On the holiday of the Bulgarian capital city on September 17, when the Orthodox Church commemorates the holy martyrs Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia, icons made of flowers and natural materials decorated the ancient church "St. Sophia" with the blessing of the Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil. The collection is entitled "Prayer for Bulgaria" and presents the history of Bulgarian Orthodoxy through the 13 church dioceses in this country.

The author of the exhibition is Antonia Mirovalieva-Bojanina, who has been living and working in the USA as an economist for 30 years. The idea for artistic images made of flowers was born from a beautiful postcard with wild flowers from the Rhodope Mountains, sent by her friend. Initially, she began making cards to give to her children's teachers for the holidays and then gradually became interested in depicting landscapes and still life artworks. She held three solo exhibitions, but felt that her works lacked spiritual message. Then she discovered her creative calling during the liturgies in the church, looking at the icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov.

Impressed by his life and his boundless love for people, she decided to recreate his image. After three months of efforts, she found that the most difficult thing was the expression of the eyes, which reveal the soul and virtues of a saint. Therefore, when creating the icon of St. Romylos of Vidin, Patriarch Daniil, who was then Metropolitan of Vidin, helped her with this difficult task.

"I started creating and made four works, one of which was an image of the Rila Monastery. With it I participated in a competition in Japan in 2015. The fourth exhibition was my last secular one, which I made in America, and representatives of the entire Orthodox community were also invited to it. In contrast to their joy that they recognized their own at the other end of the world, came the amazement of those who were not Orthodox Christians. These were Americans, Protestants, Catholics, who surrounded us and listened to the presentation without asking a question. However, it turned out that they did not know the history of the Church and this was actually the turning point in which God showed me the path to follow. That is, if I do something in my free time, it should be for the glory of God, for the kingdom of God, for the glorification of our Orthodox faith, which is the root of our glorious Bulgaria. And then I depicted the White Angel – fresco from the Mileševa Monastery in Serbia and participated with it in an international competition in South Korea. This work was awarded a special prize and was exhibited for a year in a museum in Seoul."

When Antonia Mirovalieva-Bojanina started working on the project "Prayer for Bulgaria", the initial idea was to make an icon that would combine history and spirituality, but later, with a team of like-minded people, she decided to divide the map of Bulgaria into separate dioceses and present them through significant events, historical moments or spiritual events. The result exceeded even their wildest expectations. In the meantime, as she did not have the necessary preparation, Antonia began to intensively search for information and when she came to Bulgaria, she visited the various dioceses.

"What amazed me was that when I brought a painting to the priest in the monastery to have it consecrated with his blessing and to remain in the altar for 40 days, before I brought it in, people were so happy with it that they bowed and asked about it. Like, for example, the one of the Batak Martyrs. Every Orthodox country has its martyrs. I say this because my link with Bulgaria is eternal forever and not only mine, but that of every Orthodox soul. Roots cannot be broken where they are strong. I believe that only repentance can bring us back as a people, as a nation, to the heart of living faith and the right path. There is no other salvation without Christ."

Author: Darina Grigorova

Publication in English: Alexander Markov

Photos: BTA