The Dragalev Monastery is an active female Orthodox monastery located three kilometres from the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia, at the foot of Mount Vitosha. The main feast of the monastery is the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
The monastery was founded by King John-Alexander of Bulgaria in 1345. During the Ottoman rule it was not destroyed, but it was empty for some time. In the XV-XVII centuries, as part of the so-called "Sofia Holy Mountain", it was the cultural and educational centre of the country. In the 19th century, the Dragalev Monastery took part in the national liberation struggle against the Ottoman invaders. Father Gennady, who was the abbot of the monastery at that time, was an associate and associate of the famous Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski.
In 1476, the cathedral monastery church (kafolikon), the Church of Our Lady of Vitoshki, was built near the main building. The building is a two-nave basilica decorated with numerous frescoes. At the end of the XVIII century a gilded carved wooden iconostasis of great artistic value was installed here. In 1932 another church was added to the temple.
In the first half of the 20th century several cell blocks were built here, designed for a large number of nuns, but today only two novices, three nuns and the abbess live here.
