Просителна грамота на Перущенския манастир „Св. Теодор Тирон и св. Теодор Стратилат“ до руския цар Алексей Михайлович от 1647 г. 1. Предистория и контекст

<jats:p>The article aims to offer the reader an introduction to the forthcoming publication of an appeal for support from the monastery of St. Theodore Tiron and St. Theodore Stratilates addressed in 1647 to the Russian Tsar Aleksey Mihaylovich. Firstly, the monastic network in the northern Rhodopes near Plovdiv in the 16th-17th centuries is presented. The history of the Perushtitsa monastery from its appearance in the first half of the 17th century to its destruction during the brutal suppression of the April Uprising in 1876 is briefly discussed, manuscripts that were kept in the monastery library are presented.</jats:p>