Holiday of Bulgarian education and Slavic writing

On this day in Bulgaria, the national holiday of enlightenment, culture and the creation of the Glagolitic script by Cyril and Methodius is celebrated.

The first known evidence of the celebration of the holiday was found in an Armenian chronicle from 1813, which mentions the celebration of the holy brothers on May 22, 1803 in Shumen. For the first time on May 11, 1851, in the diocesan school "St. St. Cyril and Methodius" in the city of Plovdiv, on the initiative of Nayden Gerov, a celebration of Cyril and Methodius - the creators of the Glagolitic alphabet - is being organized. May 11 was not chosen by chance by Nayden Gerov - it is the common church holiday of the two saints. In our revival literature, the first notices of the celebration of Cyril and Methodius on May 11 can be found in Neofit Rilski's "Christomatiya slavskogo yazaka" from 1852.

Since 1863, May 11 has been established as a church holiday of the holy co-apostles Cyril and Methodius. In Sofia, the holiday was organized by teacher Sava Filaretov. The holiday goes beyond the church-school framework of its celebration and becomes a national holiday.

With the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1916, the holiday celebrated by the state and the church was celebrated on one day - May 24. After 1969, secularization took place by separating the ecclesiastical from the secular calendar, therefore today there are two holidays - ecclesiastical (May 11) and secular (May 24). May 24 was declared an official holiday of Bulgaria by a decision of the Ninth National Assembly on March 30, 1990, and it has been an official holiday since November 15, 1990, when People's Bulgaria was renamed the Republic of Bulgaria.