site.btaBulgarian Patriarch Daniil Officiates Service on All Souls’ Day in Essex Monastery St John the Baptist
Patriarch Daniil and Bulgarian bishops officiated a service on All Souls’ Day at the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex in the UK.
Participating in the service were Metropolitan Antonii of Western and Central Europe, Metropolitan Pahommii of Vidin, BOC Holy Synod Chief Secretary Bishop Gerasim of Melnik, Sofia Theological Seminary of St John of Rila Rector Bishop Meletii of Znepol, and Father Dobromir Dimitrov, a priest with the St John of Rila Bulgarian Orthodox Church in London.
The Bulgarian delegation includes MP Rositsa Kirova, chair of the parliamentary Committee for Direct Participation of Citizens, Citizens' Complaints and Interaction with Civil Society, Bulgarian Ambassador to the UK Tihomir Stoytchev and Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev .
The Abbot of the monastery of St. John the Baptist, Archimandrite Peter (originally from Kavala, Greece), welcomed the Bulgarian church leader with a speech in the St. Silouan the Athonite Chapel of the monastery.
“Some years ago, it was said that the Holy Orthodox Tradition in Bulgaria is like a sleeping giant. And now we can already see that the holy remnant of the devout Christians, like a charismatic leaven, is able with God’s help, to leaven the whole lump of the faithful in Bulgaria.
With this in mind, and with our hearts filled with the desire and hope for this to become reality, we pray that God’s providence may find in Your person a precious instrument, for the accomplishment of His saving will, which is the awakening of the sleeping giant for the renewal of the Church and the sanctification of the faithful.
As Your Beatitude and we are all members of the same universal and glorious body of Christ, we receive you as an angle in the name of an Angel of God, hoping to receive the award of an angel, which is to share in your wonderful and Blessed work,” said Archimandrite Peter.
Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil said in his remarks in English that thanks to his visit to the UK for the consecration of the St. John of Rila Church he is able to experience the holy places in England.
The Bulgarian church leader noted that St. Sophrony Sakharov (the founder of the monastery in Essex) is one of the saints with experience in philosophy and insight into Eastern religious and spiritual practices, who came to the understanding that without living in God's will and in God's hands, man can neither reach nor receive God's love.
Archimandrite Peter presented the Patriarch with an icon of the founder of the monastery, St. Sophrony Sakharov, and the Patriarch in turn gifted his host an icon of St. John of Rila, patron saint of the newly built Bulgarian church in London.
A family photo was also taken with all those present at the new St. Sophrony the Athonite chapel, named after the founder of the monastery.
The monastery of St. John the Baptist has a total of 5 temples, 22 monks and 32 nuns.
Patriarch Daniil will officiate the inaugural service in London on the occasion of the consecration of the new temple of the Bulgarian Orthodox community in the British capital, which will take place on February 22-23.
This is Patriach Daniil’s first official visit abroad. He will meet with Bulgarians from the Diocese of Western and Central Europe.
On March 1, 1981 the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Church Community St. Jogn of Rila was established. At the beginning of the 1990s, with the assistance of the Bulgarian state, a garage was provided on the territory of the Bulgarian Embassy in London, which was converted for the needs of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church into a chapel. In 1993 the chapel, named St. John of Rila, was consecrated.
The chapel was tiny, so the idea for its reconstruction into a church was born, said earlier in an interview for BTA Father Dobromir Dimitrov.
The Bulgarian state has provided BGN 3.3 million for the project. Bulgarians in the UK and businesspeople back in the homeland have donated another BGN 1.5 million, according to information from the BOC.
/PP/
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