Dryanovo Monastery

Dryanovo Monastery is a recess of the nature of Bulgaria with a rich variety of sheer rocky wreaths, caves, unique shapes of the relief, flora and fauna. It is situated 5 km south-west from the town of Dryanovo under the bizarre-bent eastern rocky wreath of the Stara-Planina plateau ‘Strazhata’ (‘The Guard’) in the beautiful canyons of Dryanovska and Andaka rivers.

The founders of the cloister have discovered an area which creates a sensation of an illusory seclusion. The wonderful nature influences the people, calms them and breaks them away from the dynamic of the everyday life. The gorge of the cranky shallow mountain rivers, the woody steep slopes and the framed by cliffs heaven are a peaceful and magnetic world where the white of the limestone dominates and shade into the nuances of the verdancy and azure.

The fairy-tale monastery gorge has an ancient history. The first people settle here during the early pre-historic ages. They inhabit the caves of the Boruna massif and the vesicles of the rocky wreath Polichkite. The oldest is the settlement of the primitive human in the ‘Bacho Kiro’ cave which dates since the middle and late period of the Old Stone Age /100000 – 10000 BC/. The archaeologists studied a 5-meters cultural layer and revealed over 6,000 finds. The cave has been well developed and adapted for tourist visits.

The settlement and cultural traditions continue to develop also in Copper-Stone and Bronze Ages when people establish their dwellings in the rocky openings and vesicles of Polichkite. Since the beginning of the Old Iron Age until the Antiquity the local people are Thracians who remain in the outskirts of the known Thracian state unions and have significantly poorer culture than their tribesmen.      

In the Early-Byzantine Ages the strategic importance of the Fore-Balkan increases, the economical and cultural progress quickens. At the canyons of the rivers, the Byzantines built fortresses in the ‘Boruna’ and ‘Grada’ areas because they saw the good opportunity to control the passages and the roads in Middle Stara Blanina. Byzantines abandoned the fortresses in 7^th century AD when the Fore-Balkans came into the territory of the Slavonic tribes. The fortresses were being used again in 9^th century AD as part of the possessions of the most popular feudal masters in Northern Bulgaria – the future rulers from the Asen dynasty.  

Boruna and Grada are key sections and a last barrier for the defence of the Bulgarian capital Tarnovgrad.

The foundation of the Dryanovo Monastery ‘St. Archangel Michael’ should be sought in the time of the Asen dynasty. Archangel Michael was honoured as a Saint by the founders of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. The monastery was built into the gorge of the Dryanovo river, on its right riverbank, right upon the Andaka cave. It was destroyed for a first time in 1393 during the invasion of the countless Turk hordes for the siege of Tarnovo. After the establishment of the Turk reign, monastery was rebuilt in 16^th century AD and after that, once again destroyed.

The unbending townsfolk of Dryanovo and the Bulgarians from the surrounding settlements reconstructed it again at the end of 17^th century. An inscription over a door of a monastery cell confirms the existence of the monastery at the beginning of 18^th century AD. One ancient parchment from the Monastery of Hilendar contained description of the Dryanovo Monastery, its condition and mentioned that at some time, it was inhabited by 400 – 500 monks.

During the centuries, Dryanovo Monastery was a centre of the Bulgarian education and culture. The monastery played a main role in the preparation of the April Uprising in First Tarnovo Disctrict, there were piled up supplies of food and weapons.

  On 29^th of April 1876 the detachment of priest Hariton – the first rebel’s detachment in Turnovo district and Northern Bulgaria - entered the Dryanovo monastery. Surrounded by the Turks, the detachment fought them for 9 days and most of the participants died for the liberation of Bulgaria. The destroyed and burnt monastery was partially rebuilt and on 3^rd of April 1877 the temple is inaugurated. The abbot Pachomeus Stoyanov performed the first dirge for the perished rebels. At the beginning of the 90s the monastery was fully reconstructed. It is a temple without mural paintings, with a chalice punctured by a Turkish bullet and holes in the walls caused by the Turkish shrapnels which were deliberately left by the builders not to forget the past and the Bulgarian suffering. The grateful descendants raise a charnel-house in 1897 for the perished rebels.

The present-day monastery is one of the 10 most honoured sacred places of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, a national and historical monument and a preferred tourist object.