Companion Guide to Religious Architecture in Bulgaria • Part One – West Bulgaria

Юлия Минева-Милчева, Елисавета Александрова / Julia Mineva-Milcheva, Elisaveta Alexandrova-Koeva

The Companion Guide is the outcome of a project accomplished with the help of MATRA Programme of the Royal Embassy of the Netherlands

Bulgaria is a truly overflowing cornucopia of religious architecture and art from all ages.

The main effort and achievement of this companion guide is the establishment of the viewing value of each of the monuments of religious architecture in Bulgaria, moving within the whole range of guiding recommendation and selection of the sites which are worth seeing, to scholarly expertise - i.e. how to view the images created via

However, directing you in this dimension, this Companion Guide attempts to keep alive the religious dimension of the world which, alas, is most often ignored or rendered meaningless in scholarly speculation, largely atheistic, and even more in the offers of tourist attractions. Religious architecture sites are not just places where we can satisfy our curiosity so as to spend a tourist season under the guise of 'cultural tourism'. These are the dwellings where our most viable experience of life happens.