The monastery was founded in the 16th century. Konstantin Jireček mentioned it as a part of Sofiyskata Sveta Gora, referring to it as St Archangel Buhovski Monastery. The monastery was rich, possessing numerous properties. At the end of the 18th century it was looted and burned down by kircali hordes and was eventually deserted. It was revived on two occasions, in 1855 and in 1882. Vasil Levski used it as a hideout, and it was visited also by Vasil Drumev, a spiritual leader of the Bulgarian people. A curious episode in the monastery’s history was the short stay, in 1886, of Prince Alexander Battenberg after his deposition from the Bulgarian throne. He was taken to the monastery and spent two nights in it. A century later, Buhovo residents restored the cell in which the prince had stayed. The current monastery premises date back to the second half of the 19th century.

The monastery complex consists of a single-nave, single-apse church with a narthex, as well as residential and farm buildings. At present no monks or nuns reside in the monastery. Normally the church is locked and is opened only on major Christian holidays. The complex is well kept, but most of the buildings are very old and in need of an overhaul.

According to a legend, the village of Buhovo was founded in the 4th century, the time when Christianity became the official religion in these lands. Emperor Constantine’s summer residence stood in the place of today’s monastery, and there was a monastery nearby. By 1430 the monastery had a big church and was part of Sofiyskata Sveta Gora. The Turkish conquerors repeatedly demolished it, and during the last attack more than 300 Christian martyrs were burned alive inside the magnificent church (25 m x 40 m). In 1881 local people who had heard of the massacre built a church on the remains of the old basilica. Fairs and offerings used to take place here regularly. The monastery was revived in the 1920s.

At present the monastery is not functioning and no monks or nuns live in it. The church is small, with one nave. An old wooden bell tower stands beside it, along with residential and farm buildings that need restoring. Liturgies are rarely held in the church. It is opened only on major Christian holidays, as well as on the church holiday, July 22, the Day of St. Mary Magdalene.

The monastery was founded during the Second Bulgarian Empire. According to legends, a boyar Seslav initiated its establishment. He had a fortress near the monastery, which was later demolished by the Turks, following which the monastery fell into decay. The people of Seslavtsi revived the monastery in the late 16th-early 17th century and devoted it to St Nicholas the Miracleworker. The monastery church of St Nicholas was presumably built and decorated in 1616 with funds and volunteer work of residents of the nearby villages. An inscription in the church naos lists the donors’names. In this period the church was the biggest among the monastery churches in the region, measuring 16 m x 6.8 m. It is a single-nave, single-apse building, with a narthex and a spacious interior, and is fully decorated. Its murals are of immense value and have been preserved until today. Three painting layers have been revealed, with that from 1618, painted by the famous Bulgarian scholar and limner Pimen Zografski, being the best preserved. The murals represent biblical, gospel and mythical scenes with instructive subjects. The images of the Virgin and two archangels are painted in the altar apse. The southern and northern walls display the Christological cycle – “The Birth of Jesus Christ”, “The Resurrection of Jesus” and “The Harrowing of Hell”. The images of the Sofia martyrs St. George New of Sofia and St. Nikolay New of Sofia, painted by a 19th-century artist from Samokov, Kosta Valyov, can be seen below. The western wall displays a composition representing Christ’s family tree – the Root of Jesse. The murals are accompanied by detailed texts in Bulgarian. The monastery was a spiritual and cultural centre that sustained the spirit of the local people.
At the start of the 19th century the monastery was ravaged by kircali hordes and was deserted. In 1832 it was revived by Father Superior Hariton. In the 1950s and ‘60s, when the exploitation of the Buhovo mines started, there was a uranium mine on the territory of the monastery complex. Access to the monastery was banned and it gradually fell into disrepair and oblivion.

At present the Seslavtsi Monastery is deserted but access to it is free. The only surviving building is the church. The remains of the medieval fortress of Kaleto can be seen nearby.

The monastery was founded during the reign of King Ivan Alexander (1331–71) on the remains of a former medieval settlement. The earliest accounts of a busy life there date back to the late 15th century. In 1382, when the Ottoman invaders conquered Sofia, the monastery was demolished together with the nearby fortress at Gradishteto. The monastery was rebuilt in 1497, when a noble, Radivoy, with the help of Kalevit, the then bishop of Sofia, recovered the ruined Church of St George. It stands in the centre of the monastery complex and belongs to a type of church buildings widely popular in the Bulgarian lands in the 13th and 14th centuries – small, single-nave, single-apse, with a semi-cylindrical vault. The decorations were made right after the construction and are in tune with the traditions of Bulgarian medieval church painting. Differences in the used style and techniques suggest that the frescoes in the narthex and those inside the church are the work of different limners and were made at different times. The church was probably damaged by an earthquake and was restored in 1503. A donor’s inscription from 1611 tells of another renovation and redecoration. Between 1670 and 1750 the monastery was demolished and later deserted. An inscription tells that it was rebuilt in 1799 and turned into the richest monastery in the Sofia region.
During the Middle Ages and the Bulgarian National Revival the monastery was an educational and spiritual centre where many liturgical books were copied out. The famous Kremikovtsi Gospel was created there in 1497, commissioned by Bishop Kalevit. A 1579 gospel by the priest Yoan Kratovski is kept in the monastery’s library, along with a 16th century triptych with a bead-roll. They are currently at the National Museum of History and Archaeology of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. A precious wooden iconostasis from the 17th-18th century is in the church. The monastery preserved a relic of St George New of Sofia, who was martyred for his Christian faith in 1515. The relic – an incorruptible bone, plated in gold and silver – was kept inside an ossuary with an inscription “Kremikovtsi, in the year 1593”. The Kremikovtsi Monastery was used as a hiding place by fighters for the Bulgarian national independence. After the defeat of Hristo Botev’s rebel company, its second standard bearer, Dimitar “The Kazakh” Stefanov, found shelter here. His place of death is beside the monastery, and a modest white-stone monument—it was raised in 1912 and declared a cultural monument in 1979—marks his grave. Following the Liberation of Bulgaria, nuns who had fled Maleshevo, in Macedonia, settled in the monastery. A big new church, The Shroud of the Mother of God, a magnificent building with beautiful woodcarvings and a miraculous icon of the Virgin, was completed and consecrated in 1907. Until the early 1950s the Kremikovtsi Monastery functioned as a convent, and the nuns who lived in it also took to farming. Then, military units were stationed in the premises for a period of 18 years. In the 1960s the troops left the monastery, to be replaced by construction workers. Some of the nuns returned in the 1970s and found the monastery in ruins. One of them, Yustina, maintained the monastery for 60 years. After her death in 1993, she was succeeded by Mother Superior Hionia.

The monastery is functioning and liturgies are held there regularly. The monastic complex includes mainly two residential buildings and two churches. The restoration of the murals in the medieval church started in 1980 and continued, with short interruptions, until 2003. The yard is very well kept and has a beautiful flower garden. The monastery is often visited by believers and tourists attracted by the beautiful landscape around it. On the monastery’s holidays, St George’s Day and the Shroud of the Mother of God Day, as well as on other major Christian holidays, the monastery’s yard is crowded with people and offerings are made.

The Podgumer Monastery is part of Sofiyskata Sveta Gora. It is presumed to have been founded in the 13th century. During the Turkish invasion, at the end of the 14th century, the monastery was demolished. An inscription above the monastery church’s gate shows the year 1597 – probably the year of its reconstruction. The church is a small, single-nave, single-apse building, with a big narthex and no dome. The murals were painted by a monk, Pimen of Sofia, who has decorated many churches and monasteries across Bulgaria. Ravaged and looted repeatedly, the monastery was reconstructed in 1848 with funds provided by residents of the villages around Podgumer, such as Kurilo, Gnilyane, Kumaritsa, Zhelyava. That was the last time its church was decorated. The rest of the monastic buildings and the margin notes in church books date back to the mid-19th century. Vasil Levski stayed here during his circuits of the Sofia region. In the second half of the 20th century the monastery was turned into a hospital.

In the 16th and 17th centuries the monastery was one of the literary centres in the Sofia region. It had a rich library and some of the books and documents had been written by the monks that had lived there. The monastery kept a copy of the first edition of Sofroniy Vrachanski’s Nedelnik (Sunday Lecture), published in Rome in 1806. In 1897 the monastic library still had a book, Menaion, about all the holidays throughout the 12 months of the year.

At present the monastery is not functioning.

According to legends, the Kurilo Monastery is among the oldest in Sofiyskata Sveta Gora. It was established during the First Bulgarian Empire near the old fortress of Beligrad. During the Ottoman invasion both the monastery and the fortress were demolished. Legend has it that the relics of St Ivan Rilski stayed at the monastery during their transfer from Tarnovo to the Rila Monastery in 1469. For two centuries the residents of the surrounding villages venerated the sacred place and the healing holy spring nearby and honoured the memory of the Rila saint. An inscription in the church’s narthex tells that in 1593 a new church, devoted to St Ivan Rilski, was built on the foundations of the old one with funds provided by Christians from the nearby villages. The new church was decorated in 1596, probably by the famous limner Pimen Zografski. It is single-nave, single-apse, with two narthexes and a semi-cylindrical vault. The mural of the Dormition of the Mother of God, as well as the full-length portraits of St Pantaleon, St Constantine and St Helen, have survived. In 1816, during the time of Father Superior Vikentiy, the church was redecorated. In 1830 an interior narthex was added to it, displaying the portrait of its patron, St Ivan Rilski. The Bulgarian saint was included in the Deesis composition, along with Jesus Christ, the Virgin and St John the Baptist. The scenes of “The Expulsion from Eden” and “The Ascension of Elijah the Prophet” attract visitors’ interest in the exterior narthex, built in 1849. The monastery preserved some valuable relics such as the Kurilo Gospel, printed in Wallachia in the 16th century, and a big stone candlestick with inscriptions from 1597 (both are now kept at the National Museum of Church History and Archaeology at the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church). The candlestick was made by the craftsman Vacho Radivoev from the village of Kremikovtsi.
The Kurilo Monastery was a spiritual and educational centre that included a small school. At the beginning of the 20th century the monastery functioned as a convent which was the home of 45 nuns. The nuns carried out educational and cultural activities, sold books, songbooks and icons. A printing house at the monastery published Christian literature and a magazine titled “Christianka” (The Christian Woman). The monastery was functioning until around the 1950s, when several of its buildings were taken over by the nearby psychiatric hospital. The last nun, Livia, died in 1983 and was buried in the monastery’s yard. The monastery was reopened in the 1990s.

The Kurilo Monastery is currently functioning and as of 2011 hieromonk Nektari permanently lives and serves there. The church holiday is celebrated on October 19, the Feast Day of St Ivan Rilski the Miracleworker.

The church is open to visitors every day. The parish priest Georgi Spasov serves there. An akathist (a religious service with singing) is held on Fridays, starting at 16:00 in front the miracle-working icon from Mount Athos. The church holidays are December 6, the Feast Day of St Nicholas of Myra the Miracleworker, and June 11, the Feast Day of the Mother of God—It Is Truly Meet.

Seslavtsi is an old village which enjoyed special privileges during the Ottoman period in exchange for guarding the mountain pass. This allowed the village to have its own church as early as in the 15th-16th century. The church’s initial structure dates back to this period. Additional reconstructions were made in the following centuries. During the Bulgarian National Revival the church underwent more renovations. The latest repairs were carried out in the 20th century.

The initial plan of the church is in tune with the medieval traditions in the region. The church is small, built into the ground, has one nave and one apse, a cylindrical vault and lath-and-plaster ceiling. The church used to have one door, which was later walled in, and a small window in the apse. A narthex was added later. Inside the church there is an altar, a naos and a narthex. The earliest medieval part of the church has massive stone walls and is built into the ground. In the 1980s the church’s exterior was painted white.

The murals inside the church are of artistic value. The iconography of the portrait of the church’s patron saint, St Archangel Michael, is very interesting. There are remains of a mural in the altar depicting the Holy Mother of God Wider than the Sky, the Annunciation, and the Ascension of Jesus Christ. Warrior saints are depicted on the northern wall of the church. The iconostasis was made in the 18th century and has impressive woodcarvings.

The church was built on a slope and a stone wall surrounds the yard. A bell tower stands a few metres from it. Despite the repeated repairs, the church is in need of an overhaul.

Judging by the type of the building, the church of St Paraskeva is believed to have been constructed soon after the one at Kremikovtsi—that is, in the early 16th century. An old legend tells that during the Ottoman rule the church was buried into the ground but continued to function. The church’s age is evidenced by a stone candlestick (kept today at the National Church Museum of History and Archaeology of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church) that bears an inscription citing the year 1597, which suggests that something important occurred then. The candlestick was made by the craftsman Vucho Radivoev from Kremikovtsi. The craftsman also made another candlestick, which went to the monastery in Kurilo.

Several construction periods are visible in the church. The oldest part of it is the naos—a single-nave, single-apse structure with a double sloped roof. The church is 6.8 m long and 3.76 m high and is neatly plastered. The apse is semicircular and has a shape that’s rarely seen in Bulgarian churches. Originally the church had no windows and was illuminated through two apertures. Two windows were opened in the middle of the 19th century. A note in the margin of one of the church books provides information about the painters of the murals. It says that in December 1858 the schoolmaster Kosta Valyov, a skilled iconographer from Samokov, painted the church jointly with his son Nikola. The two belonged to the Dospeiskis, a big family of icon painters. The church’s naos is entirely covered with murals, all of them dating back to the same period. They include icons of the most popular martyrs, warrior saints and healers. The icon of St Ivan Rilski is displayed prominently. The iconostasis is unornamented, with two stone candlesticks in front of it, one of them bearing an inscription of the year 1929. The church has undergone several reconstructions, during one of which, in the early 20th century, a narthex was added to its western side.

In 2004 the murals were partially cleaned by a restorer, but there are still many cracks in the walls, and the church is in need of repairs. The murals need to be restored, for which a draft project was approved in 2005.

The chapel was built in 1997-8 on the site of consecrated ground and the foundations of an old tumbledown building. Local residents contributed to the construction with funding and volunteer work.

The chapel has a surface of some 30 sq m, but that is sufficient for the local parishioners. It was made of “Lokorsko stone” by the “skilled hands” of local masons. The iconostasis is made of cherry wood and holds many icons. Unfortunately, the walls and the dome are still undecorated. At present the chapel has a symbolic “bell tower” with an odd fire bell. A stone water fountain, again donated by the local people, stands beside the chapel.

In the past much of the soil of the land plot belonging to the chapel was used for public works. This part of the land needs terracing and afforestation. In 2000 the property belonging to the chapel was surrounded with concrete posts and barbed wire. A large gate and the entrance door to the property, made of wrought iron by the skilled hands of the Lokorsko craftsmen, decorated the front side of the plot.

Decorative bushes donated by local people were planted along the fence in 2007. The village’s residents would like to build a fireplace and a small kitchen to be able to prepare the numerous offerings made on the occasion of Christian holidays. They also want to buy a bell and place it in a new bell tower so that its sound can be heard throughout the village. They also want to decorate the chapel’s walls.

The church of St Petka was built in 1869 and is part of Sofiyskata Sveta Gora. It is a very beautiful church, made of stone and built into the ground. The icons and murals have been recovered, but need additional restoration. At the back of the church there is a stone water fountain with an inbuilt icon of St Petka. The water fountain was built two years ago by church donors.

The church is in the central square of the village of Voynegovtsi. It is open to visitors every day. Every year on the church holiday, November 14, the Feast Day of St Venerable Paraskeva (Petkovden), the village people honour St Petka, as they believe that the saint is the protector of the village. They leave gifts and flowers in front of the church icon and light candles.

The idea for its construction originated in 2000 and a committee was formed a year later to organise it. The committee filed the necessary documents with Sofia Municipality for a gratuitous assignment of the building rights to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. In 2002 the committee upgraded to a church board, which was to supervise the construction of a church in the village. In 2003 the local parish priest inaugurated the new building. The main sponsors are two families from Podgumer.

The church has a surface of 60 sq m. It is a structure made mainly of steel, concrete and bricks. In 2007 the sponsors took full charge of the construction of the church, the making of the iconostasis and the furnishing, thus becoming true church benefactors. The architect Michail Vitanov designed and donated the architectural plan of the church. Bozhidar Zarkov painted some of the murals, and Radoslav Zarkov did the woodcarving. Additional funding is needed to finish the murals and to paint icons in the iconostasis. On 15 May 2010 the church was consecrated and inaugurated by the Bishop of Znepol, Yoan, after three years of hard work on the part of the church board, the donors and local authorities. Relics of St Trifon Martyr were built into the Bishop’s throne in the church. The building is a beautiful white Orthodox church, with a dome. It was built on a height, right to the village hall, in the centre of the village. The church is open to visitors every day. The parish priest, archpriest Dimitar Genchev, serves there. The church is devoted to All Saints, because the village fair, called Presveta (Most Holy), is held on All Saints’ Day. Also the church holiday is celebrated on All Saints’ Day, first Sunday after Pentecost.

The church is located in the Kurilo cemetery. Beside it lie the remains of the old church, which dates back to the 8th-9th century and was dedicated to All Saints. It was demolished during the construction of a railway. This is the oldest surviving church in the region. The current church used to be a small chapel adjacent to the old church. In 1939 the chapel was expanded. It was consecrated in 1942 by Exarch Stefan.

The church is a single-nave basilica, with stone walls, a bell tower and an iconostasis. The church is functioning and is open to visitors every day. The church holiday is celebrated on 15 August, Dormition of the Mother of God. Many believers gather in the churchyard to honour the Virgin, and offerings are made.

During the Bulgarian National Revival, the people of Kumaritsa kept abreast of the nation’s general reformist spirit. At the price of a huge amount of gold they obtained a permission to build a church. There are no written accounts of how the village of Kumaritsa came to be. There is an old legend about the settlement and the origin of the names of the villages of Kumaritsa and Slavovtsi. It says that the first settlers here were Slavic, and historians have accepted this information as reliable. A caravan led by the elder Kumarich was travelling on the Roman road to Serdika. Kumarich wanted to settle on the outskirts of Serdika. When the caravan stopped for the night, Kumarich, who was old and sick, died. The newly elected elder decided to remain in this place and thus founded the settlement of Kumaritsa. A Slavic family set up a separate establishment nearby. This was the smaller village of Slavovtsi, named after its founder, Slava. Another version claims that the first residents of the village were immigrants—Cumans—and that is where the name Kumaritsa came from. However, this hypothesis has been challenged, because the Cumans passed through these lands in the 15th century, when the local people already had built a Christian church there. The old church of St Nicholas was built during the Second Bulgarian Empire, but was demolished on three occasions. The church of the Holy Trinity was built in 1904-6 where the old church had been, and is the fruit of the united efforts of the neighbourhood’s residents, who contributed both funding and volunteer work to the construction. The books listing the names of the donors have been preserved. The church building represents a triple-nave basilica made of bricks, with a surface of some 200 sq m. The iconostasis is authentic and features woodcarvings and original icons. There are no murals in the church. The bells are authentic but, unfortunately, the bell tower is falling into ruin. The church has a 3,000 sq m fenced green yard. The residents of Kumaritsa are willing to build a kitchen in the church yard so that they would be able to prepare the offerings made on Christian holidays.

As there is only one priest servicing several villages in the region, the church is open on Sundays and on Christian holidays. The building is in good condition, save for the above-mentioned problems.

The Kumaritsa neighbourhood can be reached from Sofia by bus lines 26, 27, 29 from the Iliyantsi bus station; by train from the Central Railway Station (to the Kumaritsa station); or by share taxis 18 и 37.

The church was built in 1841. This is confirmed by the donor’s inscription, which points to the brothers Drenyo and Valcho as the benefactors and sponsors of the construction. The two brothers are considered the forefathers of the two largest families in Katina; today the neighbourhoods of Drenyovtsi and Valtsi bear their names. The church was built probably on the remains of a smaller old Orthodox church whose traces are still visible today around the church’s bell tower.

The church is new; it was consecrated in May 2010, and relics of St Trifon Martyr have been laid in the foundations. Construction started in 1998 on the initiative of Krum Krumov, mayor of Katina in the period 1995–9. The construction works took nearly 12 years. The church was built with the help of the Sofia Bishopric, the local authorities, donations by the Katina population and with sponsorships by private companies. The church was erected on the foundations of an old chapel on the outskirts of the village, built during the Ottoman rule. People used to call this chapel “the monastery”.

The new church of the Holy Forty Martyrs stands on a slope on the outskirts of Katina. It is not very big and is open only on Sundays and on major Christian holidays. The church’s holiday is celebrated on March 9, the Feast Day of the Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.