The Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis will be officially opened on 18 April
Plovdiv's newest museum will open to visitors after the anti-epidemic measures are mitigated

The Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis will be opened on 18 April 2021, the UNESCO's International Day for Monuments and Sites. This was announced today (30.03.2021) by Mayor Zdravko Dimitrov.

The opening of the Bishop's Basilica will take place online due to the epidemic situation in the country. It will be broadcast live on the website of the Municipality of Plovdiv, the Facebook pages of the Municipality of Plovdiv, Municipal Institute "Ancient Plovdiv" (Plovdiv Old town / official), the Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis and America for Bulgaria. The Facebook event will broadcast live broadcast here: https://www.facebook.com/events/283128906584188/

The newest museum in Plovdiv will open its doors to visitors as soon as the anti-epidemic measures are mitigated.

The Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis is unique in scale, architectural design and decoration and is one of the most representative early-Christian sites. On 20 January 2018, it is included in the Tentative List of Important Cultural and Natural Sites of UNESCO.

The restoration and exhibition of the mosaics took place in the period 2015-2020 with the financial support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation within a joint project with the Municipality of Plovdiv for "Restoration, exhibition and construction of a protective cover of the Bishop's Basilica of Philippopolis."

The basilica is a unique site, which was discovered during rescue archeological excavations in the period 1982-1986. By 2002, almost half of the building was explored, and in 2016-2017 it was fully excavated. The total length of the basilica is 82.80 m and its width is 36 m, which makes it the largest 4th-6th century basilica in Bulgaria and one of the largest on the Balkans. The basilica functioned from the middle of the 4th century until the end of the 6th century, and in the Middle Ages a Christian necropolis appeared on its ruins.

The floors of the Episcopal Basilica of Philippopolis are covered with two layers of multicolored mosaics, with an area exceeding two thousand square meters. The mosaic floors have their own specific appearance, combining different influences with local culture, traditions and resources, enriching our knowledge of mosaic art in Late Antiquity.

More information about the basilica can be found on the site made especially for the site - https://www.plovdivmosaics.org/, as well as on the Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/bishopsbasilica