Maria was a Bulgarian princess and daughter of Emperor Ivan Asen II (r. 1218–1241) and Irene Komnene.
[2] Maria is traditionally identified as the spouse of Emperor Mitso Asen of Bulgaria (r. 1256–1257), and thus a Bulgarian empress consort, but this is not certain.
They seem to have married Ivan Asen II's daughters by Irene Komnene,[3] but no source specifies the names of their respective wives.
[5] Since Ivan Božilov adopted this solution, albeit without much conviction,[6] this had become the common assumption in Bulgarian historiography.
[9] On the other hand, the wife of Mitso Asen, traditionally identified as Maria but perhaps more likely Anna/Theodora, was the mother of Emperor Ivan Asen III of Bulgaria (r. 1279–1280) and of Maria, the second wife of Emperor George Terter I of Bulgaria (r. 1280–1292), and the ancestress of the Byzantine branch of the Asenid dynasty.