site.btaCC-DB Declaration on St Nedelya Church Bombing Anniversary: Darkness of Soviet Russia Continues Killing Orthodox Christians

In a declaration, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the assassination on the St Nedelya Church, that was read out in Parliament Wednesday, the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) coalition stated that “the darkness of Soviet Russia, revived by the criminal regime in the Kremlin, continues to kill Orthodox Christians - the victims of the Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Sumy.”

MP Atanas Atanasov, leader of Democrats for Strong Bulgaria, on behalf of the CC-DB parliamentary group said that “this tragic event, which we are marking today, was organized and carried out by the Military Organization of the Bulgarian Communist Party. This has been established indisputably from the documentation, confessions and interrogations, it was logistically supported by the Comintern.”

"On Holy Thursday, activists of the military wing of the Bulgarian Communist Party blew up the roof of the church. The place was not chosen by accident, the terrorists' were completely convinced that "our people" would not be inside, because a communist never enters a church. 213 people died, over 500 were injured, including priests, teachers, women, children, and war veterans," the text of the declaration states.

“The fact is that the leadership of the military wing of the party, Georgi Dimitrov and Vasil Kolarov, were aware of the preparations for this mass murder. The archives also show that in August-September 1925, meetings were held in Moscow for several days, with the participation of Dimitrov, Kolarov, Stanke Dimitrov, and Dimitar Zlatarov. There they openly spoke about the organization of the attack and their participation,” the declaration reads.

"It is an indisputable fact, the declassified archives of the Comintern prove that the logistical support of the attack was entrusted to the resident of the Red Army's military intelligence in Vienna, and the financing and political leadership came directly from Moscow. The same Soviet Russia, which had already been transformed into a totalitarian machine for exporting revolutionary terror, with one single goal - the forcible Sovietization of Bulgaria. The attack on the St Nedelya Church was inspired by the same darkness that 20 years later organized the People's Court, created the death camps and, escaping punishment, plunged Bulgaria into terror for nearly five decades. The same darkness that today, revived by the criminal regime in the Kremlin, wages its bloody war against a free and independent Ukraine, in the spirit of its sinister tradition it continues to kill Orthodox Christians on these holy days," the declaration says. “Just days before Palm Sunday, Putin took the lives of dozens of innocent, civilian victims, including children, in the Ukrainian city of Sumy,” Atanasov pointed out. “Our duty to the memory of the victims is not only to remember, but also to fight to uphold the truth, because where there is no truth, it is comfortably substituted by disinformation and propaganda,” Atanasov said.

One hundred years ago on Wednesday, Bulgaria experienced its worst ever mass assassination: a terrorist bombing of the St Nedelya Church in Sofia on April 16, 1925, which came to be known as "Bloody Holy Thursday". A total of 134 people were killed on the spot and 79 of the 500 or so injured in the blast succumbed to their wounds later on, bringing the death toll to 213 (including 25 women and children).