Papal Trip Background: Bulgaria and Ecumenism

SOFIA, May 22, 02 (CWNews.com) - The second stop in his current trip will bring Pope John Paul II to Bulgaria from May 23- 26. This will be the Pope's sixth visit to a predominantly Orthodox country.

Since his ground-breaking trip to Romania in May 1999-- the first trip to a mostly Orthodox nation-- the Pope has traveled to Ukraine, Georgia, and Greece. Now in Bulgaria he will pursue his mission of fostering Christian unity between East and West.

The papal visit will begin, significantly, on the feast of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the 9th-century evangelists who brought the Gospel to Eastern Europe, introducing Christianity to the lands that now make up the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Balkans, and Russia. The two saints, who established the basis for the liturgy now used by Orthodox and Byzantine-rite Catholic churches, are honored as co-patrons of Europe-- a designation made by Pope John Paul himself in December 1980.

On May 24, after he prays at a shrine to Sts. Cyril and Methodius, the Pope will meet with Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarch Maxime. He is expected-- in an address delivered in the Bulgarian language-- to propose the two saints as models for Christian unity, drawing together Constantinople and Rome. And the Holy Father will stress the importance of Bulgaria as a land that can reinvigorate the Christian traditions of Europe.

Ecumenical dialogue will also be at the forefront when the Pope travels south of Sofia, to the country's most ancient monastery at Rila. Dating back to the centuries before the Great Schism, this monastery was the repository where traditional Christian culture was kept safe in Bulgaria during centuries of Muslim dominance.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has suffered through an internal split in recent years, beginning in 1972 when a large number of Orthodox protested the election of Patriarch Maxime, whom they saw as a collaborator with the old Communist regime. Although Orthodox unity was restored in 1998, with aid from the intervention of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, simmering tensions remain. Catholics comprise only about 1 percent of the Bulgarian population, but their relations with their Orthodox neighbors have been generally good.

During his stay in Bulgaria, Pope John Paul II will visit the Catholic cathedrals of both the Latin and the Byzantine rites. He will also preside at the beatification of three Assumption priests who were executed by the Communist regime. Fittingly, the priests themselves represent the Catholic Church of both East and West; Father Kamen Vitchev was a Byzantine-rite Catholic, while Fathers Pavel Djidjov and Josaphat Schichkov were Latin-rite clerics. They died along with Bishop Evgenij Bossilkov in 1952; the bishop was canonized in 1998.

One delicate topic which may or may not arise during the Pope's stay in Bulgaria is religious freedom. According to the Keston News Service, a number of religious believers have complained that they suffer discrimination and unfair legal restrictions imposed by local officials, while the national policies on religious practice remain unclear. Technically, a law imposed by the Communist regime in 1949-- the Denominations Act-- remains in effect. There are several pieces of draft legislation now pending to supersede that law. For now, Keston notes, minority religious groups frequently encounter a refusal by officials to recognize their status.