St. Paraskeva Church (Sofia)

 church, 1930_construction, Bulgarian Orthodox Church

St. Martyr Paraskeva Church suddenly appeared among the houses in the old part of Sofia, after buildings there had been completely razed to the ground by bombing in 1943-1944.
The St. Martyr Paraskeva Church unexpectedly amazes the spectator by the monumental forms.
After Bulgaria got rid of Turkish’s slavery, people gave rise to an idea of building a big church in the north-eastern part of the metropolis, so that it could house all suddenly appeared new parish of one hundred and fifty thousands citizens of Sofia.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church took a decision about the building of a church on April, 4th 1909. The date was not a chance. A few months before Bulgaria fully rejected the Turkish’s patronage. In the manner of rebirth’s traditions was found the financing from Geoginovi and Kochevi brothers. They redeemed a place for the building with total area of 3000 square metres for 70 000 golden levs.
The competition was announced on November 2nd 1910 and collected together the very best architects of Bulgaria, who graduated the world-famous architectural schools.The committee gave the first purse to architect Tornev and that was the start to collect the financial means for construction. Unfortunately in that time Bulgaria entered the Balkan war after the Interallied war, then enter the First World War. Money lost value and all had to be started from the very outset.
The corner stone of a church was laid on October 12th 1922, before that the competition had been conducted again, and architect Tornev had won again. On April 6th 1930, a central throne was consecrated. Side domes were being built from 1934 till 1938.
St. Martyr Paraskeva Church appeared in all its magnificence in 1944.

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