(Clarifies in headline and in text that the remains are being handed over, not returned)
ATHENS, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Greece will hand over to Bulgaria the remains identified as those of Bulgarian medieval ruler Tsar Samuel under an accord signed on Tuesday that also provides for the transfer of other historic and religious artefacts between the two Balkan neighbours.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev described the accord as a “historic agreement” and said the handover of Samuel’s remains ended six decades of efforts by Sofia to bring them home after their discovery in Greece in 1965.
• Samuel, or Samuil, reigned from 997 to 1014 during the First Bulgarian Empire and is deemed a national hero by Bulgarians for struggling to preserve his country’s independence from the neighbouring, Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire.
• Greek archaeologist Nikolaos Moutsopoulos discovered Samuel’s remains during excavations at the Basilica of Saint Achillios on an island in Prespa Lake in northern Greece. They had been stored in Thessaloniki’s Museum of Byzantine Culture in recent years.
• Under the Memorandum of Understanding, signed on Tuesday by the culture ministers of Greece and Bulgaria, Athens will receive nearly 50 religious relics that were removed to Bulgaria during World War One.
• Bulgaria’s Radev and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis are expected to attend an official ceremony for the handover of Samuel’s remains on October 3 at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in the Greek city of Thessaloniki.
(Reporting by Stoyan Nenov; Writing by Antonis Pothitos; Editing by Gareth Jones)
