The truth ever-present, the truth short

Only three circles

carved on the rock

in Pulpudeva* describe God

and the Trinity beginning.

Only two letters BG **

are the name of Bulgaria

equal to nobility,

blessed by God.

Only one cross

joins the meek

in prayers for purification

and salvation.

The Silence of hesychasts

with its perfect briefness

without words and without characters

brings us closer to God.

* Pulpudeva is the earliest recorded name of modern Plovdiv. The ancestors of contemporary Bulgarians established the first settlements (called by archaeologists Yasa Tepe 1 and Yasa Tepe 2) in the sixth millennium BC on the banks of the Maritsa river and a lake. According to Prof. K.Vlahov the name Pulpudeva means a town by the lake since “deva/dava” in Thracian language, which is almost the same as modern Bulgarian language according to the renowned British archaeologist and paleolinguist Colin Renfrew, means “town”, and “pulpu/pulpo”- lake. The modern name „Plov-div” is a variation of the ancient one „Pulpu-deva”, which is another fact proving that the population of Bulgaria has not changed much since the time of Pulpudeva. The most recent historical and genetic studies indicate that contemporary Bulgarians are substantially descendents of the local people who lived on the Balkans as long ago as during the Paleolithic Age . So the link between Pulpudeva and Plovdiv in terms of people and language, for which the Old Bulgarian uses one and the same word, has never been broken.

**In the Chronicles of Geoffroi de Villehardouin from 1207 -1212, a knight and historian who participated in and chronicled the Fourth Crusade, Bulgaria and its people are mentioned as Bogrie-Bogri which means God’s people in Bulgarian since Bulgarian “Bog” is “God”.