Μake us preferred on Google A Memorandum of Understanding was signed Tuesday between the culture ministers of Greece and Bulgaria, Lina Mendoni and Evtim Miloshev, providing for the reciprocal transfer of historically significant relics between the two countries. The agreement is considered historically significant and follows sustained work by Greece’s Ministry of Culture.
Greece will receive 48 relics originating from the Holy Monastery of Eikosifoinissa, the Monastery of Timios Prodromos in Serres and the Holy Metropolis of Serres and Nigrita. The artifacts were taken to Sofia in 1917, during World War I, and have since been exhibited or kept in storage at Bulgaria’s National Museum of History.
In return, Greece will hand over to Bulgaria the human remains discovered at the Basilica of St. Achilles in 1965 by Professor Nikolaos Moutsopoulos and identified as belonging to Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria, who ruled from 997 to 1014. Greece will also return the remaining anthropological material found in the four sarcophagi inside the basilica.
The remains have been kept in recent years at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki.
The two sides also agreed to continue negotiations on the identification of other historical objects of mutual interest and to include them in a subsequent agreement if they were not covered by the current one.
The relevant protocols will be signed at the Museum of Byzantine Culture on Saturday, October 3, in the presence of the two countries’ prime ministers, Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Rumen Radev.
The relics will be displayed at the Museum of Byzantine Culture until November 5, 2026. They will then be handed over to the Monastery of Timios Prodromos in Serres, the Monastery of Eikosifoinissa and the Holy Metropolis of Serres and Nigrita, according to their respective origins.
