Not just guests

“In the Catholic Church we feel a duty to prepare our faithful to feel part of this Christian family that is Europe”, says the President of the Bulgarian Bishops’ Conference, Apostolic Exarch HRISTO PROJKOV, who tells S IR how the Catholic Church in Bulgaria is experiencing the country’s entry into the European Union. We interviewed him. How is the Bulgarian Catholic Church entering Europe? “We wish to enter Europe as Christians, and therefore we tell our faithful to remember Bulgaria’s Christian past stretching over more than a millennium, and our fundamental values. We are entering Europe not just as guests, but with our heritage, our culture, our legacy of education and especially our Christian identity. That’s why in the Church we feel a duty to prepare our faithful to feel part of this Christian family that is Europe”. Following EU accession, what are Bulgaria’s advantages, fears and risks? “For half a century we, like the other countries of Eastern Europe, lived in a closed community and were ignorant of the changes happening elsewhere in the world. In recent years we have especially tried to recover what we had lost. However we soon realized that the rest of the world was living in great freedom that at times led people to stray from the rules of life; for example marriage between persons of the same sex, civil partnerships, euthanasia, and failure to respect life in the womb. These models of life are also being imported into Bulgaria and some people even feel the duty to accept them so as not to be at odds with the society of which we now form part. For this reason I sense a great danger: only recently did Bulgaria liberate itself from an atheist regime that wished to defeat faith and failed to do so. Now we face the question whether we are willing to abandon our faith to conform to others who no longer wish to remember their Christian roots”. You have recalled the long period in which the Orthodox and Catholic Churches struggled to maintain their own faith. The martyrs are a proof of this struggle. What is the situation of the Bulgarian Church today? “We note that people wish to return to church, in spite of the efforts to persuade them not to do so under this long regime. This is shown by their participation in the sacraments, and by their rediscovery of religious practices. The blood of these numerous martyrs, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, was a contribution to the reconstruction of Christian life and the values that accompany it. The Bulgarian Church must find its rightful place among the people, it must work for them, especially in the field of education; we need to re-introduce religious education in schools and rediscover the role of the Church in the family. The young need to be imbued with Christian values, now and in the future: when they live in a united Europe and rule over their country, it is essential they be guided by these values”. Family and marriageFamily and marriage are at the centre of the pastoral activities of the Catholic Church in Bulgaria in 2007. The parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of General Nikolaevo Rakovski, the only Bulgarian city with a Catholic majority, has thus planned the solemn celebration of silver and golden weddings of families in the quarter. “In these difficult times for the family throughout Europe – says the parish priest, Father Dimitar Dimitrov – we wish to encourage the young to believe in conjugal fidelity and testify that it is possible to remain faithful to marriage vows for 25 and 50 years. Adolescents – he adds – must be supported by the community so that they do not feel alone in the challenges posed to them by society”.A new churchThe parish priest of the town of Pleven, diocese of Nicopoli, Father Stanislav Zeminski has consecrated a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. It will be placed on the central altar of the new church that is being built and that will be named after Our Lady of Fatima. The statue is the work of the famous Bulgarian artist Kiril Meskin. “I wished to continue the tradition of my family – he told SIR – because my grandparents once helped in the construction of the church in the nearby town of Assenovo. “We hope to finish the church this year – adds Father Zeminski – so that its inauguration may coincide with the 90th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima”. The church of Pleven will be the fifth new Catholic church to be built in Bulgaria after the fall of the Communist regime.