With Vassian and his colleagues gone, the fate of his church building in Sofia has continued to be a source of tension between Russia and Bulgaria and their two churches. The century-old St. Nicholas, named for the patron of the last czar, is a symbol of Russia’s stake in Bulgaria’s affairs. It was built on the site of a former mosque after Bulgaria broke free from the Ottoman Empire with Russian help. Even through the Soviet era, the church was maintained as a sacred site. Today it holds the remains of St. Seraphim, a Russian archbishop of Bulgaria canonized in 2016.
In the Orthodox tradition, the church is known as a metochi, a word suggesting an ecclesiastical equivalent of an embassy.
In the wake of the archimandrite’s dismissal, the Russian Embassy’s call for the church to be closed was disregarded by Bulgaria’s Patriarch Neophyte, who appointed priests from his own church to serve the shrine.
“The Holy Metropolis of Sofia guarantees that no part of the property of the church will be lost or damaged. As before, believers will be able to bow before the relics of Saint Seraphim of Sofia and beg for his gracious help and support,” the Bulgarian patriarch said in a statement, making clear that the order “should be understood only in its spiritual aspect.”
The statement added that he asked the Russian Embassy for its cooperation in keeping the church running and that he had informed Patriarch Kirill of his decision, though it did not say whether Kirill had responded.
Neither the Russian nor Bulgarian churches responded to RNS’ requests for further comment.
From exile, however, Vassian has argued that only Kirill, not Neophyte, has that power over a Russian church. “Strictly speaking, this parish is ours, the Russian Church, and only the Patriarch of Moscow can appoint priests there,” he told Tass, Russia’s state news service.
While Bulgarians protested outside the church for its reopening, some of Bulgaria’s own church leaders agreed with Vassian. “It never belonged to anyone but Russia and the Russian embassy,” Metropolitan Gavriil of Lovech, a city in central Bulgaria, told Bulgarian media.
But Metropolitan Naum of Ruse argued that a 1950s decision by the Russian Patriarchate actually put all of its sites in Bulgaria under the purview of the Bulgarian Patriarchate.
Bulgarian church leaders concluded a synod on Tuesday (Oct. 3), where they formally adopted a position in favor of reopening the church, though some dissented.
This article originally appeared here.
