Saint John of Rila Church

Worth a detour

St John of Rila is a working parish church of 1934 in the northern part of central Burgas, dedicated to the country's patron saint. It has no famous icons, no medieval fabric and no coach parties, and that is the whole of its appeal: an ordinary Bulgarian city church, doing the job it was built for, in a quarter where visitors do not go.

Story

Background

The dedication is significant in itself. John of Rila is the national saint, and a church raised to him in 1934 in a growing industrial port is a statement about what kind of Bulgarian city Burgas intended to be — the interwar years were when the town acquired most of its civic architecture, its theatre company, its seaside casino and its self-image.

The building is of its period: modest, solid, with the standard plan and the standard proportions, and an interior fitted out as funds allowed. There is nothing here that a guidebook would ordinarily list.

The reason to include it is what it does for a walk. Burgas rewards being crossed on foot — the centre is small and flat, the streets run on a grid, and the change between the nineteenth-century core, the interwar expansion and the socialist blocks happens over about fifteen minutes' walking. This church sits at one of those joins. Go past it on the way from the station to the northern beaches, look in if the door is open, and keep going. As with every parish church in the city, no hours are published and morning is the best bet.