Simeon has styled himself “Tsar of the Bulgars and Autocrat of the Greeks” from 925, and the pope recognizes him as such the following year, but his country is near exhaustion.

The Bulgarian kingdom has reached its greatest size under Simeon, who has presided over a golden age of artistic and commercial expansion.

He has encouraged the building of palaces and churches, the spread of monastic communities, and the translation of Greek books into Slavonic.

Preslav has been made into a magnificent capital that observers describe as rivaling Constantinople.

The artisans of its commercial quarter specialize in ceramics, stone, glass, wood, and metals, and Bulgarian tile work in the “Preslav style” surpasses its contemporary rivals and is eagerly imported by Constantinople and Kievan Rus.

Most likely after (or possibly at the time of) Patriarch Nicholas' death in 925, Simeon had raised the status of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church to a patriarchate.

This may be linked to Simeon's diplomatic relations with the Papacy between 924 and 926, during which he has demanded and received Pope John X's recognition of his title as "Emperor of the Romans", truly equal to the emperor in Constantinople, and possibly the confirmation of a patriarchal dignity for the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.