The “Saint Ascension” church, currently the monument – temple “Saint Sofronie from Vratsa” is situated in the center of the city Varna, near the Renaissance ethnographic complex “Sofronius from Vratsa”.
The church is the oldest religious building from the city, built in 1848. Until the years ’70 of the XIXth century, “Saint Ascension” was numbered between the most important from the buildings of the biggest churches from Bulgaria. In 1939 – 1940 on the western façade of the church it is modernized the church bell tower.
The magnificent iconostasis sculpted, executed in the “Empire” style is a work of a remarkable artist – sculptor Anton Stanișev Debar. The icons from the big iconostasis are written by the eminent representative of the School of Art Samokov called by the contemporaries “izbusneyshi” – Dimitar Zograf.
Here is the tomb of the Bishop Agapi, a generous humanitarian of the church and of the schools from the city, killed in the temple by the Turkish oppressors during the times of preparing the rural rebellions from 1850.
In 1989, on the occasion of the celebration of the anniversary of the 250th anniversary of the great renascent Saint Educator Sofronii, Bishop of Vratsa and of the Diocesan Council Vratsa made the decision of blessing His Eminence the Metropolitan Vrachanski Kalinik as the “Saint Ascension” to be completely re-conditioned and renamed the temple church “Saint Sofronie, the Bishop of Vratsa”.
The church and the buildings of the temple become the base fro the construction Vyzrozhdensko – the ethnographical complex”Saint Sofronii, the Bishop of Vratsa”, which is part of the History Museum from Vratsa”, which presents the best examples of iconography, sculptures and liturgical objects from the centuries XVII – XIX. The church “The Ascension of God” was built in 1848, in Vratsa by the Bishop Agapi, among the houses of the rich families. Here preached PR Slaveikov (1848), sang Vasil Lveski (the hierodeacon Ignatie) (1872) and he performed his forming and his experience.
The local revolutionary committee of the insurgence (19.V.1876). In the section of women from the temple were buried three Russian soldiers who fell in the Russian – Turkish war in the fights from this region (1877).
In the past century here was created the popular school that bore the name of the temple and has a great merit for the expansion of illumination in Vratsa. There are valuable historical pictograms and many collected and divided plated from the region of Vratsa. In the proximity of the church there is another memorial monument of the great savant and saint bord Ss. Sofroniy Vratsa.