Round Church, Preslav

Veliki Preslav, Bulgaria

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The Round Church in Preslav, Bulgaria, is a large partially preserved early medieval Eastern Orthodox structure dating to the early 10th century during the reign of Simeon I, when Preslav served as capital of the First Bulgarian Empire. Named for the distinctive rotunda of its central liturgical space (the naos), the church comprises three sections: the rotunda cella, a wide atrium, and a rectangular narthex flanked by two circular turrets. Its unusual plan—unlike contemporaneous Byzantine or Bulgarian buildings—draws comparisons to late Roman Christian architecture, Caucasian designs, and Carolingian Pre-Romanesque forms. The church's alternative name, the Golden Church, possibly derives from references in medieval literature to a "new golden church" in Preslav. Excavated and first examined archaeologically in 1927–1928, the Round Church stands as one of the most impressive examples of medieval Bulgarian architecture, distinguished by its lavish interior decoration of mosaics, ceramics, and marble, along with hundreds of drawings depicting ships, fauna, and Christian figures, and inscriptions in Byzantine Greek, Glagolitic, and Cyrillic scripts.