2024-03-19 04:02:42
Metropolitan Nikolay of Plovdiv refused to be elevated and participate as a candidate in the election of a new patriarch. He did this with a special address on the website of the Plovdiv Metropolis.
The name of Nicholas of Plovdiv was mentioned as a favorite for the position of patriarch already in the first days after the death of Patriarch Neofitus. However, according to Nikolai’s address, these were speculations of schismatics and State Security agents.
“I announce and declare that I do not wish and will not accept to be included as a candidate for the patriarchal throne in the procedures that the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church – Bulgarian Patriarchate is about to conduct in accordance with its Statute. I inform you of this first, as I will also inform my fellow members – the members of the Holy Synod of this unwavering intention of mine,” says the address of Nicholas of Plovdiv.
He recalls that in 2013, after the death of Patriarch Maxim, there were the same speculations and attempts to sow intrigue in the church. And what the speculators didn’t know then, they won’t know now.
See the full address of the Metropolitan of Plovdiv here:
Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord,
Just a few days ago, we sent our beloved Patriarch and Metropolitan Neophyte of Sofia to eternal rest. Everyone saw the thousands of people who bowed before him in the cathedral church “St. Alexander Nevsky” and sent him on his last journey. It was a true celebration of faith, a visual proof of the authority of our blessedly rested and well-remembered Patriarch Neophytes, of the love that our people ask for him and of the attachment of our faithful to the Holy Bulgarian Orthodox Church .We thank him for everything! Eternal and blessed be his memory!
There was no way that this celebration of faith would not drive the prince of this world into a rage. Even before the open coffin of His Holiness, the media intrigues and insinuations about the succession to the Bulgarian patriarchal throne began. The same “experts” on church matters, including former schismatics and agents of State Security, who in 2013 had obsessed the public space with their ridiculous predictions about who would succeed the blessedly rested Patriarch Maxim, started again in the same anti-God and blasphemous way to “frame” the next Bulgarian Patriarch.
After all, in 2013 they didn’t guess. They won’t know now. They never know, because they have not known Jesus Christ, they do not believe in Him, and therefore they cannot realize that He is the only helmsman of the church ship, Who, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, chooses the superiors and bishops of His Church. On Forgiveness Sunday we forgave them. We forgive them in the future for the dirty words they will speak, but we will watch whether they will feel at least a little ashamed of themselves and at least in the following days of Great Lent, they will stop their aria of slander, slander and hatred against the Holy Orthodox Church. Because we have no doubt that it is a matter of deep and true hatred for the Holy Orthodox Church – the moral support and source of integrity of our people. It is about a war against our faith and nothing less. Be prepared that in the coming months there will be a war against the faith and against the Church, but I assure you that the Church will be victorious again, because “the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). This is another of her specific a feature that has been proven countless times and that her enemies refuse to fathom.
As in 2013, the main aggression related to the election of the next Bulgarian Patriarch is directed against me, your Metropolitan. There is nothing new and nothing surprising in this. Jesus Christ said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you … If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” (John 15:18-20). All of us who belong to the clergy and His followers, we have been duly warned, which is why slander and slander do not disturb us. I know what we have built and achieved together with you – the pious priesthood and the faithful people of God of the God-saving Plovdiv Diocese during the past years of our joint ministry, and it is completely understandable why it causes such dislike. I cannot allow, however, the dislike of me, which has been systematically and methodically fomented during all the years of my ministry, to become today the cause of an injury to the dignity of the Church, “which has no spot, or vice, or any such thing.” (Eph. 5:27) and in particular to cast any shadow of doubt upon its independence and the free choice of its superiors.
Therefore, I announce and declare that I do not wish and will not accept to be included as a candidate for the patriarchal throne in the procedures that the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church – Bulgarian Patriarchate is about to conduct in accordance with its Statute. I am communicating this to you first, as I will also inform my fellow members – the members of the Holy Synod – of this unwavering intention of mine.
When the ship in which the prophet Jonah was traveling was overtaken by a storm, he turned to his companions and said to them: “Then he said to them: take me and throw me into the sea, – and the sea will calm down for you, for I know, (Jonah 1:12). This is what I say now. If the storm was sent because of me, I hope that after this statement of mine it will subside. However, if the slanders and slanders continue and do not God willing, if they target other of my fellow metropolitans, then something will become clear in which I am deeply convinced, namely, that the goal is not to humiliate and discredit one or another bishop; the goal is to humiliate and discredit Bulgaria itself Orthodox Church.
And then I will call on everyone to help in the fight against evil, which will be particularly strong in the coming four months. I believe that God will be with us and will help us, now, as before, to bring safely the ship of His Church to a calm and safe harbor, choosing a worthy first hierarch – a guardian of the Holy Orthodox Faith, to whom I, as a humble collaborator in Christ, I will help with all my strength.
I call on everyone for the next 40 days humbly and in silence to pray for the repose of the soul of our beloved Father Neophyte, Patriarch of Bulgaria and Metropolitan of Sofia, who has rested blessedly and is remembered, and to ask God to place him in the company of the righteous, from where he stood before the throne of God Jesus Christ and His Most Holy Mother, the Holy Mother of God, intercede that they never cease to protect the pious Orthodox Bulgarian people.
I wish you all a gracious and soul-saving fast and I pray God’s blessing upon you.
† Plovdiv Metropolitan NIKOLAY