Qualla: Holy Forty Martyrs Church, Veliko Tarnovo

Holy Forty Martyrs Church, Veliko Tarnovo: Introduction

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nikolov2010, CC0. On 9 March 1230, the Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II met the army of the Despotate of Epirus at the village of Klokotnitsa and shattered it so completely that the entire Balkan power balance shifted overnight. The Greek emperor of Epirus, Theodore Doukas, was captured. His ambitions toward Constantinople collapsed. Ivan Asen II, suddenly the most powerful ruler in southeastern Europe, dedicated the church he was already building in his capital to the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, whose feast day was 9 March. He inscribed his victory on a marble column inside the new basilica. He brought in the columns of his ancestors, Khan Krum and Khan Omurtag, marked with Greek inscriptions from earlier centuries of Bulgarian glory. He was building a national pantheon, and 800 years later, that is still what the Holy Forty Martyrs Church is.

Image: Nikolov2010 | CC0

Holy Forty Martyrs Church, Veliko Tarnovo: On the Bank of the Yantra

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Powerfox, CC BY-SA 4.0. Veliko Tarnovo sits in a tight gorge of the Yantra River, the houses spilling down hillsides above water that loops in dramatic horseshoes. The Tsarevets fortress crowns one hill. The Trapezitsa fortress crowns another. Between them, on a narrow strip of bottom land along the lef...

Image: Powerfox | CC BY-SA 4.0

Holy Forty Martyrs Church, Veliko Tarnovo: The Inscriptions of Empire

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Three columns inside the church anchor the historical record of medieval Bulgaria. Asen's Column carries Ivan Asen II's own triumphal inscription about Klokotnitsa, written in the formal Greek that Bulgarian rulers used for monumental display. Omurtag's Column, brought from elsew...

Image: Public domain

Holy Forty Martyrs Church, Veliko Tarnovo: Saint Sava and the Royal Tombs

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pudelek (Marcin Szala), CC BY-SA 3.0. On 14 January 1235 or 1236, Saint Sava of Serbia, the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church and one of the most beloved saints of the South Slavic world, died in Tarnovo while visiting the Bulgarian court. He was buried temporarily at the Forty Martyrs Church. His relics were tr...

Image: Pudelek (Marcin Szala) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Holy Forty Martyrs Church, Veliko Tarnovo: Mosque, Earthquake, Resurrection

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kandi, Public domain. When the Ottomans took Tarnovo in 1393 and ended the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Forty Martyrs Church initially kept its Christian function. Some time in the first half of the 18th century, after centuries of peaceful coexistence had soured into something colder, the building wa...

Image: Kandi | Public domain

Holy Forty Martyrs Church, Veliko Tarnovo: Wedding and Independence

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit AlexFilipov85, CC BY-SA 4.0. Two more moments cement the church in modern Bulgarian memory. On 18 May 1888, Bulgarian Prime Minister Stefan Stambolov, the iron-willed nationalist who had done as much as any single person to consolidate the new principality, married Polikseniya Kostaki Stanchova in a lavish c...

Image: AlexFilipov85 | CC BY-SA 4.0