МОНАШЕСКАТА КОЛОНИЯ ПО ШУМЕНСКОТО ПЛАТО В КУЛТУРНО-ИСТОРИЧЕСКИТЕ ПРОЦЕСИ НА СРЕДНОВЕКОВНА БЪЛГАРИЯ
THE MONASTIC COLONY ON THE SHUMEN PLATEAU IN THE CULTURAL-HISTORICAL PROCESSES OF MEDIEVAL BULGARIA

Summary/Abstract: In the article, an attempt is made to present the monastic colony on the Shumen Plateau in relation to the important cultural and historical processes during the time of the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms – the conversion to Christianity, the development of monasticism, the introduction and confirmation of hesychasm. The remains of the churches discovered at the foot of the slopes belong to the period of the conversion of Bulgaria and the confirmation of the new faith in the second half of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th century: the church of the monastery "Holy Trinity" in Troishki Slope; the church "Holy Virgin" on the south-eastern slope below the Shumen castle; the church, northwest of the village Novosel. In the 12th – 14th centuries, with the growth of Christian cult complexes, the overall model in the construction of the hermit colony on the Shumen plateau stands out – on the one hand, the preservation of a central church at the foot of the slopes of the plateau, and on the other, the formation of rock hermitages ("Monastery" and "Momina skala" in the Troishki Slope, "The Cell" and "Kaluger Cave" in the Khankrumovsky Slope) and of whole rock monastery complexes ("Kostadinov Monastery" in the Osmarsky Slope, the monastery near the Strazhka River). The overall architecture and functionality of the rooms of the sketes in Troishki and Osmarski Slopes reveal an idiorhythmic way of organization, which later, after the central churches at the foot of the slopes gradually lost their function (or were destroyed), was restructured and monastic complexes were formed with kinovial organization. The rock monasteries on the Shumen Plateau gradually reached their spiritual and cultural heyday with the entry and consolidation of hesychasm in the XIII – XIV centuries.

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