Eros makes Eros the first of all the gods to come into existence. The Orphic and Eleusinian Mysteries featured Eros as a very original god, but not quite primordial, since he was the child of Night (Nyx). Aristophanes (c. 400 BC), influenced by Orphism, relates the birth of Eros: In later myths, he was the son of the deities Aphrodite and Ares: it is the Eros of these later myths who is one of the erotes. Eros was associated with athleticism, with statues erected in "gymnasia", and "was often regarded as the protector of homosexual love between men." Eros was depicted
Church of the Holy Mother of God, Asen's Fortress of God, this may well not have been its actual name. The dedication is alleged based on a partial Medieval Greek inscription in the church, which may have been a donor's inscription. In the early 20th century, the part of the inscription that was still visible was deciphered as "ή παναγία τῆς Πετριζηώτης", equivalent to "or the Mother of God of Petrich". However, this was the name of the main church ("katholikon") of the nearby Bachkovo Monastery, which makes it more likely that the inscription references the monastery and its relation to the church in Asen's Fortress in some way,