A Bulgarian delegation is this year once again on a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Constantine Cyril the Philosopher in Rome on the occasion of May 24 - the Day of Slavonic Alphabet, Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture. He and his brother Methodius created the Glagolitic Alphabet for the Slavic peoples. The audience with Pope Francis is part of the program. This year His Holiness is presented with an icon with the image of Paisius of Hilendar, whose book Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya, written in 1762 played a huge role for our national revival in the years of the Ottoman rule. The icon is created by Adriana Lyubenova, a tutor with the Theology Dept. of the Paisius of Hilendar Plovdiv University.

“I opted for the icon of Paisius of Hilendar, since he was the one who woke the Bulgarians up from the darkness and turned us into a nation, though St. St. Cyril and Methodius had created the alphabet. Paisius spoke of our national identity – something so important even in today’s globalization.”

Adriana Lyubenova paints Paisius of Hilendar for the third time. The first icon was given as a gift to the Russian Patriarch upon his visit to Bulgaria. The second is a gift to Plovdiv University. The idea for a third one to be handed to Pope Francis occurred when Adriana was invited to attend the Rome pilgrimage together with Bulgarian kids living and studying abroad, as she is member of the board of the Association of Bulgarian Schools Abroad. Those had been organized by the head of the First Bulgarian High School in Spain – Petya Tsaneva. Here is more from Adriana:

“The initiative of Petya Tsaneva came spontaneously”, Adriana Lyubenova further explains. “It is important for the kids from the Bulgarian schools abroad to go to the tomb of St. Cyril the Philosopher, thus turning our history into something real and living for them and not just another text from the book. Petya Tsaneva organized some 300 kids from 6 different states, who are to participate in the fests devoted to May 24 in Rome.”

Here is what also links Adriana to Bulgarians around the world. She went to the USA at the age of 15. She graduated as an expert in sculpture, she has three master degrees as well – in church painting, theology and archaeology.

“I spent 16 years in the USA and taught at the Bulgarian school in Washington. Those kids see history only in the town of their grandmother here, the village of their grandfather, the house etc. They need a more attractive approach to Bulgarian history, in order to get interested. That was what I tried to give them…”

In Bulgaria Adriana works with different NGOs as well, such as the Parallel World – an association of mothers of children with autism. She is also program coordinator of the My Museum Foundation, where educational programs are developed, in order to make museums attractive to children.

“At the moment I work on several social initiatives,” Adriana says. “One of them is to create programs for children with disabilities, looking for a way to include them in the city’s cultural life. We have a club in iconography and theology together with the students from the Department of History and Philosophy of Plovdiv University. They work there with kids at different ages. In the summer of this year we organize a second historical-archaeological camp, together with the History Museum of the city.”

English version: Zhivko Stanchev