Today marks the 75th anniversary of the death of Tsar Boris III. On this occasion, many of the churches of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church will be serve prayers, FOCUS News Agency reported.

The memorial service at his grave in the monastery temple "Nativity of the Blessed Virgin" in the Rila Monastery will be served by the Adrianopolitan Bishop Evlogi.

Boris III was born on January 30, 1894. His full name is Boris Clement Robert Mary Pius Louis Stanislaus Xavier. He is the son of King Ferdinand I and Princess Maria Luisa Bourbon-Parmes, the brother of Cyril Preslavski.

In 1896, he was renamed into the Orthodox faith - his godfather was the Russian Emperor Nikolay II. His reaching of lawful age was celebrated in Sofia in 1912 with great celebrations in the presence of the crown princes of Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro and prominent foreign guests.

Crown prince Boris (2nd from right) and German Field marshall Von Mackensen reviewing a Bulgarian regiment accompanied by the Commander in Chief General Zhekov and the Chief of Staff Army General Zhostov during World War I

He participated in the Balkan War with the Seventh Rila Division. In 1915 he attended the Military Academy in Sofia. During the First World War, as a commanding officer at the Staff of the Existing Army, he executed orders of the Supreme Command of a military and political nature.

Tsar Boris III ascended to the throne on October 3, 1918. He married Princess Giovanna of Italy and their children were the princess Maria Luisa (January 13, 1933) and Simeon, Prince Tarnovski (June 16, 1937).

The rule of Tsar Boris III is during very difficult and politically complicated years. Defeated in World War I, after the Neuilly Treaty (1919), Bulgaria was in a state of political isolation. In the country, sharp political struggles have begun, leading to the military coup on June 9, 1923, to overthrow the government of the Agrarian Union, headed by Alexander Stamboliyski, carried out by the Military Union and the political grouping "People's Plan" with the support of the palace.

Tsar Boris III achieves an internal political calm, which creates conditions for economic stability and strengthening the international authority of Bulgaria.

During the Second World War, Bulgaria joined the Tripartite Pact (March 1, 1941), but did not send troops to the Eastern Front. Since the beginning of 1943, Boris III has been attempting to reorient to the United Kingdom and the United States.

Boris III and Adolf Hitler

Tsar Boris III is the only ruler who does not send Bulgarian Jews to Germany, saving them from certain death. He died on 28 August 1943 after a week's illness. Death and its causes remain unclear to this day.

After a five-day pilgrimage at St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral on September 5, the mourning procession reached the Rila Monastery, where he was buried in the monastery church. In 1946, under the direction of the Communist rulers, his remains were exhumed and defiled, and his body was buried in a small chapel in the park of the Vrana palace, and in 1949 this chapel was blasted and leveled.

On the left side of the grave there are carvings, made on October 10, 1943, by residents of the village of Osoy, Debar district, with the inscription: "To our Tsar Liberator Boris III, of grateful Macedonia."

After November 10, 1989, a parliamentary commission led the search for the remains of the Tsar, but only his heart was found the Vrana Palace and was buried at the site of the restored grave in the Rila Monastery in 1993.

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