Chapel was dark

Being ignorant of all architectural lore, I could form no opinion as to the antiquity of the building. The chapel was so dark, the walls and pavements were so obscured with the smoke of wax-tapers, that it was impossible to decipher the inscriptions on the flags, or to discover what the blotches of faded colours on the walls were intended to represent. The prior seemed to know as little about the convent’s history as I did myself, and all he could tell us was that both it and the chapel were very old indeed, and that there was no money forthcoming to place the chapel in proper repair, with new crosses, new pictures of the Virgin, new missals, and new vestments, such as would befit the historic dignity of the shrine. It struck me that to any one at all versed in ecclesiastical architecture, the chapel would have proved a sort of treasure-trove. But the opinion of the prior seemed to be that it was quite good enough as it stood, for all the use that was ever made of it.

Greek Good Friday

The day on which I visited the place was the Greek Good Friday, but there had been no service performed there that day, as the peasants of the neighbouring village had all gone to Sofia to attend the weekly market, and nobody had come to church. At its very fullest, the chapel could not well contain more than a score of people. Altogether, I should consider the prior had a very easy berth, and, even in wealthier countries, would have been considered well paid for such clerical labours as he performed.

He told us that he owned two houses in Sofia, and that in the winter time he resided there himself, because the air in the hills was too keen and too sharp for a man of his age. In his absence, the curate looks after the spiritual requirements of the village, and the prior only returns when the visitors commence driving out from the capital. I saw no reason to suppose that the prior neglected his duty, either in his own opinion or in that of his parishioners.

The reason why I have dwelt upon his personal position, as he told it to us, is that the incident seems to me to be a curious illustration of Bulgarian national character. Here was a man who, in virtue of his position, was of more than average education, who was certainly not unintelligent, and who was possessed of means which would have enabled him to live in considerable comfort; yet he was content to pass his life as a peasant amongst peasants, not from any high ideal of the existence best befitting a minister of God, but simply because the sort of life he thus led was the one most in accordance with his own tastes, as it is with those of the great mass of his fellow-country men.