Church of "St. Petka Samardzhiyska”

Its official appellation is Saint “Petka Ikoniyska”, yet the nickname “of the Saddlers” resulted from the fact that during the Ottoman Rule this used to be the neighbourhood of saddlers (the horse saddle masters) that maintained the church and believed the saint was their patron.
Its walls are made of stone and bricks, they are almost one meter thick. The iconostasis was masterfully wooden carved yet it mysteriously disappeared and today it operates without such.
There are paintings on its walls, preserved since the ХIV century, as well as ones dating back to a later period of the ХV - XVI century, where the oldest ones are believed to have been performed by the master icon painter Pimen Zograf that was famous at the time.
There are many legends and beliefs surrounding the temple, it is even claimed that a miracle kept the old church untouched until today. One of the rumours has it that during the Ottoman Rule Christians from the city sent a letter and gifts to the sultan with the request to save the churches in town from destruction, Saint Petka and the rotunda Saint Georgi are mentioned. The sultan agreed nevertheless the temple was preserved partially. It survived after the bombarding above Sofia in 1944, as well as during the communist period, when on mayor’s order they initially intended destroying it, and consequently it was proclaimed as a museum, yet its iconostasis disappeared. There is a hypothesis based on stories told by witnesses that they secretly buried in the church the great Bulgarian fighter for national liberation, Vasil Levski, hung in Sofia in 1873 yet neither of these claims was scientifically confirmed.