The Macedonian church is to canonize hieromonk Yoakim Kurchovski, a prominent figure of Bulgaria’s National Revival Period on 22 May at Osogovo monastery in North Macedonia. He is titled “first Macedonian enlightener and teacher of Macedonians from the beginning of the 19^th century,” dveri.bg writes.

Yoakim Kurchovski is a prominent Bulgarian National Revival figure and man of letters who served, most of his life, in Kriva Palanka and the villages nearby, and was a teacher in Kratovo, in Štip, Melnik, Kyustendil. In Kratovo he opened a mixed school for boys and girls, a revolutionary practice at the time. To help bring church books closer to ordinary people, he printed and distributed them in the spoken Bulgarian language.