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Mylonitic gneisses of the Bulgarian and Greek Rhodope were deformed under medium pressure‐type metamorphism. The kinematic information contained in these gneisses shows that shear‐deformation occurred during development of a nappe complex. Lithologies and metamorphic histories allow a lower (footwall) and an upper (hanging wall) terrane to be distinguished that define a crustal‐scale duplex. As oceanic crust is involved, collision between two continental units with subsequent crustal thickening is inferred. The blocks would be Moesia to the north, and the Lower‐Rhodope promontory to the south, which collided in the Mesozoic to early Cenozoic. The nappe complex is characterized by south to southwestward (foreland directed) piling‐up and is associated with both coeval and subsequent extension. The late extension is associated with the establishment of a high temperature‐low pressure metamorphic gradient and plutonism that predates, but makes a transition to, the lithospheric extension of the Aegean Arc.