High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Church of St Nicholas (Bulgarian: ts'rkva "Sveti Nikola," tsarkva "Sveti Nikola") is a partially preserved medieval Eastern Orthodox church in the town of Melnik in Blagoevgrad Province, southwestern Bulgaria. Dating to the late 12th century, it stands on top of an ancient Thracian sanctuary and a 5th-century basilica. In the Middle Ages, the church served as the cathedral of Melnik's bishop. The interior of the church features frescoes of rarely depicted scenes, as well as a 13th-century inscription. Its bell tower used to house one of the oldest extant church bells in Europe, discovered by archaeologists in the 2000s.