site.btaVP Iotova, National Library Declare 2025 Year of Glagolitic Alphabet
Two exhibitions inspired by the history of the Bulgarian alphabet and one of its creators, Saint Methodius, were officially opened on April 4 at the St. Cyril and St. Methodius National Library in Sofia. The exhibitions are under the patronage of Vice President Iliana Iotova.
“With the National Library today, we declare officially 2025 as the year of the Glagolitic alphabet,” Vice President Iotova said on Friday, before the opening of the exhibits.
Iotova expressed her gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Kalina Ivanova, Director of the National Library, for turning the library into a true spiritual institute, not just a place where people read books.
The exhibits, arranged at the library, celebrate 1,170 years of the creation of the Bulgarian alphabet and Slavic script of brothers Cyril and Methodius and 1,140 years since the passing of Saint Methodius.
This year also marks the anniversary of the conversion of Bulgaria to Christianity. “The Christianization of Bulgaria and the creating of the Glagolitic alphabet are at the basis of our statehood. In the Middle Ages they turned us into one of the greatest civilizations,” the Vice President said.
She thanked all institutions that backed the idea, “the Holy Synod, Patriarch Daniil, the Ministry of Education, which will arrange a special program at schools devoted to the Glagolitic alphabet and Christianization, to Bulgarian museums, the Archeological Institute, everyone who appreciates and knows the importance of these great anniversaries.”
Iotova noted that the exhibits arranged at the National Library are devoted to April 6, the day the Bulgarian Orthodox Church commemorates the assumption of St. Methodius. “The two brothers who created the Slavic alphabet, created the Glagolitic thanks to their mission to Great Moravia, a mission, a deed whose continuation could not but exist without the foresight and statehood of Knyaz Boris I and their disciples,” she said.
The exhibition "Alphabet and History" presents the stages of the development of the two alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic and the role of writing in the cultural history of the Slavic peoples.
On January 20, National Library's Manuscripts and Old Printed Books Department Chief Archivist Prof. Elissaveta Moussakova said that not a single Glagolitic manuscript has survived in Bulgaria. She added that those that have survived are kept in foreign repositories. The two partly Glagolitic manuscripts that have remained in Bulgaria are the Enina Apostolos and the Argirov Triodion.
/RY/
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