Nesebar Photo Gallery

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The oldest part of Nesebar is on a peninsula (originally an island) in the Black Sea, and is one of the oldest settlements in Europe. The Thracian settlement here dates back to the second millenium BCE. It was known in Greek as Mesembria and was an important coastal city in the Hellenistic era. Forty early churches survive in whole or in part, dating from the 5th to the 17th century. Many were built in the local traditional style with bands of white stone alternating with red brick.

The Church of the Dormition of Theotokos (Assumption of the Holy Virgin) was built in the 19th century.

The Church of Saint Sophia (Hagia Sophia Church, Old Bishopric, Old Metropolia) is a three-naved unvaulted basilica. The original double-sloped roof has not been preserved. It is the largest of the Nesebar churches whose overground structure has survived. it was built in the late 5th to early 6th century over the ruins of the temple of Apollo and reconstructed at the beginning of the 9th century. It was abandoned in the 18th century.

St. Paraskeva Church has a single nave and a pentagonal apse. The dome and belfry have not been preserved, and it is not known which of the three saints named Paraskeva it was dedicated to. It dates to the 13th-14th century.

The Church of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel has one nave with a narthex and a three-part altar area, originally with a dome and a bell tower. It was built in the 13th-14th century.

The Church of the Holy Savior or Saint Spas Church (the Ascension of Christ) was built in the early 17th century, during the Ottoman rule, over the ruins of an older church. It has a single nave and apse.

The Church of John the Baptist is a domed cruciform church built of undressed stone. Built in the 11th century on the ruins of an older basilica, it is one of the best-preserved churches in Nesebar.

The 13th-14th century Church of Christ Pantocrator is largely intact and one of Bulgaria's best-presrved churches of the Middle Ages.

St. Stephen's Church (Holy Mother - life-ceating spring church, New Bishopric) dates from the 10th-11th century, its frescoes from its reconstruction in the 16h century. The outside narthex was added in the 18th century.

The 14th century Church of Saint John Aliturgetos, meaning "unconsecrated", is a domed cruciform church, badly damaged in the 1813 earthquake. The legend is that one of the builders fell down and was killed. The church canon did not allow a place where a man had been killed to be used for worship.