On October 31, 2026, the exhibition Seven Centuries of Franciscan Presence in Bulgaria<\/em> opened at the St. Bonaventure Library at the Seraphicum<\/em> College in Rome. The exhibition commemorates the 800th<\/sup> anniversary of the transitus<\/em> of St. Francis of Assisi.<\/strong><\/p>\n The exhibition was organized by the Bulgarian School Asen and Ilia PEJKOVI<\/em> in Rome and the Parallel 43<\/em> Cultural Association, in collaboration with the Central Library of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the library at the Seraphicum<\/em>. Those attending the opening included Professor Krasimir STANCHEV (the main speaker); the Seraphicum<\/em> librarian Friar \u0141ukasz JANKOWSKI; and Kostadin KODZHABASHEV, Bulgaria\u2019s ambassador to the Holy See and to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The exhibition will remain on display until November 13, 2026. It is open to the public Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., at the St. Bonaventure Library, Via del Serafico 1, Rome. Admission is free, but visitors must book in advance by email. To arrange a visit or request further information, contact the librarian at biblioteca@Seraphicum.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n St. Bonaventure Library at the Seraphicum<\/em><\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On October 31, 2026, the exhibition Seven Centuries of Franciscan Presence in Bulgaria opened at the St. Bonaventure Library at the Seraphicum College in Rome. The exhibition commemorates the 800th anniversary of the transitus of St. Francis of Assisi. The exhibition was organized by the Bulgarian School Asen and Ilia PEJKOVI in Rome and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,117,148],"tags":[1304,353,331],"class_list":["post-106691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-federations","category-fimp-en","category-news","tag-bulgaria-en","tag-rome","tag-seraphicum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106691"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106695,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106691\/revisions\/106695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ofmconv.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe initiative began in January 2026, when a group from the Bulgarian School started researching the library\u2019s collections as part of a project of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science dedicated to little-known stories of Bulgarians around the world. The researchers focused on two Conventual Franciscans from Bulgaria, Friars Giuseppe GAGOV and Giorgio ELDAROV. Both taught at the Seraphicum<\/em> and later headed Vatican Radio\u2019s Bulgarian Language Service.
\nWhile researching and digitizing the two friars\u2019 books, articles, and scholarly works, the librarian drew the group\u2019s attention to an iconostasis [icon screen] in the library archives whose origins had not yet been identified. Further research traced it to Friar Giorgio ELDAROV. This discovery inspired the organizers to present the artifact alongside the two friars\u2019 books and the story of their spiritual and cultural service, complementing the exhibition prepared by the Central Library of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
\nThe exhibition starts by explaining who St. Francis was, his spiritual legacy, and describes the various branches of the Franciscan family. It then goes on to <\/strong>chronicle the presence of the Franciscans in Bulgaria from the 14th<\/sup> century to the present day.
\nThe exhibition covers such topics as the flourishing of Catholic culture in \u010ciprovci during the 17th<\/sup> century, the difficulties following the 1688 uprising, the arrival of the Capuchin Franciscans in the 19th<\/sup> century, and the life of Franciscan communities during the Iron Curtain era.
\nThe exhibition pays particular attention to Friars Giuseppe GAGOV and Giorgio ELDAROV, whose work in academia and radio broadcasting helped maintain religious and cultural ties between Bulgaria and Bulgarian communities abroad. The friars\u2019 books and the iconostasis also highlight the connection between this history and the Seraphicum<\/em> College, where both friars taught.<\/p>\n