Rila Monastery

Rila Monastery lies in a valley of the Rila Mountains south of Sofia, founded around the cave of the hermit Ivan of Rila, who died in 946. His disciples built the first houses near his retreat, and the tsars of the Second Bulgarian Empire endowed it until it became the spiritual centre of medieval Bulgaria.

The feudal lord Hrelja rebuilt it on its present site in the 1330s and 1340s, leaving a fortified tower of 1334–1335 and a church of 1343.

Ottoman raids at the end of the fourteenth century ended in its destruction in the mid-fifteenth, but it was rebuilt at the century's close by three brothers from Dupnitsa, and Ivan's relics were brought from Tarnovo in 1469. After a fire of 1833 the whole complex was rebuilt from 1834 in the style of the Bulgarian National Revival.