Pancharevo Monastery St Nikolay Letni Miracleworker

The Pancharevo monastery St Nikolay Letni Miracleworker is situated in the Ihtiman part of the Sredna Gora mountain, about 5 km away from the village of Pancharevo on the road to Samokov. It lies on the right-hand bank of the Iskar river in its Pancharevo defile, close to the Urvich fortress. Information on the time when the monastery was first built has not reached us. It is known only that following the fall of the Bulgarian state under Ottoman rule the Pancharevo monastery was destroyed. It was rebuilt twice in the 20th century – first in 1938 and then in 1996. An sign of gratefulness in the church reads that the monastery’s restoration in 1994-1996 was carried out with the financial support fo Atanas Petrov Gospodinov from Pancharevo. The monastery is operational, and at present (May, 2006) large-scale works for the construction of a new residential building with the help of donations continue. The monastery represents a complex of a church with a bell-tower, residential and farm buildings. The church was finished in 1996 over old foundations but is not yet painted with frescoes. It represents a one-nave domeless construction.