No matter how the Sliven saga ended, which was written and commented on for five months, it is time for the more important battle: for the "white veil", i.e. for the patriarchal post. Indeed, many scandals lined up around the election of the new Metropolitan of Sliven in the months following the death of Metropolitan Ioanniki on January 9 of this year. It just "had to" to choose the right person. And he was elected, albeit with a delay of two months. And the ancient rule dictates: a diocese should not remain without its bishop for more than three months.
This is what the theologian Prof. Ivan Zhelev told BTA.
"However, it so happened that after Metropolitan Ioanniki on March 13, the Bulgarian Patriarch Neofitus also died. According to the statutes of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the election of a new patriarch must take place within four months after the post becomes vacant.
And the Holy Synod of the BOC, again according to the requirements of the statute, determined that this election will take place on June 30. In theory, it could have happened on July 12 inclusive, but some metropolitans feared that on July 4 another possible candidate for the post would reach the required age of 50, and preferred to exclude him from the battle. "Simply because some people see these things really as a battle, and not as simple statutory actions for the good of our Church, far from personal benefits and benefits," said Prof. Zhelev.
"For now, 9 metropolitans meet these two conditions: American-Canadian-Australian Joseph, Grigory of Veliko Tarnovsky, Ignatius of Pleven, Gavriil of Lovchan, Nikolay of Plovdiv, John of Varna-Preslav, Naum of Ruse, Grigoriy of Vrachan, Daniil of Vidin.
>From them, with a vote inside the synod between the metropolitans on June 20, three will be announced, who will be elected by the votes of two-thirds of the members of the synod. And since the members of the synod are now 14 (because there is no patriarch who is also the Metropolitan of Sofia), each candidate for patriarch must receive at least ten votes. These three candidates are proposed to the patriarchal electors, in other words - to the members of the patriarchal electoral council, so that they can choose the future Bulgarian patriarch", explained Prof. Ivan Zhelev.
He said that "according to church public opinion, expressed mainly in social groups, the metropolitans (in the order of their seniority based on the election as a metropolitan) Gavriil, Nikolay have the greatest prospects for inclusion in the three-member list , John, Nahum and Grigoriy Vrachanski, who is now also the deputy chairman of the synod".
"Regardless of the request of Metropolitan Nikolay in the media that he does not want to be on the list, it is generally believed that he will be included in it, especially since he did not submit such a refusal in writing to the synod. And who the patriarchal voters will prefer, it is difficult to predict from now on," commented the theologian.