On January 18, the Orthodox Church revers the memory of St. Athanasius the Great. According to popular belief, St. Athanasius is a patron of winter storms. On horseback, donned in a silk shirt, goes St. Athanasius into the forest and yells, “Go away, yo, winter, come, thee, summer!” And according to the Bulgarian popular belief, he does that each year on January 18, and that is why it is known as the Winter Atanasovden or Amidst Winter in the popular calendar.
It is said that from January 18 the day begins to grow by one millet seed. In some regions of the country people used to believe that plague was born on this day. To protect themselves from the deadly disease, people used to sacrifice a black hen to prepare a ritual meal.
Atanas, Atanaska, Nasko, Tina, Tinka, Tanyu, Taska celebrate their name day today.
A key to our heritage and national identity, the Glagolitic alphabet is an alphabet and a message to Europe, surrounded by many hypotheses. To mark the 1170th anniversary of its creation, we take a trip back to the 9th century, when the brothers Cyril..
A Bulgarian delegation, led by Minister of Justice Georgi Georgiev, attended the enthronement of Archimandrite Gavriil as abbot of the Zograf Monastery in Mount Athos. Hieromonk Gavriil elected new abbot of Zograf Monastery “This is a..
On 10 May we mark 72 years since the restoration of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, whose existence ended at the end of the 14th century when Bulgaria fell under five centuries of Ottoman rule. Efforts to restore it began in the Renaissance. In 1870 the..
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