On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the death of Vasil Levski, on February 19, the Bulgarian community in Athens traditionally paid tribute to the memory of the national hero.
In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church “St. Venerable John of Rila the Miracle Worker” was held in memory of Hierodeacon Ignatius.
Students from Sunday schools in Athens, representatives of Bulgarian associations and numerous grateful Bulgarians laid wreaths and flowers in front of the bas-relief of the Apostle in front of the Bulgarian Embassy building.
The Bulgarian ambassador to Greece, Valentin Poryazov, welcomed the guests.
After the ceremony, a celebration was held in the halls of the Embassy, at which the winners of the inter-school competition “Vasil Levski in front of the court and in front of the world” were announced. The reading of students in the country and abroad”.
A special guest at the event was the chairman of the competition jury – the respected historian Prof. Milko Palangurski, vice-rector of the University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”, who presented the awards to distinguished participants from Greece. Prof. Palangurski’s speech, dedicated to the international dimension of Levski’s work and ideas and his role in building Bulgarian statehood, was met with particular interest and attention.
The competition “Vasil Levski in front of the court and in front of the world” is organized by the Seliminski Center in cooperation with the University of Athens and the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens. 150 works by students from 32 schools in Bulgaria and Bulgarian Sunday schools in Greece, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Cyprus, North Macedonia participated in the four categories of the competition: Testimony or story, Visual story – comic, Report in a newspaper and Column in a foreign language , Serbia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, as well as from the Romanian Sunday School “Stefan Barsanescu” in Athens. The most numerous participants were from 22 SEU “G. S. Rakovski” in Sofia.
The prizes for the winners of the contest are provided by the Executive Agency for Bulgarians Abroad. Ioana Metodieva from the 10th grade of the NU “Vasil Levski” in Nafplio, Greece was honored with the special award – visiting the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.
