Morning and Divine Holy Liturgy with the special requests foreseen at the opening at a church council, were served in the Synodal Chapel "St. pious and equally apostolic king Boris-Michael the Baptist" by Archimandrite Euthymius - spiritual supervisor of the Sofia Diocese, BTA reported.
The services in the chapel of the Synodal Palace were attended by the deputy-president of the Holy Synod - Metropolitan Grigori of Vratsa, the diocesan metropolitans, the bishops of the BOC-BP, appointed by the Holy Synod, as well as the delegates of the electoral assembly.
Next, the Credentials Commission, according to Article 46, paragraph 1 of the BOC-BP Statute, will check the presence of voters by name and the regularity of their credentials.
After the name check, the vice-president of the Holy Synod and all the diocesan metropolitans, followed by the bishops, will lead the delegates of the electoral assembly from the reception hall of the Synodal Palace to the academic hall of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). There, with a short prayer given by the vice-president of the Holy Synod, the council will be opened and the electoral bureau will be appointed. After that, the delegates of the council leave from the BAS to the Synodal Palace, where the ballot box will be officially sealed. Voting will also begin.
While the council is constituted and begins, it is planned that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and representatives of the local Orthodox churches will be welcomed in the metropolitan cathedral church "St. great martyr Nedelya". After that, a short trisagium - a funeral prayer - will be held at the grave of Sofia Metropolitan and Bulgarian Patriarch Neofit, which is under the southern colonnade of the Metropolitan Cathedral.
The name of the newly elected Bulgarian patriarch is expected to be announced in the afternoon. After that, the new patriarch, the metropolitans and the bishops of the BOC-BP will go to the patriarchal cathedral "St. Alexander Nevsky", where the heads and representatives of the local Orthodox churches, who came to us for the council, will be waiting for them. The enthronement of the newly elected Bulgarian patriarch will begin and a prayer service will be held. The ceremony will end with a general photo in front of the Patriarchal Cathedral.