2024-09-22 23:36:28
In London, Bulgarian Independence Day was celebrated with a prayer service in the newly built Bulgarian Orthodox church there. The chapel “St. Ivan Rilski” is in the building of the Bulgarian embassy in the British capital.
A few meters from the “Royal Albert Hall”, in the very heart of London, the Bulgarians will have their own Orthodox church. For a long time, hundreds of Orthodox who live in the British capital gathered in the chapel, which was located in the former garage of the Bulgarian embassy. The Metropolitan of Western Europe Antony announced that the new temple, built with the help of donations and 3 million BGN allocated by the Bulgarian state, will be consecrated in February of next year, writes BNT.
“Bulgarian Independence Day will remain in the hearts and history of Bulgarians in Great Britain due to the fact that very soon they will have their own Orthodox church,” noted Western and Central European Metropolitan Antony.
On November 4, 2023, in the presence of Metropolitan Anthony and the then ambassador to Great Britain, Marin Raykov, a donation campaign was launched, from which hundreds of thousands of British pounds were collected, which will be used for the finishing works.
“We are happy, happy and grateful from the bottom of our hearts to God for this beneficence, to the Bulgarian state and the Council of Ministers, for the allocated over 3 million BGN funds to realize this large-scale project, which will be a home for our compatriots, where to can satisfy their spiritual needs,” said Western and Central European Metropolitan Anthony.
The reconstruction includes the expansion of the overall space by merging two rooms on the first and second floors to obtain the height for a dome, construction of a new roof and two new exits. The style of the church is classical, in the tradition of the medieval Bulgarian churches in Pliska, Preslav, Serdika, Veliko Tarnovo, which were influenced by the Byzantine tradition.