The Angels and Demons of “The Wheel of Life” at the Preobrazhenski Monastery

About seven kilometres north of Veliko Tarnovo, at the foot of a sheer, imposing ring of cliffs, stands the Preobrazhenski (Transfiguration) Monastery – the largest around Tarnovo and the 4th largest in the country. Nestled in the forests near the old capital, the monastery proudly guards the priceless frescoes of Zahari Zograf, along with almost a thousand years of history. Funnily enough, even though I’m from Tarnovo and have been to the Preobrazhenski Monastery more than once, before I decided to write this blog I knew next to nothing about it – apart from the story of the falling rocks, which I’ll tell you about shortly.

We decided to walk one of the eco-trails, which starts in Tarnovo’s “Kartala”  neighbourhood and comes out right in front of the monastery walls. I won’t tell you about the trail itself, because it’s something you have to see – words can’t do it justice. Stunning scenery and fresh air, not to mention there wasn’t a soul around, as we went on a weekday. And because it was a weekday, the monastery was almost empty too, so we could savour the peace and quiet. Of course, I made the most of having the place to myself and took loads of photos without being disturbed by anything or anyone. I’d say we were in luck, because we ran into the abbot of the monastery, Father Georgi, who was incredibly welcoming, kind and patient with us – I bombarded him with questions. Perhaps because he saw our genuine interest in the history of the monastery, he offered to show us around himself and tell us more.

The history of the monastery

To be honest, before I started writing this blog I did a bit of research online into the monastery’s history, and a lot of what I found turned out to be wrong – or at least inaccurate compared with the real historical facts. In many places I read that the monastery originally stood half a kilometre south of where it is today, was destroyed, and was rebuilt on its current site nearly two centuries later. Father Georgi told us that the monastery has stood on its present site ever since it was built, that this is historically proven, and that plenty of surviving documents confirm it.

The Preobrazhenski Monastery was built at the end of the 11th century as a dependency of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos. Between 1358 and 1360, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, it became one of the Bulgarian monasteries. Although it was now Bulgarian, the monastery has kept its Athonite traditions to this day – for almost 900 years. That’s truly impressive.

According to the surviving documents, the monastery has been rebuilt twice since 1360 because of the terrain it stands on. The exception is the main church, the Church of the Transfiguration, which some historians claim was built before the 19th century. According to Father Georgi and the surviving documents, the church has looked as it does today since the monastery was first founded. In fact, he even showed us three layers of plaster uncovered by archaeologists, which proves the church is much older than is commonly thought. It was last painted by the famous Zahari Zograf in 1849. The newest building in the monastery is the bell tower, built by another famous master of the Bulgarian National Revival – Master Kolyu Ficheto. During that same period the monastery was rebuilt and took on an even grander appearance.

In more recent history, after the Liberation, the monastery became a Royal monastery. Prince Alexander of Battenberg and later Tsar Ferdinand often stayed here, and a special guest wing was even built outside the monastery walls, with bedrooms for the royal family and their guests, as well as an audience chamber. Under the regime that came to power in 1944, the new wing was demolished, many books and documents were burned and the monastery’s treasures were looted. According to Father Georgi, who heard the stories of the older monks, the communist years were worse for the monastery than the period of Ottoman rule.

The Wheel of Life

The Preobrazhenski Monastery is home to one of the greatest masterpieces of the Bulgarian National Revival – “The Wheel of Life”. I doubt that any of you who have visited the monastery could have missed this remarkable mural. In fact, “The Wheel of Life” is full of symbolism, and it’s no accident that it was painted on the south side of the Church of the Transfiguration: on the way to the church’s main entrance, everyone would see the mural, stop and measure themselves against the wheel. Nearly 170 years have passed since Zahari Zograf completed this masterpiece, but believe me, however different the times our ancestors lived in, people had the same vices and failings as they do today. Even then people hankered after material things and neglected the spiritual and the sublime – which is why the monks gave Zahari Zograf the task of teaching them a lesson through his mural, a lesson that has endured for generations.

“The Wheel of Life” consists of two concentric circles showing two ways a person can live their life. The outer circle depicts the pursuit of material wealth: halfway through life, the man who has chosen this path is at the height of his “happiness”, shown holding a sceptre and a purse of money – but then the wheel turns quickly and the man (now portrayed as an old man racked by illness) realises it was all in vain, because after his death not a trace of those ambitions will remain. The inner circle represents the path of spiritual growth: with these riches a person is happy even at the end of the wheel’s turn, because their life has not been meaningless – the fruits of their labour remain even after the wheel has come full circle.

In the middle of the mural is a beautiful young woman in what were sumptuous clothes for the time, holding the cup of pleasure as a symbol of life itself. They say she is Christiania – the wife of Zahari Zograf’s brother, with whom the artist was secretly in love. In his confession he said: “I have loved her ever since, Father, loved her so much that in my childish love I would say to myself in midsummer: if she asks for snow, I will climb up into the mountains, I will go right up beneath Musala peak and bring her snow in my cupped hands. And in midwinter I would say to myself: if she asks me for violets, I will run away to the lowlands, where spring is already coming, and return to her with a posy of violets, so she will know how very much I love her. But she asked me for neither snow nor violets…”

Miracle or mere coincidence?

Another of the monastery’s sights are the two huge chunks of rock in the courtyard beside the church, which I mentioned earlier. Like “The Wheel of Life”, they’re impossible to miss if you visit the Preobrazhenski Monastery. On 6 July 1991, after several days of torrential rain, a huge mass of earth slid down from the western slope towards the monastery. An enormous boulder struck the bell tower behind the church and split in two, and the two pieces of rock parted and fell on either side of the church. One of them landed literally a metre from the wall of the main church. We should be grateful the church survived intact, because it would have been a tragedy to lose such an architectural monument – and there would probably have been nothing left of Zahari Zograf’s murals. After the rockfall, only a third of the monastery complex survived. Many buildings were destroyed and lost for ever. Fortunately, no one was killed. Today, almost 30 years after the tragedy – if I can call it that – the huge boulders flank the church like giant sentinels, reminding visitors that miracles do happen, as long as you believe.