The exhibition confirms a multiannual cooperation program between the European Centre for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments, the Museum of Byzantine Culture and the National Gallery of Arts in Sofia. The program included, among others, the diagnostic research of 12 icons which presented complex problems for their conservation. This research took place in the Museum of Byzantine Culture and was a precondition for the safer method of the conservation of icons. Subsequently, their conservation took place in the conservation workshops of the National Gallery of Arts in Sofia with the sponsorship of the Leventis Foundation, which also contributed to the publishing of the catalogue.

The 52 icons of the exhibition come from Varna, Mesembria (Nesebar), Sozopolis (Sozopol), the Agathoupolis (Ahtopol) and Vassiliko (Trarevo) on the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea and from the mountain village Brashlyan on the Small Haimos (Strandzha). These ancient cities were founded by the Ionians in the 7th c. B.C., except the Dorian Mesembria which was founded about a century later. The culture of people around the Black Sea was formed by the determining influence of ancient Greek and then of Byzantine culture and by the Christianization of the Slavic people and the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet.

European Centre for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments, Museum of Byzantine Culture, National Gallery of Arts in Sofia