The Primate Of The Bulgarian Orthodox Church Patriarch Neofit Of Bulgaria
State intervention in Church Affairs can lead to serious consequences both for the Church and for the state, according to the Synod of the Church of Bulgaria.
This proves the experience of almost 20 years of politically provoked a split in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the bishops emphasize. This was reported on the website of the BOC.
The statement of the Holy Synod in connection with the amendments and supplements to the law on religious denominations said: “History proves that a democratic relationship between the state and the Church, based on mutual respect and guarantee the rights to self-government of the Church, are a guarantee of national security.”
“The experience of almost 20 years of politically provoked a split in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church proves that any state intervention in the internal Affairs of the Church can lead to serious consequences for the Church and for the state,” say the bishops.
According to them, “historical experience shows that whenever the government tried to exercise control over the activities of the Church, or to model the internal life in accordance with their secular criteria, that ended in failure. The Orthodox Church is an institution with two thousand years of history, founded by the Lord Jesus Christ. Periods of persecution by the state were interspersed with periods of peaceful coexistence.”
As reported by PWC, informed the Bulgarian Church has repeatedly condemned the actions of the schismatics in Ukraine. In 2015, the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church sent to the President of Ukraine a letter with a request to protect the rights of the canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine and its churches from the violent seizure of the UOC-KP.