St. John the Theologian Church (Църква Св. Йоан Богослов) Zemen, Bulgaria

The church Saint John the Theologian (Bulgarian: Църква Свети Йоан Богослов) is part of the Zemen Monastery (Bulgarian: Земенски манастир). It is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery located 1 km away from Zemen in western Bulgaria. The monastery was established in the 11th century and it is rather small with a church, belfry and two other buildings. It is currently uninhabited. The church is a monument of culture with national significance.

The church dates from the foundation of the monastery in the late 11th century and has a cube shape, 9 m long, 8 m wide, 11.20 m high. The material used was travertine. The altar is a stone monolith and the floor is made of colourful tiles. The church is richly painted inside, with two layers of frescoes, the scarcely preserved early one dating to the 11th century. The better preserved Biblical scenes date from the mid-14th century and include several portraits of donors: the first one depicting an unnamed man, his wife Doya and their two children, the second featuring a young man, Vitomir, and a boy, Stoyu. These portraits rank among the oldest and artistically most valuable in the Balkans after the frescoes of the Boyana Church.

/Wikipedia.org/

more