More than 1,000 years after his death, the remains of medieval ruler Czar Samuel have arrived in Bulgaria.
A symbol of Bulgarian national identity, Samuel was a warrior emperor who battled the Byzantine Empire to expand his kingdom before suffering defeat and dying soon after in 1014. His supposed remains were discovered in a Greek border area in the 1960s.
The coffin and remains were flown on Saturday to the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, on board a military aircraft that was surrounded by air force fighter jets.
Thousands of people poured into a public square to honour the czar’s arrival, which capped years of fraught negotiations between Bulgaria and Greece until an accord was reached this week.
Bulgarian politicians across the spectrum paid tribute to the medieval ruler, listening to the national anthem and a 21-gun salute.
“Today, we Europeans are learning to read history with a desire to belong not only to our homeland, but also to the culture that unites us across the entire European continent,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said.
Crowds cheered as fighter jets performed a flypast.
A procession brought the remains to be laid in the Church of Saint Sofia, a sixth-century basilica that is the capital’s namesake and where church officials say Samuel was baptised.
Credit: aljazeera.com
