Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
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How it came to be
Near the village of Ivanovo, south of Ruse in north-east Bulgaria, monks cut churches, chapels and cells into the cliffs above the Rusenski Lom river. At its height the complex had about 40 churches and some 300 other rooms, most of which are now lost.
The five surviving monuments date from the 13th and 14th centuries, the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Rulers including Tsar Ivan Alexander made donations, and donor portraits appear in some churches. The 14th-century murals, by artists of the Tarnovo school, break with Byzantine conventions in their taste for the nude, landscape and drama. An inscription cut by the monk Ivo Gramatik in 1308-09 also survives.
After the Ottoman conquest of 1396 the monastery declined. When rock collapsed in the early 20th century, the 13th-century ceiling paintings of a buried church were rescued and moved to a new backing. The site has been a protected reserve since 1965 and was inscribed in 1979.
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