Church St. Dimitar of Thessaloniki in the village of Brejani

The church St. Dimitar of Thessaloniki in the village of Brejani (Southwestern Bulgaria, Blagoevgrad district) was built in 1847. Once the churchyard was fenced with struts and there was a wooden shelter around the building of the church. Nowadays, the yard is fenced by a cement wall. The icons in the temple were granted by the people. There are no frescoes because the church was burnt twice – by the Greeks and by the Ottomans. To burn it, they filled it with cornstalks and lit it, as it was impossible to destroy it by fire from outside. Later, the church was rebuilt with stones. In 1933 Father Philip built the bell-tower and the church houses behind the main building. In 1963, the church houses were expropriated by the town council in older to found a library. Even until today the owner of this place is a debatable ground. The bell was cast in the village of alloy mixed with gold. The local people voluntarily gave their gold as much as they could for making the bell. The bell had extraordinary acoustics but later it was stolen.