The remains of Czar Samuel, a medieval Bulgarian ruler who died in 1014, arrived in Sofia on Saturday after being handed over by Greece. A military aircraft escorted by fighter jets flew the coffin from Thessaloniki, in northern Greece, to the Bulgarian capital, where a 21-gun salute greeted it. Thousands of people gathered in a public square, and the remains were then taken in procession to the Church of Saint Sofia, a sixth-century basilica where church officials say Samuel was baptised. Free transport was organised so that pilgrims could attend.

The handover is part of an accord between the Greek and Bulgarian culture ministers, reached after decades of diplomacy and finalised this week. In return, Greece receives 48 objects, including icons, crosses and ornate church vessels, that Bulgarian troops took from churches and monasteries in northern Greece during the First World War. They had been kept at the National History Museum in Bulgaria. Some Greek commentators reportedly consider this a modest price for the return of so significant a find.

Samuel, born around 950, is regarded as one of the most important rulers in Bulgarian history. He expanded his realm across much of the Balkans and fought the Byzantine Empire, the Greek-speaking successor to the eastern Roman Empire. After a lost battle in 1014, much of his army was captured, and he is said to have died soon after seeing thousands of his blinded soldiers. He was buried on an island in the border region of Albania, Greece and North Macedonia, and Greek archaeologists recovered his remains in the 1960s. They identified him from the prominent grave site, costly burial goods and bone fractures consistent with his known injuries.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev, who attended along with politicians from across a divided political spectrum, spoke of the czar's immense cultural, spiritual and emotional value. "If in the past Tsar Samuel divided us, I can say that today he unites us," he said, adding that Europe "must not reopen old wounds". Bulgarians in the crowd described the day as a homecoming.

Samuel's legacy is still contested. A large statue of him stands in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, where many claim him as their own ruler. In 2022 a bilateral commission recommended presenting him as head of a state that most historians consider the Bulgarian Empire, based in what is now North Macedonia.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis used the ceremony to press another case. He said the exchange reflected a global rethink of cultural heritage, and that monuments "cannot be treated as the spoils of war". He hoped it would strengthen Greece's long campaign for the return of the Parthenon sculptures, 2,500-year-old marbles removed from the Acropolis in Athens and held by the British Museum since 1816. He said Greece would not accept arrangements implying foreign sovereignty or a loan of its own treasures. The deal shows how a long-running dispute between neighbours can be settled, and it adds pressure to a wider debate over where contested artefacts belong.