Bulgaria received this Saturday with the highest military and state honors the mortal remains of Tsar Samuel (997-1014), one of the most emblematic sovereigns of its medieval history, handed over by Greece after almost six decades of complex bilateral negotiations.

[Explosion at EMKO Arms Warehouse in Bulgaria Forces Mass Evacuation: Bulgaria Recovers Tsar Samuel Remains, Resistance Leader Against the Byzantine Empire](https://www.telesurenglish.net/bulgaria-recovers-tsar-samuel-remains-resistance-leader-against-the-byzantine-empire/)

The repatriation of the monarch’s remains —who died almost a millennium ago after witnessing how the Byzantine emperor Basil II ordered thousands of his captured soldiers to be blinded— was broadcast live by the country’s main radio and television channels.

The remains now rest in the Basilica of Saint Sophia, in the center of the Bulgarian capital, in a marble sarcophagus sculpted for the occasion.

The dispute over the custody of historical relics between Bulgaria and Greece, of great symbolic importance for both countries, was resolved at the end of September through a bilateral heritage exchange agreement.

After more than 1,000 years, Tsar (King) Samuil is returning home.

May God protect Bulgaria.🇧🇬 pic.twitter.com/FSk0lpifSd

— Angel צִיוֹן (@G_13_G) October 3, 2026

Bulgaria returned 48 ecclesiastical objects from Greek monasteries that had been in Sofia since World War I to Greece. In exchange, Greece returned the remains of Tsar Samuel, discovered in 1965 and kept in the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki.

Tsar Samuel led the resistance of the Bulgarian state against the incursions of the Byzantine Empire in the late 10th and early 11th centuries.

According to the historian Georgi Nikolov, from the University of Sofia, explained to the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), Samuel led the people and the army for almost four decades in the framework of a war conflict that lasted for half a century.

The contest concluded in the Battle of Klyuch (1014), where Byzantine troops captured some 14,000 Bulgarian soldiers.

By order of Emperor Basil II —known since then as Bulgaroktonos or ‘Slayer of Bulgars’—, the prisoners were blinded, except for one in every hundred who was left blind in only one eye so that he could guide the rest back to their homeland.

Upon seeing his mutilated troops arrive, Tsar Samuel suffered a heart attack and died on October 6, 1014, in Prespa (territory belonging today to the current Republic of North Macedonia), triggering the final collapse of the First Bulgarian Empire.

From teleSUR English via This RSS Feed.