september  11 - 07       

BACK TO THE SOURCES

Imagine a high place of your Church in front of which a queue of fifty meters waits. At the monastery of Bachkovo, one of the three sources of Orthodoxy in Bulgaria, that was the case last Sunday.

The queue comes in the Church at the centre of the monastery, before an icon of the Mother of God. A man went in front of the icon, hesitant, without knowing much of what to do. Finally he touched the icon with his hand, and made the sign of the cross then he left.
At Bachkovo, it doesn’t matter whether one is a tourist or a faithful. Couples and families steadfastly came that Sunday to visit a high place of the Bulgarian history and identity. For that man not very familiar with the veneration of icons, it was perhaps like a return to the sources.

 

september  10 - 07       

THE TIME OF QUESTIONS

At the beginning of this last week of our workshop, we took some time for questions. How do we understand the Oriental mission, its aim and its engagements? Do we feel concerned by this mission of our two congregations? The Oriental mission took an image for us, and this image does not allow us to be indifferent. This is the image or icon of Christ and we have to go up to there since the marks that present the Oriental mission are deeply evangelical. That is a difficult experience to share, but all in all, we know that Christ, who is working in our hearts and in the heart of history, sometimes gives for all these the unique marks of his image.
Who then is that man who leads us to Jerusalem announcing to us his passion? Is he the saviour, the most beautiful of the children of men that we are waiting for? He whose words trouble and give power to go after him? He who does nothing to seduce and nevertheless attracts us? Our predecessors, brothers and sisters, knew Christ in these countries and these Churches of the East. Without that, they could not go or stay. What does this mean for us? Because of the Oriental mission, we are a bit like the disciples following Christ trying to discover him. It is now the time of questions, but we go ahead.
 

september  09 - 07       

POPE JOHN XXIII

When Mgr. Roncalli arrived in Bulgaria in 1925, the situation of the Byzantine Catholic Church like that of the whole of the country was dramatic. Macedonia was taken by Greece and the south plain of Thrace returned to Turkey. Bulgarian refugees were so many at that time, and maybe half of the faithful of the Byzantine Catholic Church are refugees. In one year Roncalli would help the church to reorganise itself: three dioceses formed in one exarchate – one unit, one church – and he favoured the nomination of the first responsible of this church, Mgr. Kiril Kourtev.
The birth of the unitary church of Bulgaria was a movement to Rome. But according Mgr. Roncalli it was Rome which came to the Catholic faithful of Bulgarian. Rome had the smiling face of that man who liked meeting, faithful in love. This church’s attachment to Rome and the fidelity to its identity are the traits of John XXIII.
Coming out of Communism, the Church was terribly broken down. There were men to make the exarchate stand, but not the building: it was in the first residence of Mgr. Roncalli in Sofia that the exarchate was reinstalled. It was also on a piece of land that he bought in Sofia that the Bulgarian Eucharistine Sisters would build a new convent and a new church after the destruction of the first house. The living memory of that servant of God helped men and women to stand up. And his prayers continue to help them.
 

september  08 - 07       

THE SPLEDOUR OF THE MEETING

They have just woken up. Here they are before the door, with a lamp on their hand, very young in festival vestments. They could add oil because the light of their lamp enlightened their faces. They wait with joy and peace from their hearts. In the night, the wedding party appears and the songs of the feast announce it to the couple.
Today is the nativity of Mary; we decided to celebrate it with our Orthodox brothers. We divided ourselves into small groups and went to different churches in Plovdiv. When we entered the small churches we came with light and songs. Each one of us put a small candle at the back of the church, and we turned to the door at the centre of the iconostases. The songs of the choir in the gallery and the singing of the priests beside the iconostases did no cease. Little by little the church is full and we squeeze ourselves in order to give way for the procession of the Word of God and that of the offerings. We hear him, and each one knows deep in himself that he waits for us, as always, he who loved us first.
In the history of a people or that of a man, one day, God met us, and that day is still vivid. Our orthodox brothers celebrate the memory of this meeting. God and man desire one another, wait for one another, call one another and meet one another in Jesus Christ and in his Church. Our faith is born of that meeting. It is also the red lines of our lives. May we never forget the splendour of the meeting!
 

september  07 - 07       

WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS

The communities of the brothers and the sisters in Plovdiv are in the same area where there are two universities – one of which is the former Saint Augustine College. The schools are about to open and we see many young men and women, athletic looking, passing along the roads. There are many young people too in the town centre, busy doing their shopping – one question that comes to mind is: “where are the old people?” They are among the poorest people in Bulgaria. Youth and canon of beauty, old age and marginalisation. “Where your treasure is, there is your heart.”
Father Galabert lived in Bulgaria in the 1860’s with the most powerful and the most powerless; his daily writings showed that he was received by prominent people and some days after, he visited a village far away. What freedom? Father Pie Neveu, while still a novice, asked in 1896 to live in Russia saying that he “had a fact and a right to the Latin rite but he had a heart and a desire for the Slavish rite.” We know how he lived in that country during the Bolshevist Revolution, the civil war, and the Communism. Father Severien Salaville profoundly studied the Oriental liturgies in the years 1920-1940. While studying the liturgy of the Eucharist, he could show that the oppositions considered as traditionalists between the Oriental rite and the Latin tradition had in fact concealed some profound common points. All had their treasure in the reign of Christ, and he had filled their hearts.
 

september  06 - 07       

HALF WAY

Unlike the Tour of France, there is no formal group to climb the Byzantine mountains, in the middle of our tour in the Oriental Mission. We go ahead together. We must say that the way is well prepared: we entered through the humble door of the living reality, and the modest way of the Byzantine Catholic Church in Bulgaria.

The welcome of the brothers and sisters of Plovdiv is special, and everyone feels at home. Of course, the mixture of languages sometimes gives to the assembly an atmosphere of Babel, but also a feeling of Pentecost, when, in the Church, French, Swahili or Spanish hymns are sung to the Lord. A choir of Congolese sisters in the heart of the Divine Liturgy: what a beautiful summary of our presence here! The tiredness has started to be felt: our Chilean brothers introduce throughout the conferences small joyful songs in which we embrace one another joyfully, awaking both the spirit and the body.
We bless God because of all that: he receives us in the one land which may be for all, that of love, that of accepting the other, that of trust – the land that his Son has given us.
 

september  05 - 07       

WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO FOR YOU?

Figures in the Oriental mission, Father Pavel Christoff Portalier and Father Louis Petit are surprising by their sense of the others’ need. Father Christoff Portalier made himself a Bulgarian among Bulgarians, to the point of changing his name. It was a time of war, successive crises in the Balkan countries under political games which concealed the real situation.

Father Christoff’s attention was drawn to suffering people. He tried to make this known: to give himself a face of men and women, behind all political and religious debates. Father Louis Petit had come to Istanbul at the end of the nineteenth century, at the site of the old Chalcedon, occupied at that time by Muslims.

This foundation must be a seminary for Greek and Bulgarian priests aimed at bringing back their communities to the Catholic Church. Between the mythical Chalcedon of unbroken Church and the Muslim Istanbul that he discovered, Father Louis Petit understood the seriousness of the decisions of the middle ages. To approach the Oriental churches of Rome, one had to start searching the Byzantine Christianity which gave them their identity. Its intuition created Institutes of Byzantine Studies which, for a century, explored the not so well known period of the Christian history. Providential work! After years of destruction of the memory and of the Orthodox patrimonies by the communist regime, the Oriental Churches found precious help in that work of making links with their past.
“What do you want me to do for you?” This question of Jesus is in the heart of the mission: It is no longer what I like to do, but what you want from me. It is an inversion. The need of the other presents itself, and the veritable gift becomes possible: a service which drives the one who gives himself far, very far on the way to Christ.
 

september  03 - 07       

EMMANUEL
 

One young woman and her little son stand before the icon of the Mother of God. She brings her child in the arms, and he happily bows in front of the icon. The mother murmurs some words and the clear voice of the child sounds joyful. She bends towards the icon, so that she may touch it. Then the child approaches and extends his hand to the next icon. The young mother changes her place.
The icon of the Mother of God is seen just next to the door which opens the iconostates; on her hand, she brings Emmanuel – neither really a child, nor really an adult, a fragile son of man, with a face full of joy and gravity. This attitude that God makes himself one of us is in the heart of the Oriental tradition. In every country of Eastern Europe, the Church was for centuries the sign of God’s fidelity, now a closed point in the strong winds of history. This proximity of the Church with her people took, in the nineteenth century, the form of a national Church, a people, a culture, a Church, an ecclesial structure. This was how Didier Rance summarized the day’s dominated doctrine in Eastern Europe. One questions himself on the national identity of this or that group or Church.
But it is not at the court of Herod that God gives himself to us. God gives himself to us in the heart of the very simple life, in the family, in the village, up to the level of a child. Do not forget Emmanuel.
 

september  02 - 07       

POKROVAN
Pokrovan is a small village, three hours drive from Plovdiv, in the mountains which separate Bulgaria and Greece. At the end of the nineteenth century, the village was under the double domination of the Ottoman and Greeks. Even in the liturgy, Greek’s influence could be felt. The Catholic Byzantine Church got some freedom: people could pray in Bulgarian language according to the people’s rite. The Church in Bulgaria was served by a Bulgarian bishop. In Pokrovan, all the people of the village had become Catholics.
Some years later, the Ottoman authority allowed the creation of an Orthodox Patriarchate for Bulgaria: The reasons to become Catholics were not very strong. At the same time, belonging to the Catholic Church made daily life more difficult. The first bishop was kidnapped while the second one was imprisoned. But the village of Pokrovan remained faithful to its choice.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Pokrovan was caught up in the geopolitical games through the weakness of Ottoman Empire. There was the first Balkan war: people under the Turkish power sent away the Ottoman armies; Bulgaria will illustrate itself. But the allies of yesterday break away the day after and Bulgaria pays itself the fair of the neighbours’ appetite. In this context, the Turkish army killed all men of Pokrovan in the Catholic Church before setting the church on fire. A Martyrs’ village, Pokrovan stood from its ashes. A new Church was built and the Nuncio of Bulgaria, Mgr Roncalli, came to bless it.
In the very new Bulgarian state, Pokrovan remained far away in the mountains. This situation allowed the Communist regime to transform the region into a place of exile: the road to Pokrovan disappeared from the map and police check points were increased in order to control access to the place. During those years, the Assumptionist Fathers and the Eucharistine Sisters helped the community to continue living its faith, to celebrate the resurrection of Christ during the dark years.
We all went to Pokrovan on Sunday, 2nd September, which was a feast day for the village and for us too. The fruits of the Christian faith are not seen, though the men and women who live that faith have become its witnesses. In Pokrovan, one truly feels that God makes himself human and his faithfulness takes root in everyone of us.
 

september  01 - 07       

WHO AM I?

I was born among small people, in a region of the world where many people pass, are mixed and are confronted. It is faith and a kingdom which made unity of my people. It was at once independent, but for a long time, it has lived under the domination of foreign powers, now this now the other. And its memory is sad. It sometimes tried to have its independence, but unsuccessfully. A great hope and a profound desire to live were in it, an appetite of richness and a certain amount of patience too.

I am born in Bulgaria. I am born in Galilee.

The question “who am I?” is both unavoidable and dangerous in our countries. One very hasty response is sometimes war, aggression of the others, a new wound in our histories. One would finally want to be himself. But many others since the origin of our people are linked to the best and the worst in our identity. It is such mixture! Like wheat and darnel in a field.

Finally, for you, who am I? I will not answer alone. So that we may be one, I leave it to you.

august 31 - 07     

THE ROCK AND THE SPRING

The image that we have of an Orthodox monk evokes the black habit and the long beards, the austerities or even the ascetic exploits of certain hermit saints for ten years or more, like Saint John of Rila. The rock, the cave of the hermit, the rock of Mount Athos. We can see the Oriental Christian tradition from that angle.
But it is forgotten that there are other images that we carry in our memory too: the light of the churches, the illuminated flow of the cupola, the recognized value in the spiritual gift of tears, are the affirmation of a God who receives the intimate desire of man, who gives life and transforms all things by his Spirit.
The God that we love, celebrate, and pray to, is a God who transforms the rock into pool. This God, who is very close to his people, listens to them when they ask him for water where there is need. This God is the one who transforms our stony hearts into living springs.
That evening, at the heart of the Diving Liturgy, our Congolese sisters intoned a song to Christ. That is our God: he inserted in the hearts of all people the desire to know him. Through the life given by his Son Jesus Christ, he gathers all people into one body. His Spirit is given to people in order to appropriate the words and the prayers brought by missionaries – because it is in this way that the Christian faith was spread – to be sung like this evening.
 

august 30 - 07     

IVAN RILSKI

Ivan Rilski – John of Rila – is somehow the godfather of the baptism of Bulgaria. He was born at the end of the 19^th century shortly after the formation of the first Bulgarian kingdom and the arrival of Christianity.

His life was given «in prayer, fasting and weeping” and was “a foundation of conversion” as an orthodox prayer in his honor puts it. The history of his relics and of his miracles relate very much to that of Bulgaria up to now. Rila is situated in a valley where access is not very easy, but at the same time it is an important place for both cultural and faith pilgrimage and also tourism in Bulgaria.

Behind the hagiographic story, the attachment to this man, more than ten centuries after his death, is surprising. Ivan Rislki is venerated as God’s gift. This attitude of the faithful before God’s provenance reminds them of each one’s baptism: to discover oneself as a beloved child of God the Father who is full of tenderness.

august 28 - 07     

The Last Word
 

In the face of a difficult situation, it is tempting to conclude quickly the analysis by an abrupt formula, the last word without a call.

How many times should this happen in the history of the Byzantine Catholic Church of Bulgaria, how many political commissaries predicted its disappearance, and now what do statistics which expose its weakness say?
But, as Mgr Proykov told us today, as the responsible of the catholic Byzantine church: the last word is the word of God.

This word took flesh in a people and in their history; the word of God sticks in the hearts of men and women of this church.

It is a biblical history, like that of Abraham, where smallness and fragility are taken in the unique history, where one is faithful to God in receiving our history like that of his covenant with us. And that is where the last word is.
 

 august 27- 07     

A small group of the Oblate Sisters was looking for the Catholic Byzantine church in Varna. They asked someone on the road where the church was. Seeing their veil perhaps, the person answered them “the normal church?”
Yes, in fact, we, the Catholics of the Latin rite or the Byzantine one, we are not the normal church in Bulgaria - without anything pejorative. This first day of work showed us in which ways the churches in the East are rooted in a place, to become the people’s church, and in Bulgaria, the old age and the weight of the orthodox church makes it ‘normal’ as a church. What is the position for our Byzantine catholic brothers?