Bulgaria, Macedonia Hold Joint Celebration of Sts Cyril and Methodius

The academies of science of Bulgaria and Macedonia held the first joint celebration of the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius, two of the fathers of the Slavic literary culture.

Speaking Sunday, in the presence of his Macedonian counterpart Vlado Kambovski, Stefan Vodenicharov, President of the Bulgarian Academy of Science (BAS), said that science was an independent field and was not to be affected by political affairs.

Vodenicharov announced that he had worked with Vlado Kambovski, President of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) for almost a year to negotiate joint activities.

Vodenicharov, as cited by the Bulgarian National Radio, noted that Bulgaria and Macedonia had agreed on cooperation in 40 joint projects in a number of scientific fields, adding that work on 30 schemes had already started.

He said that the next big event to be held was the organization of Days of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Skopje in end-May.

Vodenicharov added the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences would host an open-doors event of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts that in the second half of 2014.

As part of the official ceremony on Sunday, Vodenicharov and Kambovski laid wreaths at the monument of holy brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, outside Bulgaria's National Library in Sofia.

Bulgaria celebrates May 24 (May 11, under the old calendar) as the day of the Bulgarian Education and Culture and Slavic Script, the official Day of Holy Brothers St. Cyril and St. Methodius - the Byzantine scholars who wrote the first Slavic alphabet in 855 A.D., and translated into Old Bulgarian the Bible and the religious literature of Orthodox Christianity.