On 3 October 2026, Greece and Bulgaria formalized an agreement concerning the return to Greece of 48 ecclesiastical treasures removed from religious institutions during the First World War and the transfer to Bulgaria of human remains identified as those of Tsar Samuel (r. 997–1014). The ceremony, held at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki and attended by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev, marked a significant moment in the cultural relations of the two neighboring countries. The treasures were physically brought back to Greece, more than a century after their removal in 1917, while the remains attributed to Samuel were transferred to Bulgaria. Yet, beyond the diplomatic symbolism, the agreement raises important historical, archaeological, ecclesiastical, and legal questions. It also brings renewed attention to the wider problem of cultural and religious property removed from Greek institutions during the upheavals of the early twentieth century.
The Agreement of 2026
The agreement originated in a Memorandum of Understanding signed on 29 September 2026 by the Greek Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, and her Bulgarian counterpart, Evtim Miloshev. It provides for the reciprocal handling of historically significant objects associated with the two countries. Under the arrangement, 48 ecclesiastical treasures originating from the Monastery of Panagia Eikosifoinissa, the Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner in Serres, and the Holy Metropolis of Serres and Nigrita were brought from Bulgaria to Greece. In return, Greece transferred to Bulgaria the human remains identified as those of Tsar Samuel, together with anthropological material recovered from the four sarcophagi discovered in the Basilica of Saint Achillios at Mikri Prespa. The Greek Ministry of Culture described the agreement as the result of sustained negotiations and confirmed that discussions would continue concerning other historical objects not covered by the arrangement.
The handover took place at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki on 3 October, in the presence of the two prime ministers. The ceremony marked the culmination of negotiations extending over decades. Mitsotakis recalled that discussions had begun approximately half a century earlier, with initial contacts between Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis and Bulgaria’s then-leader Todor Zhivkov in the 1970s. The eventual agreement therefore represented not a sudden diplomatic initiative, but the outcome of a prolonged process that had passed through successive governments and changing political circumstances.
The return was presented by the Greek government as a historic achievement in cultural diplomacy. Mitsotakis described the 48 objects as possessing immense cultural, spiritual, and emotional value, emphasizing that they were not simply museum pieces but elements of collective memory that had been separated from their original religious and historical settings. He declared that historical monuments and artifacts should not be treated as spoils of war. Radev likewise presented the agreement as an expression of mutual respect and cooperation between neighboring peoples whose histories have included both conflict and shared cultural traditions.
The Greek government announced that the objects would remain on exhibition at the Museum of Byzantine Culture until 5 November 2026, after which they would be delivered to the ecclesiastical institutions from which they originated. The exhibition provides an opportunity for the public to see the treasures in Greece before their planned return to their historic homes: the Monastery of Panagia Eikosifoinissa, the Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner in Serres, and the Holy Metropolis of Serres and Nigrita.
There is, however, an important distinction between the physical return of the objects and their precise legal status. The Greek government has described the arrangement as a return to the institutions of origin, while Petranka Nedelcheva-Megala, head of the Exhibition and International Activities Department at Bulgaria’s National History Museum, stated that the objects remained on the museum’s inventory and had been provided to Greece on loan. According to her account, they had neither been donated nor transferred into Greek ownership, and no return date had been set. The discrepancy between these descriptions is significant. The treasures have physically returned to Greece, but the question of ownership and the legal character of the arrangement depends on the terms of the signed protocols and related documentation.
What Greece Received
The agreement concerns 48 inventory entries comprising 53 physical objects. The distinction was explained by the Bulgarian museum official, who noted that some inventory numbers cover more than one item. Two liturgical fans, for example, are recorded under a single number.
The objects date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and include sacred icons, crosses, liturgical vestments, reliquaries, tabernacles, liturgical fans, a door associated with one of the monasteries, and an episcopal throne. Mitsotakis specifically highlighted the icons, crosses, vestments, reliquaries, and the impressive episcopal throne in his address at the ceremony. Bulgarian reporting also identified the tabernacles, the monastery-associated door, and liturgical fans from the cathedral in Serres. The Bulgarian museum official clarified that no crowns were included and that none of the objects sent to Greece were manuscripts.
These objects are significant not merely as works of art but as components of Orthodox ecclesiastical life. Icons and crosses have devotional and liturgical functions; vestments are used in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and other services; reliquaries are made to contain and honor holy relics; and the episcopal throne represents the bishop’s liturgical and institutional authority. Tabernacles, fans, and other ecclesiastical furnishings likewise belong to the material setting of worship. Their significance consequently extends beyond craftsmanship and artistic style to the religious practices, historical memory, and institutional identity of the communities for which they were made or donated.
According to Nedelcheva-Megala, the objects bear donor inscriptions identifying their ecclesiastical associations and indicating the institutions to which they were intended to belong. Such inscriptions are particularly valuable for reconstructing provenance, since they may connect an object to a named donor, a particular monastery, or a specific act of donation. Their testimony is especially important when considering objects removed from their original settings during wartime.
The return of these treasures is therefore a tangible recovery of material heritage associated with three Greek ecclesiastical institutions. At the same time, the absence of manuscripts from the group is notable given the history of the 1917 seizures, particularly the losses suffered by Panagia Eikosifoinissa. The agreement concerns the specified ecclesiastical objects, not the entirety of the material removed from Greek institutions during the First World War.
The Seizures of 1917
The historical background reaches back to the First World War, when the Serres region and other parts of Greek Macedonia were caught in the military and political struggles of the period. Ecclesiastical institutions in the region suffered the removal of religious treasures, manuscripts, and other cultural property. Among the institutions affected were the Monastery of Panagia Eikosifoinissa and the Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner.
The removal of treasures from Panagia Eikosifoinissa has particular significance because of the monastery’s long history and its manuscript collection. The monastery’s losses have been discussed in postwar Greek investigations and in subsequent scholarship on the dispersal of Greek ecclesiastical manuscripts and objects. Accounts of the events describe the removal of material to Bulgaria during the occupation and military upheavals of 1917. The surviving historical record, including contemporary reports and later studies, remains essential for reconstructing the circumstances of the seizures and identifying the objects and manuscripts that were taken.
The Bulgarian interpretation of the events also deserves consideration. A Bulgarian National History Museum official stated that the Bulgarian government had ordered troops in 1917 to seize objects associated with Bulgarians, Bulgarian history, and cultural heritage, ostensibly to safeguard them. She also acknowledged the difficulty of determining the precise national or ecclesiastical affiliation of objects in a region whose communities had a complex and overlapping history. This is the official’s account of the rationale for the seizures; it does not, by itself, establish the rightful ownership of any particular object or resolve the circumstances under which it was removed.
The historical question cannot be answered simply by showing that an object was preserved in a museum after its removal. Preservation and lawful acquisition are distinct issues. The circumstances of wartime removal must be considered alongside provenance, inscriptions, inventories, ecclesiastical records, and contemporary testimony. Where documentation identifies a particular monastery or donor, that evidence is especially important in establishing an object’s original context.
The broader historical record includes Greek postwar investigations into the destruction and removal of cultural property. The report of the Greek University Commission, published after the war, is one relevant contemporary source, although its findings must be read in light of its institutional and national perspective. Such reports, together with surviving inventories and later scholarship, help establish the scale of the losses and the history of individual objects.
The removal of the ecclesiastical treasures in 1917 was part of a wider history of cultural displacement during wartime. The objects were separated from the institutions whose worship and history they had served, and their subsequent preservation in Bulgaria did not erase their earlier provenance. Their return to Greece has now brought that history back into public view.
The Recovery of Ecclesiastical Treasures
The 2026 agreement is not the first instance in which an ecclesiastical object associated with Panagia Eikosifoinissa has returned to Greek Orthodox custody. In 2022, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. announced an agreement transferring ownership of Gospel Manuscript 220, a manuscript associated with the monastery that had entered a collection outside Greece. The joint announcement documented the formal transfer and demonstrated the importance of provenance research and institutional cooperation in restitution cases.
That recovery is especially relevant to the 2026 agreement because it illustrates the continuing dispersal of material associated with the monastery. The return of the 48 inventory entries is a meaningful achievement, but it does not settle the status of other objects or manuscripts removed during the same historical period. Each case requires its own documentary investigation and assessment of the available evidence.
The Church of Greece welcomed the return of the 48 ecclesiastical treasures and expressed the hope that the agreement would lead to further recoveries. The ceremony was thus received as a significant development in the effort to restore religious and historical objects to their original institutions. For the affected ecclesiastical communities, the importance of the return lies not only in the artistic value of the objects but also in their relationship to the worship, memory, and history of the Church.
The response was not uniformly uncritical. Metropolitan Dorotheos of Drama voiced reservations about the agreement. In a letter to the Greek Minister of Culture, he reportedly questioned the adequacy of the arrangement in relation to the wider losses and expressed dissatisfaction that he had not been informed or included in consultations. He cited estimates of approximately 800 ecclesiastical treasures and 430 manuscripts removed from Panagia Eikosifoinissa alone. These figures are claims attributed to the Metropolitan, rather than independently verified totals established by a complete surviving inventory.
The Metropolitan’s concerns also extended to the future of negotiations. He questioned whether transferring the remains attributed to Tsar Samuel might weaken Greece’s position in efforts to recover other ecclesiastical treasures and manuscripts. His reservations reflect a broader concern among critics that the return of a limited group of objects should not be allowed to close the question of the much larger body of material believed to remain outside Greece.
These objections do not negate the significance of the treasures that have returned. They instead distinguish two questions: whether the handover represents a meaningful recovery, and whether the arrangement adequately addresses the full extent of the historical losses. The physical return of the objects is an established event. The wider question of restitution remains open.
The Remains Attributed to Tsar Samuel
The other central element of the agreement concerns the human remains found during archaeological excavations at the Basilica of Saint Achillios on the island of Agios Achillios in Mikri Prespa. The remains have been identified with Tsar Samuel, the medieval ruler of Bulgaria whose reign ended in 1014 following his prolonged conflict with the Byzantine Empire.
The remains were discovered during excavations directed by the Greek archaeologist Nikolaos Moutsopoulos. The precise chronology of their discovery is not consistently reported. The Greek Ministry of Culture identifies 1965 as the year of discovery, while Mitsotakis referred to excavations in 1964, and Bulgarian reporting has given 1969. These dates may refer to different stages of the excavation, the discovery, or its subsequent identification, but the available accounts do not conclusively establish the reason for the discrepancy.
The anthropological study by Yordan Yordanov, published in 2010, examined a male skeleton designated Grave B.1 and discussed physical findings including injuries to the skull and left forearm, as well as traces of clothing and other burial-related material. Yordanov argued that the physical and historical evidence supported the attribution to Samuel. His study provides an important scholarly basis for the identification, but the attribution should not be presented as universally accepted or independently conclusive.
The identification also depends on the interpretation of the archaeological context and the historical association of the basilica with Samuel. Questions concerning the dating and historical development of the church must be distinguished from the separate question of whose remains were found in a particular sarcophagus. Evidence relevant to one question does not automatically resolve the other. The archaeological context, burial evidence, historical sources, and anthropological findings must be considered together.
For decades, the remains were preserved by the Greek state and kept in Thessaloniki at the Museum of Byzantine Culture. Their transfer to Bulgaria was presented by the Greek government as the fulfillment of an obligation to return material associated with the medieval ruler to the country where he is commemorated. Mitsotakis expressed his hope that the remains would be honored in Bulgaria in the manner its people considered appropriate.
Following the ceremony in Thessaloniki, the remains were transported to Sofia, where they received a state reception with military honors. Reports described a ceremonial welcome and the placement of the remains in a specially prepared sarcophagus at the Church of Saint Sophia. The event drew public attention and was presented in Bulgaria as the return of a major figure of medieval national history after decades of negotiations.
The Bulgarian reception gave the agreement a significance beyond the diplomatic exchange itself. Samuel remains an important figure in Bulgarian historical memory, and the transfer allowed the remains attributed to him to be commemorated in Bulgaria. Nevertheless, the ceremonial importance of the event does not eliminate the need for precision about the identification. The most defensible description remains that the remains have been identified as those of Tsar Samuel and that scholars have advanced arguments supporting that attribution.
The Question of Reciprocity
The agreement has been presented by the two governments as an act of cultural diplomacy intended to transform a difficult chapter of shared history into a basis for cooperation. At the ceremony on 3 October, the Greek and Bulgarian prime ministers emphasized mutual respect, historical memory, and the value of bilateral relations. The Greek prime minister also connected the agreement to the wider international debate over the restitution of cultural heritage.
Mitsotakis explicitly linked the return of the ecclesiastical treasures to Greece’s campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures. He argued that monuments and historical artifacts should not be treated as spoils of war and emphasized the relationship between cultural objects and the landscapes and monuments from which they originate. He also reiterated that Greece would not accept an arrangement for the Parthenon Sculptures that implied recognition of foreign ownership or treated the sculptures as objects that Greece itself must borrow. His remarks placed the agreement with Bulgaria within a broader Greek argument for the integrity of cultural heritage and the restoration of objects to their historical contexts.
Yet the reciprocal nature of the arrangement has prompted criticism. Some Greek commentators, academics, and ecclesiastical figures have questioned whether the transfer of the remains attributed to Samuel was necessary to secure the return of the ecclesiastical objects, whether the two sides’ contributions are comparable, and whether the agreement might affect future efforts to recover other treasures.
The objects should not be reduced to a simple monetary comparison. Ecclesiastical treasures possess artistic, historical, and religious significance, while human remains connected to a major medieval ruler have their own historical and cultural importance. The two categories are not interchangeable in any straightforward sense. The relevant questions concern the terms of the agreement, the provenance and status of the objects, the authority under which the arrangements were made, and the effect of the settlement on future restitution efforts.
The Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine of 1919, particularly its provisions concerning the restitution of identifiable property and objects of artistic, historical, or archaeological importance taken from invaded territories, forms part of the broader legal background to postwar cultural restitution. Its relevance to the objects involved in the 2026 agreement, however, depends on the specific provisions, the circumstances of each removal, and the applicable subsequent legal arrangements. The existence of an international treaty is not, on its own, sufficient to determine the legal status of every object in question.
The central issue is not whether cultural diplomacy is desirable in principle, but what this particular agreement achieves. The return of the ecclesiastical treasures is a concrete result of long-running negotiations. At the same time, the disagreement over whether the objects have been permanently transferred or placed on loan, together with the concerns raised about the larger body of missing ecclesiastical material, shows that the agreement has not ended every dispute surrounding the events of 1917.
What Remains Unresolved
The legal status of the 48 inventory entries remains a central question because the two sides have described the arrangement differently. Greek official statements speak of the treasures returning to their historic homes, while the Bulgarian museum official has stated that the objects remain on the museum’s inventory and have been provided on loan. The distinction between custody and ownership is consequential, particularly when considering the future of the objects after the exhibition in Thessaloniki.
The provenance of the treasures is equally important. The surviving inscriptions, inventories, and ecclesiastical records can help establish the relationship between the objects and the institutions from which they originated. The history of the 1917 seizures also remains relevant to the broader question of the manuscripts and other material that were not included in the present agreement.
The chronology of the discovery of Samuel’s remains presents a separate historical problem. The differing dates reported by official and media sources have not been conclusively reconciled. The archaeological and anthropological arguments supporting the identification remain important, but the identification should continue to be discussed in terms that reflect the evidence rather than the symbolism of the transfer.
Finally, the wider restitution question remains open. The Greek Ministry of Culture has stated that negotiations will continue concerning other historically significant objects not included in the agreement. Whether those negotiations lead to further recoveries will help determine the longer-term importance of the 2026 settlement.
Conclusion
The agreement between Greece and Bulgaria marks an important development in the history of ecclesiastical restitution and cultural diplomacy. The 48 inventory entries, comprising 53 physical objects, have been brought back to Greece more than a century after their removal during the First World War. Their presentation at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, attended by the prime ministers of both countries, gave the return considerable public and diplomatic significance. The objects are intended to return to the monasteries and ecclesiastical institution with which they are historically associated, restoring an important part of their material heritage.
The transfer to Bulgaria of the remains identified as those of Tsar Samuel likewise brought a long-running issue into public view. Their reception in Sofia, with military honors and a state ceremony, demonstrated the importance attached to Samuel in Bulgarian historical memory. The two transfers thus connected distinct histories: the wartime removal of Greek ecclesiastical treasures in 1917 and the modern efforts to return to Bulgaria remains attributed to a medieval ruler.
The agreement should neither be dismissed because questions remain nor treated as though every issue has been settled. The return of the treasures is a tangible achievement, but it does not establish that the wider losses have been recovered. Nor does the ceremonial significance of the transfer resolve the legal status of the objects or all the scholarly questions surrounding Samuel’s remains.
The lasting importance of the agreement will depend on its consequences beyond the ceremony itself. If it leads to further recoveries, clearer documentation, and sustained cooperation over the remaining historical material, it may become a significant step toward addressing the losses of 1917. For now, it stands as both a notable act of cultural diplomacy and a reminder of how much historical heritage can remain unsettled long after the events that displaced it.
The return of these treasures is therefore best understood as a significant step in a longer process—not the final chapter in the history of the ecclesiastical objects removed in 1917.
Selected Sources and Further Reading
Official documents and contemporary reporting
Greek Ministry of Culture, announcement of the Memorandum of Understanding between Greece and Bulgaria, 29 September 2026. Official announcement.
Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, “Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis attended the signing ceremony of the protocol for the handover of artefacts between Greece and Bulgaria,” 3 October 2026. Official account and speech.
Bulgarian News Agency, “Church Artefacts Sent to Greece Remain on Museum’s Inventory, Official Says,” 3 October 2026. Report on the inventory and the Bulgarian museum’s position.
Associated Press, “Remains of medieval king Czar Samuel arrive in Bulgaria after decades of talks with Greece,” 3 October 2026. Report on the transfer and the public reception.
Orthodox Times, “Metropolitan of Drama to Greek Culture Minister: What will happen to remaining ecclesiastical treasures?” Report on Metropolitan Dorotheos’s reservations.
To Vima, “Remains Associated with Tsar Samuel Handed to Bulgaria; Ecclesiastical Relics Return to Greece,” 3 October 2026. Report on the agreement and ceremony.
Archaeology and historical documentation
Nikolaos Moutsopoulos, excavation reports from the Basilica of Saint Achillios at Mikri Prespa, 1967 and 1969. 1967 report; 1969 report.
Yordan Yordanov, “A Medico-Anthropological Study of the Skeleton and a Plastic Reconstruction of the Skull of Tsar Samuil,” 2010. Study.
Saint Achillios Basilica, Prespes, archaeological study, 2024. Publication.
Greek University Commission, postwar report on wartime damage and losses. Library of Congress record.
Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1919, Part VII. Text of the treaty.
Restitution precedent
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and Museum of the Bible, joint statement on the transfer of ownership of Gospel Manuscript 220, 29 September 2022. Joint statement.
Editorial note: Public reports differ on the legal characterization of the artefacts’ transfer and on the year in which the remains attributed to Tsar Samuel were discovered. The article preserves those discrepancies rather than treating them as resolved. Before publication in a scholarly venue, the signed 2026 protocols and the original excavation records should be consulted directly where accessible.
