St. George's Monastery of Kremikov is a Bulgarian Orthodox monastery located 25 kilometres from Sofia, on the slope of the Stara Planina Mountains. It is considered one of the most valuable cultural monuments of the Middle Ages located in the Balkans. According to legend, it was founded in the middle of the XIV century during the reign of King John-Alexander of Bulgaria. In 1382, after the Turks captured Sofia, it was destroyed. The first written mention of the monastery dates back to 1493, when Boyar Radivoy, with the blessing of the Metropolitan of Sofia, rebuilt the old church of St. George the Victorious in memory of his children who died in 1492.
The monastery complex consists of an old church, a new church and a couple of dwellings. The old church of St George is an oblong-shaped, one-nave, dome-less basilica. Its walls are decorated with paintings of the XV-XVII centuries. In the narthex one can see images of the benefactor of the church Radivoj with his family and Metropolitan Sofia Kalevit. In the interior there are frescoes depicting scenes from the life of St George the Victorious, as well as an illustration of the Christmas story from the Bible. The new church of the Protection of the Mother of God was built in 1902. It contains an iconostasis from the 17th century and the old Kremikovo Gospel from the late 15th century.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the monastery complex had one of the largest book workshops in Bulgaria.
In the second part of the 19th century, the Kremikovo Monastery was briefly abandoned, but in 1879 it was reopened by nuns.
