Pimen of Zograf

Venerable Pimen Zograf (Pimen the Icon Painter) was a Bulgarian monk, icon painter, church builder and man of letters, one of the nine saints of Sofia. He was born around 1540 in Sofia and died in 1620 at Cherepish monastery. The Bulgarian Church honours him as a saint, with commemoration on 3 November; the same day has also been declared the Day of Bulgarian Artists.

His name in the world was Paul. His parents gave him to learn writing, icon painting, church singing and Holy Scripture with the hieromonk and painter Thomas, who served then at the ancient city church of Saint George the Great Martyr. Soon after the death of his parents his teacher also died. Paul distributed his property and set out for the Bulgarian monastery on Athos. There he received the name Pimen and learned his craft.

According to legend, when he was fifty-⁠five, Saint George appeared to him and commanded him to return to his people as a spiritual leader. For years Saint Pimen travelled through the Bulgarian lands, preaching, building and renewing churches and monasteries and adorning them with frescoes. He visited first Sofia and its surroundings, then southern Bulgaria and the Bachkovo monastery. He also travelled through all of northern Bulgaria, where he visited Vidin, Silistra and other towns. He restored the Cherepish monastery and made it a centre of spiritual life and learning. He also painted the church of the Kurilo monastery of Saint John of Rila.

His name appears in a founders' inscription of the Suhodol monastery, in the west of the Balkan range, in the area of the towns of Zaječar and Knjaževac (then within the bounds of the diocese of Vidin, today in Serbia). The inscription says that the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God was painted, begun in July and finished in August, in the time of the superior, Hieromonk Pimen, in the year 7113 (1606), by the founders Vukomir and Paul. It is also believed that the frescoes of the monastery of Saint Nicholas at Planinica, in the land of Bugarska Planinica, Tsaribrod region, are likewise the work of Pimen Zograf and his disciples. Pimen worked much in the western lands as a copyist of manuscripts and as a miniaturist.

He died in 1620 at the Cherepish monastery. Later robbers set fire to the Cherepish monastery, which fell into desolation. Then the monks of the Suhodol monastery found Pimen's grave and carried his relics to their monastery.

Several churches in Bulgaria are dedicated to Saint Pimen Zograf: a chapel at Cherepish monastery, a new chapel in the courtyard of the Vidin metropolis, a new church in Burgas, in the Kraimorie district, and a church under construction in Sofia, in the Izgrev district. A street in Sofia, in Izgrev, bears his name.