Lopushna Monastery

The Lopushna Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery in northwestern Bulgaria. It lies in the Chiprovtsi part of the western Balkan Mountains, 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) southwest the village of Georgi Damyanovo, Montana Province. Founded in the Middle Ages but built in its present appearance throughout the 1850s, the Lopushna Monastery, and particularly its complex main church, are one of the most notable works of the Slavine Architectural School and its most prominent figure, Lilo Lazarov. It was in the construction of the monastery cathedral that Lazarov first employed vernacular Gothic decorative features, a trademark approach of the Slavine School that set it apart from other architectural schools of the Bulgarian National Revival.