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The Church of St Peter ((ブルガリア語:църква „Свети Петър“), ''tsarkva „Sveti Petar“'') or Church of Saints Peter and Paul is a small medieval Bulgarian Orthodox church located in the village of Berende in Dragoman Municipality, Sofia Province, in westernmost Bulgaria. Most likely constructed and decorated in the 14th century, the Church of St Peter features simple stone architecture but contains a number of remarkable interior frescoes. Though located next to the village's graveyard and often interpreted as a cemetery church, the Church of St Peter may have been in some way related to the Bulgarian royal court, as a now-lost portrait with a caption most likely referencing Bulgarian tsar Ivan Alexander was once visible on one of its exterior walls. ==History== The original researchers of the Church of St Peter, Karel Škorpil and Yordan Ivanov, ascribed it to the 13th century owing to a now-lost exterior mural of a person on the west wall of the church,〔 described by one source as an image of a Bulgarian tsar. The image bears the following caption in Middle Bulgarian: “Ivan Asen, in Christ our God faithful tsar and autocrat (all ) Bulga(and Greeks )”. Škorpil and Ivanov identified the person mentioned in the inscription as Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria (r. 1218–1241). Beginning in the 1920s and the publications of André Grabar, however, the church and its art have been usually dated to the 14th century based on stylistic and architectural similarities to other works of that period. The formula of the exterior inscription is also considered to be similar to the inscriptions of Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331–1371), who is known to have used the name Ivan Asen on several other occasions.〔 Due to its location, the Church of St Peter is often described as a cemetery church. However, scholar Bistra Nikolova considers it improbable that an ordinary village cemetery church would have an inscription by a Bulgarian tsar. In her opinion, it is more likely that the church was constructed by a noble person related to the court of the Second Bulgarian Empire.〔 The Church of St Peter has been protected as a national antiquity since 1927. In 1966, it was listed as an artistic monument of culture of national importance. However, as of 2011, the frescoes have never during the church's existence undergone restoration or conservation and remain threatened. In the lowest parts, up to from the floor, the murals have been entirely erased by moisture. Moisture and the resulting salts have also damaged other decorated sections of the walls.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Church of St Peter, Berende」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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