Church of the Nativity, Pomorie

Worth a detour

The Nativity of the Mother of God stands in the small reserve of old Pomorie houses at the seaward end of the peninsula, and the municipality claims it as the oldest surviving church on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. It takes fifteen minutes. The real reason to walk here is the quarter itself — ten listed Revival houses on narrow cobbled lanes, and the Transfiguration church a street away.

Story

Background

Pomorie's old town is a tenth the size of Sozopol's and gets a tenth of the visitors, which in August is entirely to its advantage. The reserve protects ten houses of the Black Sea type: set hard on the line of the street, stone below, a timber upper floor jettied out on carved consoles, balconies with openwork rails, and white-rendered chimneys above the wavy line of the tiles.

The Nativity church sits among them. The claim that it is the oldest church on the coast comes from the municipality and is worth treating as a local one rather than a settled fact, in a region where Nesebar and Sozopol both have strong counter-arguments; what is not in doubt is that it is old, in use, and unpretentious. The Christian heritage of Anchialos has a room to itself in the town museum, and that is the place to fill in what the church does not explain.

There are no published opening hours, which is normal for parish churches on this coast. Morning is the reliable time. From here it is a short walk to the fisheries and maritime centre in the converted water tower, and about ten minutes along the shore to the town beach. If you have come to Pomorie for the mud and the lake, this quarter is what you do with the hour before dinner.