David of Bulgaria

David of Bulgaria was a Bulgarian noble of the Cometopuli dynasty, brother of the emperor Samuel and eldest of the four sons of the komes Nicholas, who died in 976. In Bulgarian popular tradition he came to be honoured as a saint, as "David, tsar of the Bulgarians". Our sources show no formal canonization and the menaion gives him no day of his own: the Bulgarian source says he is an example of popular canonization, later accepted by the Church, and that he is remembered on 27 July, together with the Holy Seven Apostles.

Family and defence of the realm

He was the son of the komes Nicholas and of Ripsimia, who by one Greek source was of Armenian stock. His brothers were Moses, Aaron and Samuel. The Serbian sources say that Nicholas raised a revolt in Macedonia against Byzantine rule in 976, or possibly even in 969. After the disastrous invasion of the armies of the Rus' and the fall of north-⁠eastern Bulgaria under Byzantine rule, in 971, David and his three younger brothers took charge of the defence of the country. They exercised power together, and each governed and defended a separate region. David ruled the southernmost parts of the realm, from Prespa and Kastoria, and was responsible for defending the dangerous borders with Thessalonica and Thessaly. A Bulgarian source thinks he held a region in south-⁠eastern Macedonia between the Vardar and the Bistritsa or, in the south-⁠west, at Prespa.

His death

In 976 he took part in the great attack against the Byzantine Empire, but was killed by wandering Vlachs, in a place called the Beautiful Oaks, between Prespa and Kastoria, according to John Skylitzes and Michael of Devol. Whether the Vlachs were in fact guardians of the pass between Kastoria and Prespa, or the killing was arranged by the Byzantines, remains a conjecture, and Skylitzes, the main source, is silent. Michael of Devol shows that it happened right after the revolt was raised, hence in 976.

Remembrance

David is named on an inscription set up by the emperor Samuel in the church of the village of German, on Lake Prespa, in the year 6501 from the creation of the world, indiction 6, that is, between 1 September 992 and 31 August 993. The inscription, in memory of his eldest brother and of their parents, Nicholas and Ripsimia, is dated by the Bulgarian source to 993. His image is found in dozens of nineteenth-⁠century churches. His veneration began among the people and was then received by the Church.