On January 15, 2020, the public defense of the thesis of Desislava Georgieva, PhD student in the Department of History of the Faculty of Law and History of South-West University "Neofit Rilski" was held. The topic of the dissertation "The Neurocope Diocese of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (1935-1952)" aroused great scientific and public interest. The PhD tesis defense was attended by His Eminence The Metropolitan of Nevrokop Seraphim and the clergy of the Holy Neurocope Metropolitanate, by the Dean's Department of the Faculty of Law and History, lecturers from the Department of History, colleagues and friends from the state archives in Sofia, Blagoevgrad and Kyustendil. The scholarly  jury chaired by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dimitar Tyulekov (Faculty of Law and History) and members Prof. Dr. Sc. Lizbeth Lyubenova (Director of the Scientific Archive of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), Prof. Dr. Georgeta Nazarska (UNIBIT), Assoc. Prof. Mihail Gruev (Chairman of the State Archives Agency) and Assoc. Dilyan Nikolchev (Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski") highly appreciated the value and scholar contributions of the dissertation and unanimously awarded Desislava Georgieva the educational and scientific degree "Doctor". All members of the jury expressed their excellent impressions of her  research which is exceeding the requirements for a doctoral dissertation and recommended the recent publication of the work.