Boyana Church

The Boyana Church (Bulgarian: Боянска църква, Boyanska tsărkva) is a medieval Bulgarian Orthodox church situated on the outskirts of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, in the Boyana quarter. In 1979, the building was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The east wing of the two-storey church was originally constructed in the late 10th or early 11th century, then the central wing was added in the 13th century under the Second Bulgarian Empire, the whole building being finished with a further expansion to the west in the middle of the 19th century. A total of 89 scenes with 240 human images are depicted on the walls of the church.

History and architecture

The Boyana Church was built in three stages: in the late 10th to early 11th, the mid-13th, and the mid-19th centuries. The oldest section (the eastern church) is a small one-apse cross-vaulted church with inbuilt cruciform supports. It was built in the late 10th or the early 11th century.

The second section, which adjoins the eastern church, was commissioned by Sebastocrator Kaloyan and his wife Desislava in the mid-13th century. This building belongs to the two-floor tomb-church type. It consists of a ground-floor family sepulchre with a semi-cylindrical vault and two arcosolia on the north and south walls, and of an upper-floor family chapel identical in design to the eastern church. The exterior is decorated with ceramic ornaments.

The last section was built with donations from the local community in the mid-19th century. The church was closed to the public in 1954 in order to be conserved and restored. It was only partially reopened in 2006.

As a protection measure, air-conditioning was installed to keep the temperature at 17–18 degrees Celsius (62–64 Fahrenheit), with low-heat lighting. Groups of up to 8 visitors are permitted to stay for 10 minutes. The building, placed under the management of the National Historical Museum (Bulgaria), was fully reopened to the public by Culture Minister Stefan Danailov on October 2, 2008.

Frescoes

Saint Aretas or Arethan; often mistaken for St...