Emanuel Mutafov's monograph entitled "The Metropolitan Church of St. Stephen in Nessebar and its Artistic Circle: Cultural Context, Intertextuality, and Intervisuality" was published by the Prof. Marin Drinov Academic Publishing House with pre-press preparation funding from the Union Académique Internationale and printing funding from project BG05M2OP001-1.001-0001 "Establishment and Development of the Center for Excellence "Heritage BG."
The publication contains the results of a study and consists of 408 pages, 118 illustrations, and dozens of architectural diagrams.
The Church of St. Stephen (the New Metropolis) is the most visited tourist attraction in modern Nessebar. Its artistic circle from the late 16th and early 17th centuries should be joined by the Nessebar churches of St. Spas, St. George Mali, and the church on the island of St. Anastasia. The lack of a compact publication on the New Metropolis of Nessebar with its direct parallels has prompted the author to describe the monument in its entirety, with an emphasis on the church of St. The lack of a comprehensive publication on the New Metropolis of Nessebar with its direct parallels has prompted the author to describe the monument in its entirety, with an emphasis on what is currently visible, in order to serve all those who are interested in Christian art, culture, the history of the Balkans, the place of the temple in the development of church painting, as well as those who would like to learn what is written on the walls, floors, and memorial plaques scattered throughout ancient Mesembria. E. Mutafov attempts to describe how the Logos (the Word of God) functioned during that era and specifically in the New Metropolis of Nessebar, to present his narrative about it, so that it becomes another more accessible, but as authentic as possible, account of the past of this temple, which will attract even more enlightened visitors and serious researchers. The author of this study hopes that this text will also remind us of the glorious past of late medieval Nessebar, when the city, through its educated inhabitants, was much more than a resort and a center of commerce. Last but not least, he believes that this monograph will spark broader interest among scholars in the past of the Bulgarian Black Sea coast during the Ottoman period. In addition to a wealth of new data on the history of Nessebar, as well as numerous inscriptions in Greek, deciphered and translated for the first time in this edition, there is also an iconographic index and an extensive summary in English for the convenience of readers.
Prof. Mutafov shares his exciting work on the study of the Metropolitan Church of St. Stephen in Nessebar.
"In the course of my work on this text, I became involved in some almost criminal situations. For example, in order to obtain photographs of the relics, which were taken from Nessebar and are now kept in a wooden box with a glass lid in the church in the village of Nea Mesimvria, I hired a young priest from Thessaloniki to ask the parish priest of the village to take them out and photograph them without knowing that they were for scientific research by a Bulgarian. After the publication of these photos with the history of the relics, I am sure that soon our researcher will not have access to them..."
