Bones of medieval tsar, 48 religious relics to be exchanged under new Greece-Bulgaria heritage MoU

The official handover ceremony will take place on October 3, at the the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki.

The remains of a medieval Bulgarian tsar and nearly 50 religious Greek relics will be handed over to their respective nations under a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding between Greece and Bulgaria on Tuesday.

The MoU was signed between Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni and Bulgarian Culture Minister Evtim Miloshev.

As part of the agreement, Bulgaria will return 48 religious relics from the Holy Monastery of Panagia Eikosiphoinissa, the Holy Monastery of Timios Prodromos of Serres and the Holy Metropolis of Serres and Nigritis to Greece.

The relics were transferred to Sofia during WWI and have since been kept at the National History Museum of Bulgaria.

Following their return, the 48 relics will displayed at the Museum of Byzantine Culture until November 5. Afterwards, they will be returned to their place of origin.

In turn, Greece will hand over the remains of the medieval Bulgarian tsar, Samuel (997-1014), found in the Basilica of Saint Achillios in 1965.

Samuel, or Samuil, reigned from 997 to 1014 during the First Bulgarian Empire and is deemed a national hero by Bulgarians for struggling to preserve his country's independence from the neighboring, Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire.

Alongside Samuel's remains, those found in two other sarcophagi within the basilica will also be returned.

The additional remains are believed to belong to Tsar Gabriel-Radomir, Samuel's son who ruled the First Empire of Bulgaria between October 1014 to August or September 1015, and other members of the Bulgarian royal family.

The remains have recently been kept at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki.

A 'historic' agreement between Greece, Bulgaria

Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev described the accord as a "historic agreement" and said the handover of Samuel's remains ended six decades of efforts by Sofia to bring them home after their discovery in Greece.

"We have had the historic honor of achieving this," Radev said in a statement shared by the Bulgarian Culture Ministry. "I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Prime Minister of friendly Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, for his statesmanlike vision, for his political courage and for the friendship that binds Bulgaria and Greece even more strongly."

Radev emphasized that the memory of the tsar "unites, not divides," the two countries today.

"The joint membership of Bulgaria and Greece in the European Union helps each of the two countries to better understand the sensitivity of the other," he added. “On Saturday, October 3, at 12:30 p.m., I invite all Bulgarians to Battenberg Square in front of the Prince's Palace in Sofia to welcome the mortal remains together and pay homage to the great Bulgarian ruler."

The two sides agreed to continue negotiations regarding the identification and inclusion of historical artifacts of mutual interest that were not covered by the current agreement.

The official handover ceremony will take place on October 3, at the the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki. It will be hosted by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and attended by Radev.