site.btaToday's Observances: April 3

On this date in Bulgarian history:

1860: At St Stephen Church, Bulgarian Orthodox Church rejects dependence on Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

1879: Sofia is proclaimed capital of Bulgaria.

1912: Supreme Administrative Court is set up.

1990: Petar Mladenov is elected President.

1990: Bulgarian Communist Party is renamed Bulgarian Socialist Party.

2011: Victims of the 1876 Uprising against Ottoman domination officially recognized as saints by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church at a solеmn Service of Glorification at Sofia's St Alexander Nevsky Memorial Cathedral. The new saints fall into two groups: over 3,000 residents of Batak (South Central Bulgaria), martyred in the St Nedelya Church on May 17, 1876, and 700 peaceful civilians massacred in and around Novo Selo (now Apriltsi, North Central Bulgaria), most of them in Novo Selo's Holy Trinity Convent on May 9, 1876. The Synaxis (Assembly) of the Batak Martyrs is celebrated on May 17, while May 9 is assigned as a Feast Day of the Synaxis of the Neomartyrs of Novo Selo.