The community of students of Sofia was able to follow the Pope’s meeting with university students in the Paul VI Hall in Rome on 11 March, thanks to a satellite link up which also enabled other European student centres in Munich, Dublin, Lyon, St. Petersburg and Freibourg to share in the event. The icon of Mary sedes sapientiae, presented by the Pope to university students in 2000, has been on pilgrimage in the three Bulgarian dioceses since 15 December 2005. Everywhere the icon was greeted with great joy, and celebrated various events at the parish level. The last salute to the icon will take place during a Marian vigil presided over by the bishop of Sofia and Plovdiv, Gheorghi Jovcev, and by the Apostolic Nuncio, Monsignor Giuseppe Leanza, in the new co-cathedral of Sofia which has been under construction since 2002. It will be the first service held in the new church, due to be solemnly inaugurated by Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano on 21 May. The old cathedral was destroyed during the Second World War and the Communist regime had prohibited its reconstruction.
