1886, and according to a postscript, the monastery was built during the time of Karafeiz. The old church, on which the current Gigini Monastery was built, was probably also a single-nave, one-apse building, similar to the churches from the late Middle Ages in the Gornostrum districts and Znepole.

During the Bulgarian Renaissance, the influence of the monastery increased. The Metropolitan of Sofia ordained the priests of the whole district here, and the children from the neighboring villages studied faith, reading, and writing in the church school. The monastery owned many properties from the time of the Bulgarian kings, donated by local wealthy people and bought with the money of pilgrims. Wage-earners from the neighboring villages cultivated the monastery land. The monastery owned several oxen, about a thousand sheep, a dairy, an inn in the largest village, a large apiary. A lot of grain was harvested. In times of drought, when the villagers had nothing to eat,  the monastery grain was enough to feed the people from three villages.

The current monastery complex consists of a residential building and a monastery church. The L-shaped residential building is a two-story building with wooden stairs and a veranda.

The monastery church has been declared an architectural monument. The painting on the walls has been applied three times, the last one being from 1886.  Тhe painter was Georgi Popaleksov and his style of painting was the so-called folk style.

One of the great donors of the Gigini Monastery was Alexi Stefanov from the village of Gigintsi, who gave a lot of money for its settlement and for the increase of the monastery properties. The founder of the church, Deda Alexa, is painted in full length on the south side of the church.

Outside the monastery, to the west, were located the monastery barns, shepherds' and barns. During Ottoman rule, the monastery's property was significant. According to Deda Alexa the monastery owned 1200 decares of land, 800 sheep, a dozen shepherds, and apprentices, 60 cattle, and a dairy. Every year on the temple's High Holy Day/ November 14 according to Art. / - a night market was held.

Before the Second World War (1935 - 1940) children from poor families from Pernik and Sofia spent holidays here for free. In 1937 there were no more monks in the monastery and for a short time, it was ruled by priests from the surrounding villages.

After 1944, it was turned into a concentration camp. Later it became a "holiday residence for workers" and a "holiday residence for children". Eventually, the monastery was turned into a stable. The building was no longer maintained and repaired, as a result, the monastery was abandoned. Despite the devastation, in 1956 the Gigini Monastery was declared an architectural monument, and in 1976 - an artistic cultural monument.

After 1989 the monastery was restored as a spiritual center of the Breznik region. The former Zografski monk Archimandrite Eugene restarted spiritual activity. The properties have been returned to the monastery. The abandoned, collapsing buildings have been renovated and monks have been resettled. A water supply system, sanitation, and central heating system have been built. Тhe healing spring has been renovated (there are claims of cases of cured patients who drank from the healing water). Several international student brigades have been organized to help with the construction and repair activities, as well as on the farm. Significant financial aid came from the state budget, and private donations and money for European projects came in.

In 2007 a prayer service was held and a complete renovation of the monastery complex began, with the restoration of the dining room, the barn, and the church, the construction of the collapsed east wing, and the restoration of the central building.

Currently, the monastery has the status of a diocesan male dormitory monastery at the Sofia Diocese of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate.

Thanks to the hieromonk Nicanor, a person with interesting previous secular life, the monastery received many different donations that help the monastery return to life. By decision of the monastery council on October 16, 2016, an election was held for the abbot, which unanimously appointed Hieromonk Nikanor, whose election was subsequently canonically approved by the Bulgarian Patriarch Neophyte in his capacity as Metropolitan of the Sofia Diocese. His extensive knowledge of modern technologies contributes to the modernization of the monastery community in terms of information and communication services such as the Internet, television, and mobile communications.

The fraternity is one of the first in the recent history of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, which restores a monastery farm,  raising up to 100 buffalo and 50 sheep.