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Red Church in Bulgaria

View of the partially restored unique and the only one in central and south-east Europe Red Church in Bulgaria.The Red Church is a large partially preserved late Roman -early Byzantine Christian basilica in south central Bulgaria, is one of the most remarkable architectural masterpieces of the early 4th century A.D. Dating to the late 5th-early 6th century, the church stands near the town of Perushtitsa, some 15 kilometres southwest of the city of Plovdiv. Probably built under Emperor Anastasius I 491-518, next to an old heathen sanctuary nearby the key main roads leading from Thrace to the White Sea and from Constantinople to Western Europe. It is believed that its place was connected to a popular Christian cult to the martyrs. The Red Church is a centrally planned building with four apses with ambulatories. This plan is very rare for the Balkans. Similar to it are St Sofia Church in Odrin, Adrian's stoa and a church in the village of Lin near the Ohrid lake in Albania. The Red Church originally measured 32.70 by 25.90 metres. The northern wall, the best preserved, reaches around 14 m in height. The Church is a rare example of solid brick construction in a church from Late Antiquity in Bulgaria, and it was the red colour of the bricks that gave the church its name. The floor of the church was covered with mosaics and the interior was decorated with frescoes. The archeological researches also prove that there is big prehistoric inheritance in the region near the Red Church. Archeological finds as Thracian statues and a chariot have been found near the Church. There are also many Thracian hills near it, which are still not researched. Nowadays the Red church in Perushtitsa is considered as one of the masterpieces of the early Christian architecture in Europe. Photo by: Petar Petrov/Impact Press Group/NurPhoto

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