site.btaPatriarch Daniil with Message on Start of New School Year

In a circular message to teachers, parents and pupils on the occasion of the first school day, Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil extended his best wishes for a fruitful, blessed and salvatory new school year. "We should always remember that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Fountain of all true knowledge and wisdom," the Primate of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church writes. "In Orthodox theology, education has above all spiritual meaning. It is man’s way to God along which the mind and the heart walk together, hand in hand, in indivisible unity."  

The Patriarch recalls that during its history, the Bulgarian people has demonstrated fondness of and dedication to written culture and education, finding in them a solid foundation for its prosperity and well-being.

He assures teachers that the Lord will endow them with patience, perseverance, good intentions, sensitivity, sensibility, openness, sincerity, alertness, meekness and forgiveness – all virtues and accomplishments that are badly needed in their work.

Daniil tells pupils that the school teaches them to be a community, to be one in diversity, to discern in their classmates God's creation that deserves love, care and respect.

The Patriarch reminds parents that education without upbringing is futile and often dangerous. "We owe respect to our teachers and to our children's teachers," he writes, adding that "we are assigned to take care of our children, who are a gift from God and should not be taken for granted or treated as our own achievement."

"The transient ordeals which our people and society are experiencing should not discourage, should not dissuade anybody in the diligent teaching and mastering useful knowledge," Daniil writes in his message.