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His Holiness Patriarch Kirill congratulates His Holiness Patriarch Daniel of Bulgaria on his election and enthronement
DECR Communication Service, 30/06/2024
His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ congratulated the new Primate of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church – His Holiness Patriarch Daniel – on his election and enthronement. The text of the message is given below.
PATRIARCH OF BULGARIA
METROPOLITAN OF SOFIA
Your Holiness, beloved Brother and Concelebrant at God’s Altar:
On behalf of the hierarchs, clerics, monastics and the Plenitude of the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as on my behalf, I send you heartfelt congratulations on your election and enthronement as Patriarch of Bulgaria.
It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28) and the esteemed participants in the Patriarchal Election Church Council to call you to the lofty and responsible Primatial ministry, entrusting to you the future of the Bulgarian Orthodoxy.
In Your Holiness, the Church of Saints John of Rila and Euthymius of Tarnovo has found its new Primate – a worthy successor to Patriarchs Cyril, Maxim and Neophyte of blessed memory who had done much to preserve spiritual traditions of their forefathers and establish their flock in the holy Orthodox faith.
Today the Russian Orthodox Church sincerely rejoices together with its beloved Sister Church, for standing at its helm is a God-wise hierarch known for his piety, firm commitment to the sacred canonical order and willingness to work selflessly, strengthening the ecclesiastical unity.
For more than a thousand years now, growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pt 3:18) has been the primary goal to our two Churches and fraternal peoples under their spiritual care, who are inheritors of the Slavic religious tradition going back to Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles. Living in the grateful prayerful memory of the children of the Russian Orthodox Church are the Bulgarian missionaries who played an outstanding role in bringing the light of Christianity to the Kievan Rus’ and St. Cyprian filled with the Divine grace – a great son of Bulgaria who became Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus’. We revere St. Seraphim the Archbishop of Boguchar, Wonderworker of Sofia, who embodies our unity, and treasure the memory of the Russian soldiers who laid down their lives for the liberation of our Bulgarian brothers from the bitter five-centuries-long bondage.
We believe that Your Holiness will write new joyful pages in the glorious centuries-old history of our two Churches’ relations.
On this momentous day I prayerfully wish you good health, unceasing joy in our Lord and His almighty help for many years of your blessed Patriarchal service marked by various fruitful accomplishments. And I wish peace and welfare to the blessed flock of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
With brotherly love in Christ,
PATRIARH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUS’
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