Monastery of Saints Constantine and Helena
The Monastery of Saints Constantine and Helena ( Bulgarian Манастир Св. Св. Константин и Елена / Manastir Sweti Sweti Konstantin i Elena) is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery in northeastern Bulgaria . The monastery is subordinate to the diocese of Varna and Veliki Preslav .
location
The monastery is located 10 km northeast of the city center of the port city of Varna , in the holiday resort of the same name, Saints Constantine and Helena on the Black Sea .
history
According to legends and legends, the monastery was built in the 14th to 16th centuries. Monks, persecuted by the wild Turks, found refuge in the forest (this is where the holiday resort is today). There they found an icon of Saints Constantine and Helena and decided to build a small monastery near a mineral healing spring. The buildings are made of heavy stones that have been well preserved to this day. The monastery was renovated three times - the last time in 1973. It and the mineral healing springs are famous as a health spring to this day. The healing water is used for baptisms, water consecrations and church services. Every guest can visit the small church to the monastery, which is very interesting in the construction and is recommended as worth seeing.
It is not known who founded this monastery and for what reasons. At that time, the monastery was surrounded by a dense, impassable forest and was in the immediate vicinity of many medicinal drinking water sources (today's mineral bath is only 300 m east-southeast of the monastery), the sea was also very close (only 350 m east-south-east of the monastery).
During the Crimean War (1853 to 1856), which broke out as a result of fighting on the Danube , a cholera epidemic broke out in the Varna region in 1854 among the expeditionary armies . The inhabitants of Varna have sought rescue and left their homes to live in tents in the area around the monastery, where they have been outdoors and drank the water from the healing spring. This indicates that the monastery was still valued as a healing place in the middle of the 19th century.
In 1836 the brothers Teodosi and Agapi Kantardschiewi from Veliko Tarnovo renovated the monastery, which was damaged during the Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829), and kept it in good condition until their death in 1868.
After the liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, an area commission was founded in 1891 to determine how the monastery property was acquired and to determine its further use and economic function. The background was, as in large parts of Bulgaria, the Bulgarian-Greek church struggle (a dispute between the Metropolitan of the Church of Greece and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church ). The struggle was initiated during the Bulgarian Revival to push back the influence of the Greek Orthodox Church in Bulgaria that had been gained during the Ottoman rule.
The commission concluded that the property had been donated by local Christians and that most of the donors came from the village of Kestritsch (now Winitsa - a district of Varna). With regard to the further economic function of the monastery, it was concluded that the soil there was not fertile and that it would be pointless to use it for agricultural purposes. Interestingly, the commission found out that the monastery had acted as a bank (lender) until the liberation of Bulgaria - it provided loans to build churches and schools. The monastery had collected the funds it had lent through various economic activities.
Parts of Saint Valentine's bones are kept in the monastery. They were born in 2006 with the blessing of Pope Benedict XVI. transported there and thus Bulgaria is the third country after Italy and Russia to keep the remains of the saint. According to legends, the bones have healing powers and every year on February 14th many gather in the monastery to light a candle and recharge their batteries. It is said that if you drink water from St. Valentine's Day, you will have a second life.
Coordinates: 43 ° 13 ′ 45.8 ″ N , 28 ° 0 ′ 50.1 ″ E