Черепишката манастирска църква „Успение Богородично” – история, архитектура и живопис
The catholicon of the Assumption Monastery of Cherepish: history, architecture, painting

Summary/Abstract: Tough arousing researchers’ interest for decades now, the Catholicon of the Assumption, Monastery of Cherepish, is an understudied Bulgarian monument. This study seeks to summarise and complement the already existing ones. Fieldwork and an analysis of all the information (historical data, archival items, photographs, earlier publications) provide an opportunity for a more comprehensive overview of the history of the Cherepish catholicon. Among the sources adduced are records from manuscripts and incunabula such as the Cherepish typicon (Church-Historical and Archival Institute, no. 44), Cherepish Gospel (inv. no. 33), A bead-roll of church donors (Sts Cyril and Methodius National Library 292), etc., as well as various artefacts of applied arts from reliquaries to silver paftas (female belt buckles). Initially, the church was dedicated to the Annunciation, and after the 1830s, was renamed the Church of the Assumption. Built at the turn of the seventeenth century, the main church was refurbished on more than one occasion: shortly before 1834, in 1888 and between the late nineteenth century and the 1940s. For the first time, were identified in their entirety the extant scenes and images of the four paint layers: of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of the 1830s, 1908 and the 1940s. The history of the iconostasis at the catholicon has been traced since the 1830s by using archival photographs.

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