Rila Monastery, 2nd Ed.
By Margarita Koeva
December 2003
Borina Publishing House
ISBN: 954-500-105-4
108 pages, Illustrated, 6" x 8 ¼"
$45.00 Paper Original
The historic development of each nation involves the creation of cultural and material values. Some of them are the ultimate achievement of the mind or of the arts and enrich national as well as world culture. These are historic documents which are evidence of the creative endeavor of a nation and confirm unequivocally its right to historic existence and define its place in the development of world civilization.
For the Bulgarians the Rila Monastery is one of the most outstanding proofs of the value of spiritual and artistic culture, the world of their predecessors. In the course of ten centuries it has been a literary and religious center which supported the internal stability of the nation in spite of the trials which interspersed its history. It was the second largest in the Balkans but in contrast to the monasteries on Mount Athos in Greece it always kept its doors wide open to everyone and performed socially useful work. The democratic nature of its activities was laid down in the testament of its patron John of Rila who devoted his life of a hermit to a struggle for purity of the faith and for equality among people.
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Geography; History
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