{"id":1964,"date":"2010-01-01T05:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-01T03:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bronicable.com\/en\/uncategorized\/on-this-day-in-bulgaria-may-11\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T12:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:08:13","slug":"on-this-day-in-bulgaria-may-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bronicable.com\/en\/on-this-day-in-bulgaria\/on-this-day-in-bulgaria-may-11\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in Bulgaria: May 11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On May 11, Bulgarian history keeps two milestones \u2014 one in education, one in church independence \u2014 both bound up with the veneration of Saints Cyril and Methodius.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>May 11, 1851 \u2014 St Cyril and St Methodius Day Is First Celebrated in Plovdiv<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>On May 11, 1851, St Cyril and St Methodius Day was first celebrated in a Plovdiv school named after the saintly brothers. The celebration became an early expression of the Bulgarian Revival&#8217;s belief that education, language, and historical memory were inseparable.<\/p>\n<p>This Plovdiv tradition later grew into one of Bulgaria&#8217;s most beloved holidays \u2014 the Day of the Bulgarian Alphabet, Education and Culture on May 24. From a modest school festivity, it became a symbol of the whole Revival programme of enlightenment and self-assertion.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>May 11, 1872 \u2014 Exarch Antim I Proclaims Bulgarian Church Independence<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>On May 11, 1872, Exarch Antim I read the proclamation of the independence of the Bulgarian Church. The act followed decades of struggle by Bulgarians for ecclesiastical self-government and the right to worship and study in their own language.<\/p>\n<p>The Bulgarian Exarchate had already been established by Ottoman firman in 1870, but the proclamation gave powerful public form to the claim of independent church authority. It helped consolidate the spiritual foundation of the modern Bulgarian nation, shortly before its political liberation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On this day in Bulgarian history: St Cyril and St Methodius Day was first celebrated in Plovdiv in 1851, and Exarch Antim I proclaimed Bulgarian Church independence in 1872.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3355,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-this-day-in-bulgaria","latest_post"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>On This Day in Bulgaria: May 11 History<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On May 11: St Cyril and St Methodius Day is first celebrated 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