“ BBC political reporter Robin Chrystal points out that some religious calendars indicate that 2 May is St Boris’s Day. The Bulgarian and Greek Orthodox Calendar of Saints has it as his feast day - although the Russian Orthodox Church plumps for 15 May. Apparently St Boris was the pagan ruler of Bulgaria - Boris I - in the 9th Century. According to some sources his conversion to Christianity met great opposition in Bulgaria. Boris ruthlessly suppressed it and executed 52 boyars together with their entire families. He ended his life as a monk.
