1.The Hermit
John of Rila (c. 876 – 18 August 946) is the most popular Bulgarian saint. Unlike the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, he was no scholar or missionary but a hermit from an ordinary family who followed the traditional path of monasticism — solitude, ascetic feats and gradual fame, first among the people and then among the rulers. The Lives relate that when Tsar Peter, drawn by his fame, came to see him, the saint refused to meet him and would not accept the gold he offered. The scene "Tsar Peter's visit to St John of Rila" would become one of the favourite subjects of medieval painters.
In his "Testament" John of Rila taught his disciples to keep the faith pure, to flee the love of money and to value above all complete poverty, renunciation of their own will and humility — after the example of St Anthony. Around his hermitage in the Rila mountains grew the monastery that bears his name.
2.The Wanderings of the Relics
The miracles attributed to the hermit's relics led to their transfer to Sredets, where they were kept in a church dedicated to the saint. Around 1183 the Hungarians carried them off briefly to Esztergom, then returned them, and around 1195 Tsar Asen moved them to the new capital, Tarnovo — one of the acts by which the first Asens made Tarnovo a holy city. The cult was so strong that the Byzantines too honoured it: between 1166 and 1180 the governor of Sredets, George Skylitzes, wrote a Life of the saint that survives today only in fifteen copies of its Bulgarian translation. At the end of the fourteenth century Patriarch Euthymius composed a new Life of John of Rila in the elevated style of his school.
3.Hrelja's Tower
In the first half of the fourteenth century the Rila district was held by Hrelja — a Serbian magnate who ruled in eastern Macedonia with the title of protosebastos and later received from the Serbian king the dignity of caesar. Hrelja spent considerable sums restoring the Rila monastery. His most visible work is the defensive tower in the middle of the monastery courtyard, known today as Hrelja's Tower.
On its top floor is a small triconch chapel painted in 1335. It shows Christ the Logos, the Liturgy, the Mandylion — Christ's face on a cloth — and "Tsar Peter's visit to St John of Rila", with a dado painted to imitate drapery below. The frescoes are remarkable for their realistic detail: the painter shows a dance typical of the district, with an orchestra of five musicians, two of them seated playing lute and cymbals, while the men wear fur caps and tall coloured leggings tied with laces. A carved throne associated with Hrelja's name also survives from his time.
Hrelja probably died at the end of 1342 and was buried in the monastery he had restored; his lands were immediately annexed by Serbia.
4.The Rila Charter (1378)
The monastery was called "royal" because of the gifts it received from the rulers of the Second Empire. The fullest evidence for this is Tsar Ivan Shishman's charter of 1378. The monks of Rila came to the tsar at Sredets and showed him the older charters granted by his predecessors, named in the text as "the late Tsar Asen and Tsar Kaliman". Ivan Shishman confirmed all their rights.
The charter lists the monastery's villages — Varvara, Chratov Dol, Krachino, Balgarino, Badino, Driska and others — and describes in detail the boundaries of its lands along the Rila, Iliyna and Struma rivers, by peaks and places such as Tsarev Vrah, Komarevski Vrah and the Fish Lake, down to the outskirts of the town of Stob. Over all these lands the monastery received full authority, and royal officials were forbidden to trouble it. Finally Ivan Shishman adjures future tsars — sons, brothers or kinsmen — not to violate the gift but to renew and confirm it, as befits Orthodox rulers.