site.btaBulgarians Celebrate Easter

ESD 17:13:31 28-04-2019
VE1713ES.101
101 POLITICS - EASTER - BULGARIA

Bulgarians
Celebrate
Easter


Sofia, April 28 (BTA) - Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria celebrated Easter on April 28. As the clocks struck midnight on Saturday, Patriarch Neophyte, the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, greeted the crowd in front of Sofia's St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral with the words "Christ is risen!" and blessed everyone.

Earlier in the ceremony, the Holy Fire, which had been brought by an official Bulgarian delegation from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem for the 15th year in a row, was carried from the chapel of Sofia's Synodal Palace to the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

For the first time ever, the Bulgarian delegation which went to Jerusalem to take the Holy Fire, was accompanied by a representative of the Macedonian Orthodox Church - the Archbishopric of Ohrid, who carried the Fire to Skopje. This was arranged after an early April meeting between Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and Metropolitan Kipriyan, head of a committee in charge of determining the status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

The Easter service in Sofia was attended by President Rumen Radev, former king and former prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his wife Margarita, and many believers who filled the cathedral and the square outside it.

Addressing Orthodox Christians, President Radev wished them good health, more faith in their own potential, and love for the neighbour. "We should remember that peace and well-being are the result of our joint efforts," Radev said, as quoted by his press secretariat. LN/VE