His Holiness Neophyte, Patriarch of All Bulgaria
Posted on 04/19/2015 8:58:44 AM PDT by NRx
OCP News Service Special Courtesy: Angela Petrova 18/4/15
Sofia: Reports from Sofia indicate that the breakaway Alternative Synod of the Bulgarian Church have achieved complete union with the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. It has been a long trial and error process of unity.
RINSU (Religious News Service of Ukraine) in April 2015 reported made the following comments in their report on the UOC-KP and UAOC dialogue for unity.
“Recently, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been an agent of reunification of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Although there were also two branches and very aggressive against each other,” religionist Oleksandr Sagan was reported as saying this by UNIAN.”
The Ecumenical Patriarch His All- Holiness Bartholomew I played an important role in the union. The Bulgarian government also had their stake in the process. Actually the Union took place several years back, but there were a number of alternative synod Bishops who stayed away.
The breakaway bishops did not come back at a time, but one by one they reunited with the Bulgarian Patriarchate. This happened recently. But the reunion was officially realized much earlier.
Chronology of Events
In 1992 they announced that the election (1971) of the previous Patriarch (Maxim) was illegal and that they want to leave his circle (the throwing down of the communist regime in Bulgaria happened in 1989, so they pretended to act against all communist remnants).
Soon after 1992, the then war minister gave them permission to occupy and settle themselves in the official Palace seat of the Bulgarian hierarchs.
In 1996 they elected their own independent Patriarch.
In 1998 the Pan-Orthodox Council by the Church of Bulgaria held in Sofia announced that the truly legitimate Patriarch is not the breakaway one.
In 1999 the breakaway Patriarch died. During all this period both the political powers and government were bringing their service to the breakaway wing.
In 2005-2006 everything was finally settled after long trials and moral devastation.
In 2010 Metropolitan Inokentii head of the Alternative Synod called for a healing of division between the churches.
In later years (2010- 2015) full union of the Alternative Synod took place with the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
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