Zograf Charter of Ivan Alexander

Since it was the will of God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, through the intercession of the truly most pure and most blessed Lady and Mother of God, that the Holy Mountain of Athos be a haven for the salvation of every Christian soul — and the more so of the Orthodox — that resorts to it with zeal: for this cause a multitude of great and wondrous holy houses were raised with much labour by the pious tsars, the God-loving nobles and the venerable fathers, and were adorned and enriched in every way — with precious stones and pearls, gold and silver, riches and many other rights, movable and immovable — that those who live and dwell in these all-honourable and divine houses might be in plenty and abundance, singing and glorifying the one God glorified in Trinity and His most pure and glorified Mother, and commemorating also the Orthodox and Christ-loving and ever-remembered tsars and other blessed founders and the whole Christian race. For in this place there are founders not of one or two families only; but since salvation in it is common to those who seek it, common too was the place to those who show it their favour. Therefore there are buildings there of every Orthodox race and tongue — first and especially Greeks and Bulgarians, and then Serbs, Russians and Georgians — each commemorated according to his labours and his zeal. And there stands the divine and all-honourable house honoured in the name of the holy and glorious Great Martyr and Victory-bearer George, called Zograf.

This house has long been held by the Orthodox, pious and Christ-loving Bulgarian tsars, the grandfathers and forefathers of my empire, and each of them, down to our own reign, added to it and upheld it according to his goodwill, for his own remembrance. And since the Lord my God Jesus Christ was pleased, by the mercy and intercession of His most pure Mother, to set me upon the throne of the Bulgarian empire, which is the grandfathers' and forefathers' of my empire, my empire too added and gave according to its ability through all its times. But all these things my empire counted as nothing, on account of the desire and care it had, and it longed much day and night, devising what thing or deed it might find out and give to this all-honourable house of the holy and glorious Great Martyr and Victory-bearer George — some immovable and inalienable possession. And since across in the Greek state, by the river Strymon, there lay the village called Hantak, and it was known to my empire that it had been asked for many times by many in former times, and that the tsars and kings before us had also sought this village, giving many thousands for it but not obtaining it — this was, as it seems, the saint's own disposing.

Now, then, since it was fitting that this village be a possession of this all-honourable house of the holy and glorious Great Martyr George, my empire — turning to the bounty of God and of His most pure Mother and to the intercession and help of the saint, and to the true and unfeigned love my empire had for the most high Greek tsar, the beloved brother and kinsman-by-marriage of my empire, lord Andronikos Palaiologos, even to his death, and after his death my empire did not change its love but doubled it also upon his son, the most high tsar of the Greeks John (Kaloyan) Palaiologos, the beloved nephew and kinsman-by-marriage of my empire — my empire therefore sent to him with boldness and asked of him this village called Hantak, for the name of the holy and glorious Great Martyr George; which thing was done at once, without any dispute or contradiction, but rather with love, and he gave this village Hantak into the disposal of my empire. Thus my empire asked it not by force nor by stealth, but in love, and he, as a pious and most high tsar, understood and granted this village with all its appurtenances and rights, of his own goodwill, openly and with the declaration of his whole empire, and by a golden-sealed word of his empire, that it be unremovable and inalienable from the all-honourable house of the Great Martyr George, at the request of my empire. Likewise, concerning the fifty hyperpyra that touched the holdings of this all-honourable house and were taken for the grain-tithe (zhitarstvo) and mountain-pasture due (gornina) and fortress-building (gradozidanie), he commanded that these too be abolished and not taken, not to a single coin, as long as the said all-honourable house exists and abides.

And since my empire succeeded in obtaining this long-desired and good request, my empire was pleased to issue this present golden-sealed word of my empire, by which my empire commands that the said monastery of my empire have and hold the said village of Hantak, without dispute, wholly inviolate, unshaken and inalienable, with all its appurtenances and revenues; nor may the holding of this all-honourable monastery be touched for the payment of the said fifty hyperpyra, since my empire begged those too from the most high Greek tsar John Palaiologos. So let it be untroubled, by the might and power of this golden-sealed word, and let the venerable monks who dwell in the house of the Great Martyr George hold and keep the said village. For this was the golden-sealed word of my empire issued and sent, in the month of March, for every manifest confirmation, in the year 1342, the tenth indiction, in which our pious and God-ordained sovereignty signed. “Ivan Alexander, in Christ God faithful tsar and autocrat of all Bulgarians.”