The birth of the Mother of God is held in special honor in Bulgaria. Our church celebrates it on September 8, together with the Greek Orthodox Church, and the other local Orthodox churches celebrate the holiday on September 21 according to the Gregorian calendar.
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Everywhere in our country, temples and monasteries solemnly celebrate this day, especially those that bear the name Nativity of the Virgin. Among them is the monastery beloved by the Banskalians, dedicated to the Mother of God – known as Paligodèn, shrouded in legends and omens from the dawn of Christianity, BNR reports.
“The historical destinies of our people are closely related to the fate of our Orthodox Church,” says Father Georgi Kasapinov, who serves in the Bansko region, in an interview with Radio Bulgaria. Together with the local inhabitants, he restored the shrines in today’s Razlogka hollow:
“There are about 33 holy places in the land of the city of Bansko, which means that before the formation of today’s city, its hamlets were scattered in different areas – says Father Georgi. – The ancient Roman fortress Sitan Kale, as the word “sitan” probably comes from the citadel. This is also confirmed by the legend of the Nativity of the Virgin, a particularly bright ray in the area of Paligodèn, which is located on the top of a hill, about 3 and a half km southwest of the city of Bansko. It has been revered since ancient times, and legend has it that its first stone was laid around AD 59. We know that the apostle Paul came to preach in Macedonia in AD 52. We also know that remained to hibernate for two months in the ancient city of Nikopolis ad Nestum, 7 kilometers east of today’s Gotse Delchev.”
According to old Banskalians, Apostle Paul also came to the Razlozhka valley, and at the place where he preached in Bansko, a church dedicated to the supreme apostles Peter and Paul was built. According to Father Georgi, it is quite possible that one of the first to accept Christianity in the area, our ancestors, “after the apostle Paul’s sermon, he sowed the seed of Christ’s teaching” with the construction of the Paligodèn monastery, as the Banskalians call it, which was originally a small chapel . Towards the end of the 4th century, the Roman road Via Egnatia passed through the Razlog valley, which led from the Aegean Sea through the Rhodopes to the Thracian lowland and Philippopolis. It was about 100-200 meters below the church itself and it is considered that it was then that it was built in its full dimensions. Until the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th, a functioning temple remained, when it was burned to ashes, together with the Sitan Kale fortress after the Ottoman invasion. That is probably where the name Paligodèn comes from – burned during the day, the BNR history also reports.
“The monastery remains in oblivion until the present day, until in 1935 an event shook Bansko and made the people of Bansko think about the holy place, as it was called – Father Georgi continues his story. – There was an old family in Bansko and the head of the family in The year 1934 plowed the meadow of Palygodèn. The warnings of his fellow citizens not to desecrate the holy place remained in vain and he plowed the meadow and planted it with wheat, but he was too happy with the harvest. The retribution for the sin was not late – in one year everyone in his family are dying, and the family no longer exists in Bansko. This incident led the local priest and the church trustees to the place in 1956, where they discovered the foundations of the old church, with church paraphernalia, to their great surprise.”
It was only in 1964 that the monastery, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, was rebuilt as a single-nave single-apsed basilica, measuring 15 by 9 by 6 meters. In the following year, 1965, pious Orthodox Christians of Bansko donated funds for the finishing works. Its consecration was carried out on September 26, 1965 by Metropolitan Pimen, with the church board of trustees and staurophorian butler Mikhail Daskalov, chairman of the board.
“In the western part of the clearing, a two-story house with four rooms was built to shelter the worshipers. And since the monastery is very visited, it is planned to add to the building from both the southern and northern parts. There are very well-made plans already in the sixties and seventies of the m.v. – notes Father Georgi.
Especially on the Ascension of the Lord and on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, festive services are held there, a health offering is distributed, which is attended by almost all pious Christians from Bansko and the surrounding area. Qurban among Christians has a completely different meaning. With us, already cooked meat dishes are consecrated, and this is a, let’s call it, a gracious sacrifice. Everyone who has – donates and what is donated is cooked. All products are given away, mostly to those in need.”
And the faith of the Banskalians is not only testified by the already restored 17 sanctuaries around the Razlozhka valley. “It was not for nothing that one of the old bishops called Bansko “God-protected”, because throughout all the years – through Ottoman slavery and after that, during atheism, the faith did not break, for which we can thank both God and the priests before us, that manage to keep the faith. God grant that we also have this opportunity to continue these good Christian Orthodox values,” says Father Georgi and wishes a bright holiday: – “To all Christians, to Bulgarians and to all people on earth, because without God’s support we will not exist even one day.”
Thus, in the land sanctified by St. Apostle Paul and with the protection of the Mother of God, the Banskalians jealously guard what was bequeathed.
Source: BNR
Photos: provided to Radio Bulgaria by Alexandra Karamihaleva, BTA, nasledstvotonanaroda.bg, bansko-gevgelija.airbansko.org
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