Bakadzhik Spassky Monastery

After the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 , which led to the liberation of part of Bulgaria from the centuries-old Turkish yoke, the Russian army remained in the country for two more years ^[3] . At the beginning of 1879, Lieutenant General Mikhail Skobelev discussed with the inhabitants of Yambol the idea of ​​building a temple in memory of Russian soldiers. It was decided that it would be erected, on the northern side of the Bakadzhik Upland. The place where the old Byzantine monastery of St. Savior was located during the April Uprising of 1876 was chosen. It is said that General Skobelev personally chose Bakadzhik as the place of the future temple ^[4] .

Construction was started in the spring of 1879 by the 30th Infantry Division. Funding for the construction came from donations from Russia and Bulgaria. Among the donors were the mother of General Skobelev, Olga Nikolaevna Poltavtseva-Skobelev, and his sister, Princess Beloselskaya. The local population, rather poor, helped mainly with their labor. On the Ascension Day, people brought what anyone could take — wool, wheat, hemp, hides and raffled off goods at auction, and donated money from their sale for construction ^[4] .

On May 12 of the same year, Archpriest Alexy Kuznetsov, the dean of the 30th Infantry Division, together with its commander General Shnitnikov, laid near the village of Chargan , 13 miles from the city of Yambol, a stone church in the name of the holy noble Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky in memory of the salvation of Emperor Alexander II during the attempt on him by D.V. Karakozov on April 2 of the same year. The Bulgarian clergy also attended the bookmark ^[3] , but did not serve because of the Greek-Bulgarian schism .

The church in the name of St. Alexander Nevsky was conceived and built with dimensions of 16.70 m in length and 5.20 m in width. In it, according to the old custom, the women's department was also made, as was done during the Turkish yoke ^[4] .

After the withdrawal of the Russian units, General Skobelev Jr. presented the gospel and an engraved cross to the temple under construction, and the construction was completed from Yambol with the financial assistance of the Bulgarians and Russians. The iconostasis was created by Russian monazes, and the banners and icons were transferred from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra ^[2] .

At the monument church for 200 people without a bell tower, a man’s monastery was opened in the name of the Holy Savior, which was listed as part of the Kherson diocese , but like other foreign parishes it was managed by the St. Petersburg Metropolitan ^[3] . The abbot of the monastery was the former colonel hieromonk Parfeny (Pavlov) ^[5] .

The monastery owned fields, cattle and apiary and a large vineyard. On the territory there were two two-story houses for the fraternity and outbuildings ^[3] .

Not far from the monastery, on Mount Bakadzhik , there was a wooden Ascension Chapel, very revered by the surrounding inhabitants. Thousands of pilgrims flocked to the Ascension , thanks to the donations of which the monastery could exist ^[3] .

In 1900, after the death of Hieromonk Parfeny (Pavlov), Hieromonk Juvenaly (Zagorulko) was appointed rector ^{[4] [5]} .

In 1902, instead of a wooden building, a stone chapel was built using Russian money, consecrated on August 30 of the same year by Metropolitan Gerwassius of Sliven (Georgiev) . At the same time, a stone hotel was erected in the monastery ^[3] .

After Bulgaria entered the First World War in October 1915 on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the monastery became a victim of the Russophobe Vasil Radoslavov , who called him “the nest of Russian espionage” ^[4] . Hieromonk Juvenal, very respected by the local population, was interned in the city of Kotel , where he died in 1916. The main property of the monastery was sealed, and the Bulgarian priest Kassian was appointed to manage the monastery ^[5] .

In 1919, the psalmmer Juvenal returned to the monastery, who undertook to run a household that had fallen into disrepair, as the Bulgarians confiscated part of the land and claimed income from the chapel ^[3] .

For some time, beginning in 1921, the monastery metropolitan Kherson and Odessa Plato (Rozhdestvensky) , who was soon appointed manager of the North American and Aleutian diocese . Some monks of the devastated Gregory-Bizyukovsky monastery in his diocese also found shelter in the monastery . A military school of the Don Army was established in Yambol and two Russian military cemeteries appeared, on one of which in 1921 a monument was erected for buried emigrants to whom the Alexander Nevsky Church was transferred ^[3] .

In the early 1930s, there were two churches and 12 inhabitants in the monastery of St. Savior. The rector was Archimandrite Sergius (Sobolev) ^[5] .

In 1934, the monastery passed into the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church ^[4] .

In 1938, at the request of Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev), the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church provided material assistance to the Russian monastery of St. Savior ^[5] .

As of 2014, there were no monks in the monastery. The monastic property was supported by one Bulgarian priest and his wife ^[2] .