Greece returns to Bulgaria the remains of 10th-century king

Bulgaria and Greece have reached an agreement to return the remains of medieval Bulgarian ruler Tsar Samuel (Samuil) to Bulgaria, in a move described by Prime Minister Rumen Radev as a historic moment for the two neighbouring countries.

The Bulgarian Council of Ministers is expected to approve the agreement with Greece, authorising the culture minister to sign it with his Greek counterpart. The deal provides for the reciprocal transfer for safekeeping of historical artefacts, religious and cultural objects and relics.

The official ceremony for the handover of Samuel’s remains is scheduled for 3 October at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hosting the event and Radev attending.

“The efforts of the Bulgarian state to recover the remains of Tsar Samuel date back to 1965,” Radev said at the start of a government meeting, referring to the year when Greek archaeologist Nikolaos Moutsopoulos discovered the remains during excavations at the basilica built by Samuel on the island of Agios Achillios in Greece’s Small Prespa Lake.

According to Radev, Bulgarian governments have continued their efforts for six decades to bring back the remains of one of the country’s most prominent medieval rulers.

“We had the historic honour to achieve it,” Radev said, thanking Mitsotakis for what he described as his political courage, statesmanship and friendship towards Bulgaria.

Radev also stressed that the memory of Samuel could serve to unite rather than divide the two countries. Bulgaria and Greece are both EU members, he said, adding that their common membership helps each country better understand the sensitivities of the other.

The agreement will also cover remains found in two other sarcophagi at the basilica on Agios Achillios, believed to belong to Samuel’s son and successor, Gavril-Radomir, and other members of the royal family.

After their transfer to Sofia, the remains will be placed in a special sarcophagus at the Church of St Sophia. Radev has called on Bulgarians to attend a public ceremony in central Sofia on 3 October before the remains are taken in a procession to the church for their final resting place.

The announcement was first reported by several Greek media outlets.

Former Bulgarian prime minister Kiril Petkov said the return was a gesture of friendship between Bulgaria and Greece. Petkov said that during his meeting with Mitsotakis in 2022, the Greek prime minister had committed to returning the remains.

Petkov also credited Bulgaria’s ambassador to Greece, Valentin Poryazov, with continuing to work on the issue despite changes of government in Sofia.

“This is not about who did it. What matters is that after a thousand years the Bulgarian ruler, a symbol of the Bulgarian state, will actually return to Bulgaria,” Petkov said, according to EUalive’s partner BGNES.

Former finance minister and We Continue the Change leader Asen Vasilev also highlighted the role of Poryazov and linked the development to closer Bulgarian-Greek cooperation since 2022. He pointed to cooperation between the two countries over energy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the disruption of Russian gas supplies to Bulgaria.

Vasilev said the process of returning Samuel’s remains had been complex and involved not only the two governments but also the Bulgarian and Greek churches and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The return of the reamains of king Samuel, a matter of historical and religious significance for Bulgaria, are likely to become an irritant for nationalists in North Macedonia.

Samuel’s empire had its heartlands in the modern region of Macedonia, west and southwest of the city of Ohrid, this earlier cultural centre of the First Bulgarian Empire. 20th-century Serbian and afterwards the Yugoslav historiography used the location of Samuel’s state mainly on the territory of then Yugoslavia, to reject Bulgarian claims on the region. Nationalists in North Macedonia considers Samuel being the first Tsar of the Macedonian Slavs, a view rejected by Sofia.

In 2022 the joint Bulgarian-North Macedonian historical commission agreed that Samuel had been the ruler of a large medieval state that most contemporary historians identify as the Bulgarian Empire, with its centre in territory that is now part of North Macedonia. The work of this commission however has been frozen since VMRO-DPMNE won the elections in North Macedonia in 2024.

Samuel ruled during one of the most difficult periods in Bulgarian medieval history, when the Bulgarian state was under sustained military pressure from the Byzantine Empire. His main adversary was Emperor Basil II, who would later become known as “the Bulgar Slayer”.

According to historian Georgi Nikolov, quoted by BGNES, Samuel was one of Bulgaria’s most celebrated rulers and spent around four decades fighting against Byzantium. The prolonged conflict ultimately ended with the fall of the First Bulgarian Empire under Byzantine rule.

With BGNES

Caption: The remains of the Basilica of Agios Achillios in Lake Prespa, where Samuel’s grave was found [Wikimedia]