Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad begins his visit to Bulgaria

On August 13, 2005, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, arrived in the old Bulgarian city of Varna. With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and on invitation of Metropolitan Kyrill of Varna, the DECR chairman came to Varna to participate in the celebrations to mark the 125^th anniversary of the Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, the first cathedral to be built in Bulgaria and in the events to celebrate the Day of Varna and the 126^th anniversary of the Bulgarian Navy.

Metropolitan Kirill was met at the airport by Metropolitan Kyril of Varna, Varna governor Petr Kandilarov, Russian general consul in Varna A. Jarimov, and Archpriest Alexander Karyagin, rector of St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church Representation in Sofia.

In the evening, Metropolitan Kirill attended the grand meeting devoted to the 126^th anniversary of the Bulgarian Navy.

On Sunday, August 14, 2005, Metropolitan Kirill, accompanied by Metropolitan Kyril of Varna, visited the Church of Archangel Michael, which was built in the 19^th-century 60s to mark the declaration of Bulgarian church independence in 1860. The guests from Russia were introduced to the work of a religious educational center acting at the church. Metropolitan Kirill gave to its library copies of his books A Word of a Pastor and Challenges of the Modern Civilization.

After that Metropolitan Kirill visited the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonder-worker, the only church in Bulgaria to belong to the Navy. Built by merchant Nikolau Paraskeva of Varna in 1865, it was named after St. Nicholas after two Bulgarian captains put in it in 1927 the icon of St. Nicholas they blessed at the Lord’s Sepulchre in Jerusalem. For many years this church has been the place where Varna sailors have taken the oath.

Metropolitan Kirill venerated the particles of the relics of the Sanaksara saints Fyodor Ushakov, Fyodor and Alexander, which have been recently brought from the Yaroslavl diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. Their memory is cherished in a special way in Varna as it is closely bound up with the centuries-long history of fraternal Russian-Bulgarian relations.

Then Metropolitan Kirill visited the oldest church in Varna, the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, which was built in 1602, and the Church of St. Athanasius the Great built in 1840. On the same day, the DECR chairman, accompanied by Metropolitan Kyrill of Varna, visited the Archeological Museum and the Euxinograd royal palace.