site.btaOn First Day of His Second Term, BTA Director General Receives Patriarch's Blessing

During a meeting at the Sofia Metropolitanate on Tuesday, the Bulgarian Patriarch and Metropolitan of Sofia Daniil blessed BTA Director General Kiril Valchev on the first day of his second term in office.

Valchev thanked Patriarch Daniil for his letter backing his bid for re-election. He noted that both his terms began on January 27, the Feast Day of the Translation of the Relics of St John Chrysostom to Constantinople, and that he was officially nominated on November 13 – the saint's other feast day. On December 4, 2025, the 240-seat Parliament unanimously elected Valchev for a second term by 170 votes in favour.

The BTA Director General recalled that the Bulgarian News Agency Act assigns the agency to safeguard and protect the national traditions. Under the Constitution, "Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a traditional religion in the Republic of Bulgaria". Implementing this, during Valchev's first term BTA launched a daily publication of an Orthodox Calendar, providing information on the church holidays compiled by Prof. Ivan Zhelev. The agency's correspondents in 33 urban settlements countrywide started to cover systematically the sermons on Sundays and on major feast days. The BG World section on the BTA website started spreading news from the churches of expatriate Bulgarians. Special correspondents reported the Patriarch's visits to Thessaloniki and to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul.

The BTA-organized World Meeting of Bulgarian Media was opened at Rila Monastery in 2021 and at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 2022. The meeting in 2025 included an event at the Sts Cyril and Methodius Monastery of Klisura. Valchev said that the 2026 World Meeting is planned to take place in Hungary at the invitation of the Bulgarian media there, and it may be opened on October 19, the Feast Day of the Translation of the Relics of St John of Rila, which is also a Day of the Bulgarian-Hungarian Friendship. The opening may take place at the Cathedral in Esztergom where the saint's relics were kept for some time. In August 2026, BTA's LIK magazine will mark the 1080th anniversary of St John's demise on August 18, 946 by a special issue on Bulgarian saints.

The BTA Director General asked and received Patriarch Daniil's blessing for the design of a project for the construction of a small church dedicated to the Word of God next to the agency's building in Sofia.

Valchev presented the Primate of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church with an expressly prepared book and flash memories with the BTA news stories, pictures and videos on his visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul in December 2025. The Patriarch presented the Director General with an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos.