Programme: All

The book is dedicated to the life and work of Bishop Kanova who arrived heading a group of missionaries in Bulgaria in 1841. A smart and energetic man with a reforming spirit, he immediately took up the task of strengthened faith among the local population. He ensures the financing of the mission through the consuls of the Western countries. After his proclamation as a bishop, Kanova gained great honor from the local Turkish authorities. He was the founder of Catholic educational work in the diocese. In Plovdiv, under his initiative, two schools were opened - one for boys and one for girls, and in the villages he assigned the local priests to educate the children. He welcomed the idea and provided assistance to the mission of the Assumptionists for the development of the educational work in Plovdiv, whose child was the French College, later grew into the "Paisii Hilendarski" Plovdiv University. He issued permits from the Turkish authorities for the construction of several churches in the villages of the diocese, among which are those from the former villages and now neighborhoods of Rakovski. His merit for getting the local Paulician community, professing Catholicism, out of several centuries of internal confinement and its spillover into the broad layers of Bulgarian society is indisputable.
The book contains historical notes related to the spread of Catholicism in the villages around Plovdiv and comments on the reports of Bishop Kanova, which are in German. The reports to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in the Vatican are in Italian. The reports contain valuable information about the life of the population from the villages and now districts of Rakovski-General Nikolaevo, Sekirovo and Parchevich, also Belozem.