Church Of St Stephen Of The Bulgars

Lonely Planet review

Back in 1871, when this Gothic Revival cast-iron church was constructed from pieces shipped down the Danube and across the Black Sea from Vienna on 100 barges, the idea was novel to say the least. It's hard to say which is the more unusual: the building and its interior fittings - all made completely of cast iron - or the history of its congregation.

During the 19th century, ethnic nationalism swept through the Ottoman Empire. Each of the empire's many ethnic groups wanted to rule its own affairs. Groups identified themselves on the basis of language, religion and racial heritage. This sometimes led to problems, as with the Bulgars.

Originally a Turkic-speaking people, the Bulgars came from the Volga in about AD 680 and overwhelmed the Slavic peoples living in what is today Bulgaria. They adopted the Slavic language and customs, and founded an empire that threatened the power of Byzantium. In the 9th century they were converted to Christianity.

The Orthodox Patriarch, head of the Eastern church in the Ottoman Empire, was an ethnic Greek; in order to retain as much power as possible, the patriarch was opposed to any ethnic divisions within the Orthodox church. He put pressure on the sultan not to allow the Bulgarians, Macedonians and Romanians to establish their own religious groups.

The pressures of nationalism became too great, however, and the sultan was finally forced to recognise some sort of religious autonomy for the Bulgars. He established not a Bulgarian patriarchate, but an 'exarchate', with a leader supposedly of lesser rank, yet independent of the Greek Orthodox patriarch. In this way the Bulgarians would achieve their desired ethnic recognition and would get out from under the dominance of the Greeks, but the Greek Patriarch would allegedly suffer no diminution of his glory or power. St Stephen's functioned as the main church of the Bulgarian exarch.

Architectural historians believe that the cast-iron building, based on a design by the Ottoman architect Housep Aznavour (1853-1935), replaced an earlier timber church on the site. Its interior, which features screens, a balcony and columns all cast from iron, is extremely beautiful, with the gilded iron glinting in the hazy light that filters in through stained-glass windows.

If the church isn't open, see if you can find the caretaker who lives on the grounds - he's usually happy to open the gate and let you in exchange for a tip.