Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Happy New Year! Happy St. Basil's Day!

The magic of the new beginning

Photo: BGNES

It's January 1st! The first day of 2021, the first day of a new beginning and new hopes for each of us, for our families and loved ones, for all people in the world! 

Today Orthodox Christians celebrate the day of St. Basil the Great, also revered by the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Anglican, Lutheran and other churches. St. Basil remains in history not only as a great theologian, scientist, teacher, but also with the charitable institution he organized for the sick, poor and orphans, including hospital, inn, workshops, school, housing for the bishop, priests, doctors and staff.

In the Bulgarian folk tradition, St. Basil's Day is also a time of ritual practices that have pagan roots.  Good wishing is important on this day and one of the most common wishes is: "Surva, Happy New Year!" This is the title of an article from the collection of Radio Bulgaria, which tells more about the folk customs performed on this day.


Editor: Albena Bezovska



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

The Radio Sofia building

When the BNR “spoke” Polish

Today, the Bulgarian National Radio’s foreign language service Radio Bulgaria “speaks” 11 languages. Through the years, languages have been added, others have been dropped – something that happened to the Polish-language programmes. They were aired by..

published on 2/16/24 7:10 AM

105th anniversary of the birth of legendary piper Dafo Trendafilov

On this day - 17 January - we celebrate the 105th birth anniversary of the legendary piper Dafo Trendafilov . He was born in 1919 in the village of Gela in the Rhodope Mountains and his whole life remains forever linked to this mystical land. He began..

published on 1/17/24 7:40 AM

Albena Danailova - Second concertmaster for the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert

Bulgarian violinist Albena Danailova is the first assistant to concertmaster Rainer Honeck in the New Year's concert of the Vienna Philharmonic on January 1, 2024. Conductor will be Christian Thielemann . Albena..

published on 12/29/23 3:25 PM