Architectural and Artistic Design of the Medieval Churches and Their Significance

The plan of the interior is reminiscent of a Greek cross and the transition between the square of the naos and the dome is accomplished by means of pendentives. The floor is covered with bricks. Many fragments, which probably belonged to the original stone iconostasis, have been found in the vicinity. The East Church was scantily lit by long narrow openings - one each on the north and south walls, four on the dome - as well as through one triforium on the apse.

The entire interior surface of the walls and dome was covered with murals. Some larger fragments have been preserved in the apse. As the First Church was painted again in the middle of the 18th Century, traces of the original paintings are noticeable only where the upper layer of murals has been destroyed.

The little preserved is not sufficient for the restoration of the whole composition scale and iconography of the murals, but we can infer something of their style and technique of execution. The murals were monumentally executed in al fresco. They convey a light and gentle water-colour effect. The technique is instrumental for defining the time of construction and decoration of the First Church. Some scholars date it to the 10th Century and others to the 11th or 12th Century. Recent investigations have shown that the First Church was redecorated and certain areas were painted a second time. The repairs were carried out before 1259. Fragments of this intermediate layer were found upon the west facade of the First Church (which is now in the interior of the Boyana Church ) and upon the southern interior wall. The repaired fragments show paintings with reduced proportion alien to the original colour scheme.

In the 13th Century the feudal ruler of the western region of the Second Bulgarian State, Sebastocrator Kaloyan, and his wife Desislava, who were closely related to the royal family, commissioned the extension of the church. The builders added a new two-storey building to the western wall of the First Church . The ground floor has direct access from the First Church and was intended as a narthex. It is rectangular, covered with a cylindrical vault. On the inside, the walls are decorated only with two niches on the southern and northern sides respectively. There is reason to believe that he niches intended for burials and narthex, for a family tomb. However, no graves have been found. The upstairs floor of Kaloyan's Church has an almost identical architectural composition to the older building - in the shape of a Greek cross. The upper floor was used as a family chapel. It was dedicated to the martyr healer St. Panteleimon. Access to the chapel is by on outside staircase along the southern wall. It is possible that the stairs connected the chapel with the house of the nobleman. there are grounds for believing that the event of danger, the mobile staircase was removed. thus, the upstairs chapel could also be used as a defense tower.

Tow-storey high mortuary churches of similar structure are to be found elsewhere in Bulgaria, e.g. the church in the Assen Fortress near Assenovgrad and the funeral chapel in the Bansko Monastery.

The Tasks facing the builder of Kaloyan's Church were very complex. First, he had to preserve the East Church; second, he had to be connected with the ground-floor of the existing church; and third, he had to erect a second floor to house the family chapel and to serve as defense tower in emergencies for the Sebastocrator and his family and friends. The builder has managed all these tasks brilliantly. The Boyana Church combines the East and Kaloyan's churches in an ingenious combination of functional, structural, architectural and decorative requirements.

The builder made some alterations in the old church but adhered to its existing building technology. The first floor of the new church is made of mixed brickwork and masonry. the bricks are used predominantly as leveling layers. the second floor is entirely of brickwork. The articulation of the facades is figural as in the First Church . The northern and southern facades have four blind arches each on the level of the second floor. One of the arches on the southern wall is wider and was used as an entrance to the chapel on the second floor. the eastern facade of Kaloyan's Church rises above the roof of the First Church. On the outside its surface is broken by a small semicircular apse.

The western, entrance facade is the most representative and has a pronounced monumental character. There is an evident wish to stress the two storeys of the volume. The builder aimed at uniting the appearance of the building and has repeated the articulation consisting First Church the four blind arches. The treatment of the surface corresponding to the first floor was probably influenced by the design of the southern and northern facades of the First Church. The wall contains an entrance with a niche for a painting of the donor above it, flanked by two larger niches. A solid dome stood above the roof supported on the square under the dome. This dome was destroyed (probably in one of the many earthquakes in the area during the 17th Century).

Apparently after that, the upper floor remained deserted for a long time without any attempts at repairing it. It is possible that it remained in this state up to the 19th Century when the Boyana Church was finally rebuilt and a very primitive building was added to the west facade of Kaloyan's Church. It is a great pity that the builder of this extension did not manage to the further develop the existing architectural composition; instead, he clumsily spoiled the overall impact. The extension and its decoration have no artistic value. The 19th Century building is merely a stage in the -life of the Boyana Church. It is two-storeys high. The first storey constitutes a passage to the downstairs floor of the medieval church. There was a staircase leading to the second floor. The connection with the St. Panteleimon chapel was through a large opening in the western medieval facade. The original entrance to the upper church was initially on the south facade but as present it is blocked. The destroyed solid dome similar to the present one. Today the two medieval churches are plastered on the outside. Thus all decorative elements on the facades have been hidden. Until several years age, the medieval architecture of the Boyana Church could not be seen; now the restoration works are gradually revealing the original appearance of the building.

For the foundation of the Kaloyan Church the builder has used huge stones, some of which are carefully hewn. He was particularly careful with each stone and has included in the masonry stonework with reliefs and elements from the old medieval stone iconostasis of the First Church, as well as fragments of antique buildings - parts of columns, cornices, etc. - some of them with considerable dimensions and elaborate decoration. The artistic work of the fragments gives grounds for supporting that they belonged to some of the monumental buildings in the ancient city of Serdika.

The attitude of the builder to tradition is very significant. His respect for the existing church, which he preserved and included in the composition is only an element First Church his professional respect for his predecessors. Apparently the donor of the Church himself, the Sebastocrator Kaloyan, the ruler of the region, which included Sredets (ancient Serdica), had a similar attitude towards continuity He was related to Tsar Constantine Assen Tikh; and the Church was built during his reign. The portraits of the royal couple in the Boyana Church emphasize the relation First Church the family of the Sebastocrator to the court in the capital of the Second Bulgarian State, Tirnovo. At that time Tirnovo was a flourishing cultural centre,, since the favorable political and economic climate there resulted in the development of literary and artistic work. Continuity is an element of humanism which was a characteristic feature of the period. The Church of the Forty Holy Martyrs was built in Tirnovo in the 13th Century. Among its many columns this church contains one which was brought there: it is an old column from the time of Khan Omurtag and marks the connection between the First and Second Bulgarian State. The donor of the Church of the Forty Holy Martyrs, Tsar Ivan Assen II, after the victorious battle at Klokotnitsa, wanted particularly to emphasize this continuity. Some stonework from the ancient city of Nikopolis ad Istrum was used in the construction both of the Church of the Forty Holy Martyrs and the metropolitan Church of S.S. Peter an d Paul. These facts indicate that the builder of the Boyana Church had direct links with the cultural centre of Tirnovo. An emphasis on continuity, along with an admiration for the aesthetics of Antiquity, were typical features of the Palaeologus style, which at that time was spreading throughout the Mediterranean world.

Apart from the stonework from ancient buildings included in the construction, the Kaloyan Church processes other characteristics decoration of the facades. During restoration, the layers of plasters that had been later added were removed and it was revealed that a band of glazed ceramic ornaments consisting of alternating small rings and four-leaved clovers was placed above all arches (Four each on the south, north and west facades) as well as above the two niches, which flank the entrance and above the donor's niche on the west facade. Fragments of the band are preserved. The cornices were probably made of bricks arranged in "wolf's tooth" ornament similar to the original cornice above the apse of two-storey high church. All other cornices have been altered during repairs in the second half of the 19th Century, when the third part of the complex was built and the medieval facades were plastered over.

Concerning the spatial proportions and plastic design the East Church and the Kaloyan Church bear the characteristic features of the time when they were erected. But the builder of Kaloyan's Church respected the existing church and succeeded in incorporating the existing volume in a harmonious composition with dynamic expressiveness. The layout of the plans were widespread in Bulgaria. The ornamentation of the otherwise austere facade is very significant. The archivolts with "wolf's teeth" along the facades of the East Church were traditional elements in the decoration of religious buildings at the time of the First Bulgarian State and particularly for the Lake Okhrid building school. The glazed ceramic ornamentation was very elaborately used in Tirnovo and Nessebur during the Second Bulgarian State. Thus the decoration of the Boyana Church may be regarded as an example of skillful implementation of two decorative devices widely used in Bulgarian architecture during the Middle Ages. The development of facade decoration may be traced here and in very few other places. Furthermore, here we observe not the juxtaposition but the harmonious integration of two decoration methods, each in its own right.