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St Mary of Petrich church
  Bulgarian
The church, which name is the Christ's mother name is constructed on the high part of the fortress.It show up very well because of its dominant position around this area and there is no way to pass along it without any impession from its beautiful silhouette.The church is proclaimed a cultural monument,one of the most interesting architectural and archaeological cultural monument.

plan of a fortress church
 The name of the church is St Mary of Petrich.This is the only preserved and most remarkable building in the fortres.This unusually beautiful building,one of the rarest and valuable representation of sacral architecture in Bulgaria,is located on the north-eastern edge of the fortress eminence with dimensions:length-18,30m ,width-6,90m and height-about 15,30m.The thickness of the walls is from 0,85 to 1,15m in the bases.It is two-storey, cross-dome, one-nave church with a wide narthex and a big square belfry above it. The first floor probably has been used as a store or sepulchre,and the second one represent the church.The building site between the floors set foot on stone vault covered with bricks.There is square vaulted bell tower on the narthex of the church.The way to the bell tower has been inside wooden ladder.The upper floor has reached with an outside wooden ladder.
There is a supporting wall in distanse about 8 metres from the church,which is probably belonged to yard and the entrance to it has been about 2,5 metres wide.In the wall,on the left side of the entrance, there is a square hole with dimensions 30/18 sm form the lever, which has supported the door of the entrance.
The church has probably decorated soon after it's creation and that's way images of the saints hardly can be seen.From these not very well preserved ferscoes and the architectural style of the building we can conclude that the church is built after fortress,during Komnin's rule (1081-1185y.).
The row with arched "pseudo-constructive" archs, which are characteristics of the church,can be found nowhere neither in Salonika nor in Constantinople.They are typical only for Old-Bulgarian architecture during XII century,as a new decorative motif,which impart special fleetness and elegand style to the building. The tower of the church set foot on the narthex.It set up second floor with naus and altar. The church is quadratic according to plan. The roof is four-sloped,roof-tile old style( ended with dome.There is an opinion,that it has been used except for watch-tower also for bell tower.This opinion is completely reasonably,because it has needed bell to reminding the people from the neighbouring settlement Petrich to come for prayer and of course the honour of doing this has belonged to the most important church,that is to say this one in the fortress, built at the order tsar Ivan ASen,some more that the watch-tower is ideally fit for this.The tower withstand to historical tensions and strokes,while the dome has affected sensibly from earthquake in 1904year and after that restored by architect Rashenovin 1936y.

Arched "pseudo-constructive" archs
In the begining of 1950-60 years with the researches undertake architect Stoil Stoilov- one very big capacity about architectural characteristics of the churchs around the region with several books and a lot of publications in press and scientific magazines,and architect Chinkov(from Archaeological museum-Plovdiv). They look through the roof and prop up stairs for second floor. After two years architect Stoilov designed protective building beside it.Since then it is under observation and protection of Asenovgrad municipality.