site.btaUPDATED Patriarch Daniil: Religion Needs to Be Introduced in Schools' Core Curriculum

The need for interaction between State and church authorities is necessary in all spheres, Bulgarian Patriarch and Metropolitan of Sofia Daniil said in an interview on Bulgarian National Television on Friday.  He added that the Church has a place in every human activity, but it is necessary to introduce religion into the core curriculum of schools. 

Religion is now taught but in the form of a free elective subject, classes based on interests where the subjective factor - of the school principal and the particular teacher and whether he will present the subject, whether he will recommend it - largely influences the parents' decision whether to enroll their children in these classes and activities, the Patriarch explained. "When this subject is included in the core curriculum, some people are worried, they are not believers and ask why it is necessary for their child to study the Orthodox religion, they can enroll the child to study ethics, or the history of philosophy, or the history of ethical systems. One can also study the religion Islam, there are approved programmes and textbooks, or study the religion Catholicism, or the religion Protestantism," Patriarch Daniil said. 

He said that today's reality and our society show us that it is impossible to be without a value system, and the State must take care of its citizens in school, and over 70% of the Bulgarian people identify themselves as Orthodox Christians. "They pay taxes, don't these people have rights and shouldn't the State make sure that their children learn about the religion that they profess?" he asked. 

The role of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, always in the history of our people, has been such that the Church is with its people and supports it in difficulties, Patriarch Daniil said. He added that the role of the Church is to show that there is a way. If the political crisis reaches a dead end and some kind of understanding cannot be reached, the Church always points to the path that is to the Kingdom of God, the Patriarch noted. 

Asked whether he was on the side of Russia, Patriarch Daniil replied that we must stand on the side of humans, especially on the side of the wronged humans, and what is expedient, the Lord will do it.

Asked where he stands on the great question of war and peace, he said that one of the greatest gifts that is a characteristic of the image of God in us, is reason. "God has given us a rational soul and verbosity. Through reason and speech God has given us the ability to know him and to communicate with him and to communicate with each other," he noted. "Bullets and bombs were invented by the fallen man, the man fallen into sin. And even before I was Bulgarian Patriarch, I have repeatedly stated this: in this conflict and in any conflict, the best thing is to stop the hostilities, stop the bloodshed, and  the warring parties and others who are involved to sit down to talk, a solution will be found. This is what I have been saying since the beginning of the conflict, in the Vidin diocese, a few days after the beginning of the conflict," Patriarch Daniil explained. 

Asked what should the attitude of the Bulgarian Church be towards the Church in the Republic of North Macedonia, Patriarch Daniil said that the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has a decision on this issue since the end of 2022, "when we accepted the decision of the Archbishops' Council of the Serbian Orthodox Church, by which they granted an independent status - an autocephalous status - to the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia." "And the Archbishop of the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia is included in the diptych, which the Bulgarian Patriarch mentions at every Divine Liturgy, as the head of one of the local churches. At the moment they are an independent church and we have recognized this, we are in communion with their hierarchs and we serve together, and this is the Church's way to solve a problem - to admit our mistake and ask for forgiveness," Patriarch Daniil said.

Responding to a question about what he would ask of the secular authorities in Bulgaria - the President, the government, the Bulgarian Patriarch said that the state power cannot solve the basic problems of Man, which are related to the meaning of human life and the salvation of the human soul, and the Church has shown that in this respect there is no alternative.