Beloved in the Lord children of our Holy Church,
During
the last more than half a year, the attention of the Church and of the
society in Bulgaria has been greatly focused on the neighbouring
Republic of Macedonia and more particularly on the topic of the Orthodox
Church status in this country, which unfortunately has been residing
for decades outside the communion with the family of the local Orthodox
churches. This topic and this problem acquired acuteness in relation to
the officially stated request by the Authorities of this Church for the
Bulgarian Orthodox Church – Bulgarian Patriarchate to accept the role of
her Mother-Church and, in this way, the canonical status of the Church
in present-day Macedonia to be finally settled. A request that was
considered with attention and sense of responsibility by the Bulgarian
Church, but at the same time – in an unequivocally negative manner by
some local Orthodox Churches which explicitly stated their disagreement
with such a development of the Macedonian Church question.
Part of
the great issue with the status of the Orthodox Church in present-day
Macedonia is the question about the historical fate of the existing in
the past Bulgarian Archbishopric of Ohrid, from the establishment of
which were completed 1000 years in the present year of 2018.
Celebrations of this significant anniversary were carried out and other
celebrations are forthcoming, which are another proof of the depth of
the division between the brotherly Orthodox churches on this question.
At
the same time, in relation to the denial of the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church to participate in the celebrations carried out on 27th and 28th
May in the historical temple of the Holy Wisdom of God in the town of
Ohrid, there were made undeserved reproaches towards the Supreme
Authority of the holy Bulgarian Patriarchate, building up to accusations
in betrayal – severe reproaches, which no matter whether have been a
result of incomprehension or of malevolence, brought up unnecessary
bitterness for our whole Church. In relation to all this, with
archpastoral concern in relation to the situation that has arisen and
with a sense of responsibility to the ordained by God unity of the whole
holy Orthodox Church, but also with ecclesiastic and national memory
and faithfulness to the historical truth about the ancient throne of
Ohrid, we turn to all of you with this epistle, in which we responsibly
state and remind:
1. The history of Archbishop Episcopacy of the
ancient and glorious in the ecclesiastical past Ohrid is an organic,
unconditional part of the historical continuity of our native Bulgarian
Orthodox Church – Bulgarian Patriarchate, as it has also been stipulated
in its Statute that was approved and ratified by the Sixth
Ecclesiastical and People’s Council (2008) where is stated:
„The
self-governing Bulgarian Orthodox Church – Bulgarian Patriarchate is a
successor of the Pliska Archbishopry, Preslav Archbishopry, Ohrid
Archbishopry, Turnovo Archbishopry and the Bulgarian Exarchate. It is
united and indivisible.”
2. Such was – according to God’s will –
the historical fate of our native Orthodox Church, such are the facts
from the millenary, but also inconstant Bulgarian history, and they
cannot be changed and distorted, irrespectively of the present-day
situation. The historical sources and our ecclesiastical memory clearly
testify that in its establishment in 1018 – in the sad year of losing
the Bulgarian state autonomy, the Byzantine emperor Basil II who
conquered Bulgaria established in Ohrid not another, but namely a
Bulgarian Archbishopric, which remained Bulgarian until its very closure
in 1767 – seven and a half centuries after its establishment. This was
the way in which the emperor having remained in history with his
nickname „the Bulgar Slayer” wanted to preserve among our ancestors the
memory for their glorious and heroic past as a Church and as a state, as
it was clearly testified also in the charters, with which he
established the jurisdiction of Ohrid:
„We decree, – we read in
the second of these charters – that the present holy archbishop shall
have and shall govern all the Bulgarian episcopates, as all other towns
under the rule of Tsar Peter and Tsar Samuil were owned and were
governed by the archbishops at that time… Because, although we became a
ruler of this country (i.e. of Bulgaria), we kept its rights intact, as
we affirmed them with our royal decrees and sigilla”.
3. With this
statemanslike decision of the emperor, Ohrid – the town of the
Bulgarian and Slavic enlightener and Miracle-Maker Kliment, where in the
time of our baptizer, the equal to the apostles St. Boris I Mihail,
there was thriving a wondrous episcopate and there was working one of
the first Bulgarian and Slavic literary schools, then was established as
a new Bulgarian capital of the spirit, assigned to preserve, if only
partially, the Bulgarian ecclesiastical and national memory. That is why
all the primates of the Ohrid Church, during the long years of its
existance, had explicitly added to their titles „the Bulgarian” title –
because such is the history of this church and with such conscience it
had been living until the very end of its life that was violently
interrupted in 1767. That is why later – in the years of the revival of
the Bulgarian spirit – the beginning of the organised movement for
returning our ecclesiastical independence was set namely in Ohrid, and
the figures of our ecclesiastic independence insist on recovering our
Orthodox Church as a successor of both the Tarnovo Patriarchate and the
Ohrid Archbishopry. Because this memory is Bulgarian memory and it is
going to remain such both in the Bulgarian Exarchate and in the
recovered Bulgarian Patriarchate, which by the present day has remained a
faithful spiritual mother and nurse of the nation entrusted to her by
God.
Brothers and sisters,
The historical fortunes of the
lands, in which we all live according to God’s will, and of the
Christians having inhabited and inhabiting nowadays this region are
complex and inconstant. Today, on the Balkans there are absolutely
different state and church realities in comparison to the ones in the
distant past. As a result of various social and political processes, in
this region throughout the years there have been established new states
and new local Orthodox Churches – successors of one or another
ecclesiastical jurisdiction that had existed in the past. However, the
thing that continues until today to unite all of us – without exception –
is our salvific Orthodox Christian faith entrusted to us by Jesus
Christ. The thing that continues to unite us in one even today is our
unity in the God-Man Body of the holy and martyr’s Orthodox Church.
This
was also the reason and our main incentive the Holy Synod of our
Orthodox Church to accept the role proposed by the Macedonian side to be
an intermediary that is to undertake the necessary and possible steps
and actions before the rest of the brotherly Orthodox Churches for
settling the canonical church statute of the Orthodox Church in the
Republic of Macedonia that has been suffering from the isolation imposed
on it for more than half a century. With this motive and with this
intention, in the end of November 2017 we accepted the request that have
arrived from the Republic of Macedonia and the proposal to undertake on
us the load of being an intermediary for settling the statute of the
Orthodox Church in this country. However, this intention cannot imply in
any way a violation whatsoever of the century-old rules of the Church.
As
bishops assigned by God in His Church, we are ready even today to do
everything that lies within our powers and that is in compliance with
the sacred canons of our holy Church in order to help our Orthodox
brothers in present-day Macedonia – in accord with the explicit and
clearly stated will of the other brotherly Orthodox churches as well.
Nevertheless, we also have the obligation to keep faithfully not only
the truths and the sacred canons of the holy Orthodoxy, but also the
memory of this Church, which God has entrusted to us today to take care
of spiritually – of her history, her continuity, her present and future.
Because this requires from us the memory for all our ever-memorable,
glorious and worthy ancestors who have born us in the Lord – primates of
Bulgarian Orthodox Church and our pious rulers from the past, clergymen
and writers, and for all those who throughout the centuries have laid
down their lives in order for Bulgaria to exist – together with its
state and its autocephalous Orthodox Church.
That is why on this
day, when our Church is celebrating the memory of all the saints from
Bulgarian origin who have shone forth for ages, we turn to all our
faithful children – in our Motherland and beyond its bounderies, with an
archpastoral message for peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, as we call
everyone to faithfulness to the holy Orthodoxy and the holy Orthodox
Church – to its divine tenets and its sacred canons forged with the
goodwill of the Holy Spirit, but also faithfulness to the Church and
state forged with so much labour and blood, which our ancestors
bequeathed to us and with which historical memory they decreed to us not
to make any compromises, but to keep it for the generations – in order
for our nation to exist henceforth as well, in order for Bulgaria to
live forever.
May God of peace and love, the communion in the Holy
Spirit and the prayers of all the saints from Bulgarian origin to be
invariably with us: with our Orthodox nation, with their century-old
state and with the holy Orthodox Church endowed to them by God!
HEAD OF THE HOLY SYNOD
† NEOPHYTE
PATRIARCH OF BULGARIA
METROPOLITAN OF SOFIA
MEMBERS OF THE HOLY SYNOD:
† METROPOLITAN IOANIKIY OF SLIVEN† METROPOLITAN JOSEPH OF USA, CANADA AND AUSTRALIA
† METROPOLITAN GREGORY OF VELIKO TARNOVO
† METROPOLITAN IGNATIY OF PLEVEN
† METROPOLITAN GAVRIIL OF LOVECH
† METROPOLITAN NIKOLAY OF PLOVDIV
† METROPOLITAN AMVROSIY OF DOROSTOL
† METROPOLITAN ANTONIY OF WESTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE
† METROPOLITAN JOHN OF VARNA AND VELICKY PRESLAV
† METROPOLITAN SERAPHIM OF NEVROKOP
† METROPOLITAN NAUM OF ROUSSE
† METROPOLITAN CYPRIAN OF STARA ZAGORA
† METROPOLITAN GREGORY OF VRATSA
† METROPOLITAN DANIIL OF VIDIN