The Boyana Church was built in three stages: in the late 10th and early 11th, the mid-13th, and the mid-19th centuries.
The oldest section (the eastern church) is a small one-apse cross-vaulted church with inbuilt cruciform supports. It was built in the late 10th and early 11th century.
The second section, which adjoins the eastern church, was commissioned by Sebastocrator Kaloyan and his wife Dessislava and in the mid-13th century. This building belongs to the two-floor tomb-church type. It consists of a ground-floor family sepulchre with a semi-cylindrical vault and two arcosolia on the north and south walls, and an upper-floor family chapel identical in design to the eastern church. The exterior is decorated with ceramic ornaments.
The last section was built on donations from the local community in the mid-19th century.

FRESCOES

• First layer

The first layer of frescoes, which originally covered the entire eastern church, dates from the 11th-12th-century. Fragments of those frescoes have been preserved in the lower parts of the apse and the north wall, and in the upper part of the west wall and the south vault.

• Second layer

According to the donor’s inscription on the north wall of the second section, the second layer of frescoes dates from 1259. Those frescoes were painted over the earlier layer by a team of unknown artists, who also decorated the two floors of the building commissioned by Sebastocrator Kaloyan.

The Boyana Church owes its world fame above all to the frescoes from 1259, which demonstrate the exceptional achievements of mediaeval Bulgarian culture. The majority of the more than 240 figures depicted here display individuality, remarkable psychological insight and vitality. The frescoes follow the canon of icon-painting established by the Seventh Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea in 787.

The frescoes in the oldest section of the church include a magnificent representation of Christ Pantocrator in the dome. The drum below shows a host of angels, with the Four Evangelists - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - portrayed in the pendentives. Four images of Christ adorn the face of the arches: Christ Emmanuel; Christ, The Ancient of Days; and the acheiropoietic (“made without hands”) Holy Mandylion and Holy Tile. Next come scenes from the Major Feast Days and the Passions of Christ. Among the full-length portrayals of saints in the first tier, there are ten warrior saints. The Virgin Enthroned, surrounded by archangels, is represented in the altar conch. Below are four church fathers: St. Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom and Patriarch Germanus. The frescoes flanking the altar show the deacons Laurentius, Euplius and Stephen, as well as St. Nicholas, the patron of the ground floor of the church - one of the most popular saints and the patron saint of sailors, merchants and bankers.

A total of 18 scenes in the Boyana narthex depict the Life of St. Nicholas, with a nod to the artists’ contemporary life. In The Miracle at Sea, the ship and the sailor's hats represented contemporary Venetian seafaring headgear.

The 240 figures depicted in the Boyana Church adhere to the icon painting established by the Seventh Ecumenical Council in Nicaea in 787. Full-size paintings of the donors, Kaloyan and Dessilsava, and of the Bulgarian King Konstantin Assen Tih and Queen Irina were added to the religious leaders depicted. Kaloyan and King Assen Tih were relatives.

Not satisfied with merely documenting his royal connection, in one scene Kaloyan presents a scale model of the Boyana Church to St. Nicholas, inserting himself into the saint’s world. In Bulgarian folklore, St. Nicholas was honored as protector of sailors and fishermen. The Bulgarian St. Nikolay calms wind and storms and protects ships in danger.

Four church fathers depicted at Boyana include St. Gregory the Theologian who sought refuge in Bulgaria from the Turks, where he established a monastery at Paroria in the Stranozka mountains. St Gregory, along with St. Basil the Great and John Chrysostom, form the Three Holy Hierarchs of the Greek Orthodox Church. The fourth father represented is Patriarch Germanus who protested against Byzantine emperor Leo III's demand to destroy all church images.