The Church of St. Nicholas is an Orthodox Church in the Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

n capital of Sofia

Sofia

Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

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The church was built in the 13th century by Kaloyan

Kaloyan (sebastocrator)

Kaloyan was a 13th-century Bulgarian noble, sebastocrator of Sredets and the surrounding region during the Asen dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire....

 the sebastocrator as a small family church on today's Kaloyan Street behind the Rila Hotel. It is assumed that the church was erected on the site of the surviving parts of the palace complex that had once stood there which was built during the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 and accommodated Constantine the Great. Today these parts are preserved and can be seen in the authentic underground walls of the temple.

Each year hundreds of Sofians visit this small chapel to be blessed by the saints. Its feast day is on December 6.