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The museum is open from Monday to Sunday, from 09:00 to 17:30
Hristo Botev Square 2
The museum is open from Monday to Sunday, from 09:00 to 17:30
Hristo Botev Square 2

“Sv. Vaznesenie” church

The Exhibition in the "Sv. Vaznesenie" Church

  The “Sv. Vaznesenie” Church (at present the monument and temple “St. Sofronii Vrachanski”) is the oldest building of cult in the town that was built in 1848.  It has been the only center of the ecclesiastical and the political life in Vratsa since the middle of the 19th c. onwards.  It is therefore inextricably bound with some of the most significant personalities and events during the Bulgarian National Revival – Petko R. Slaveykov, Vasil Levski, the conspirators from Vratsa during the April epic events headed by Stoyan Zaimov, the Russia-Turkey war 1877-1878 (the liberators were welcomed in the church with a liturgy) and other people and events.

            In 1989 the permanent exhibition “Old Bulgarian Art from the Region of Vratsa” was opened in the temple “Vaznesenie” to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the birth of St. Sofronii Vrachanski – a Bulgarian enlightener, man of letters, prominent diplomat and politician.  The exhibition aims to highlight the regional stylistic peculiarities, as well as the organic unity between the different art genres.  Its creation was preceded by an extensive collection work in the churches and the monasteries in Vratsa eparchy, during which were evidenced unique specimen of icon-painting, wood carving and a church plate from 17th – 19th c..  The “Empire” style iconostasis, made by the eminent sculptor from Debar Anton Stanishev, is an exclusive monument of the applied arts.  The regal icons on the iconostasis were made by Dimiter Zograph (Zahariy Zograph’s brother).  Some of them were made together with his son Stanislav Dospevski – the first Bulgarian who graduated from the Academy of Arts in Sankt Petersburg.  The oldest icons in the permanent exhibition painted by Zograph Yovan are dated back to the ХVІІ c..  The exhibited works of Zahariy Zograph mark the absolute apex of the icon-painting mastership.
 
           The artistic peculiarities, the techniques, some specificities and details are indicative not only of the existence of a school of jewellery and literary schools in Vratsa, but also of a style in icon-painting peculiar to this particular town.