From the life of St. Athanasius the Great, we learn that at that time the local ‎population was made up of proto-Bulgarians, Goths, Moesi, etc., and leprosy ‎was rampant in Bulgarian lands. It is precisely with the healing of leprosy that the miracles performed by St. Athanasius are connected with:

‎"St. Athanasius blessed the water at a fountain and it acquired healing properties", we learn ‎more from Father Boris. "And in a miraculous way, everyone who washed there, ‎whether pagan or Christian, was suddenly cured of leprosy. Then St. ‎Athanasius ordered a monastery to be built near the ayasmo (a spring with healing water) - a small church ‎with adjacent small buildings around it. The Roman fortress that was in this ‎place was abandoned and everything became the property of the monastery. ‎Over the centuries, during the Greek and Turkish rule, the monastery was ‎destroyed many times. The masonry work of stones and mud even today arouses ‎admiration for the great masters who made it to last so many years. 

‎One of the most recent miracles of the monastery is the presentation of the icon ‎of the saint, personally by the 115th successor, after Saint Athanasius, to the ‎patriarchal throne in Alexandria, Patriarch Peter VII (Papapetrou) of Alexandria (1997-‎2004). In 2003 ‎he brought to the village of Zlatna Livada an exact copy of the icon with the ‎image of the saint from Alexandria:‎

‎"In 2003, quite by chance in the Library of Alexandria in the Patriarchate, ‎during an inventory, old written monuments were found on parchment and ‎leather. They were not hidden, but were left behind the books, and in one of them a ‎description of this epic journey of St. Athanasius was found - how he left ‎Alexandria. It is also mentioned that he founded a monastery near the town of ‎Beroe, when in the 4th century our lands were the cradle of civilization. After ‎finding this document in Alexandria, in honour of St. Athanasius the Great, ‎Patriarch of Alexandria the Wonderworker, his 115th successor - Peter VII, in ‎‎2003 came to the monastery and brought a copy of the icon with the authentic ‎image of the saint from Alexandria. It now stands above the Lord's Chair in the ‎church here. The Patriarch of Alexandria is equal in rank to the Ecumenical ‎Patriarch, and after the discovery of the forgotten travelogue, the fact that he undertook such a journey from ‎Alexandria and came to the village of Zlatna livada,  means that he had good reason to do so. Now we are in the process of acquiring a ‎part of the Holy Relics of St. Athanasius so that before the celebration of 1,700 ‎years from the foundation of the monastery here, in 2044, a part of his relics to be ‎with us. So, Bulgaria is a blessed country, our people are blessed by God and ‎will be so until the end of human history. We have the rare privilege of being ‎Bulgarians and we should be happy and grateful for what we have".‎