According to the rules of the church, there cannot be two Orthodox churches in one place, on one canonical territory, Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil told journalists during his first visit to the Resilovo Monastery “Pokrov Bogorodichen“. It is on the occasion of the upcoming name day of nun Melania, who is the abbess of the monastery, the Bulgarian Patriarchate told BTA.
According to the words of Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil, the Law on Religions clearly states that in Bulgaria the traditional religion is Eastern Orthodoxy and the exponent of this religion is the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Bulgarian Patriarchate.
Patriarch Daniil said that he was surprised by the decision to register the second Orthodox church, and recalled that back in 2012, when attempting to register, the court turned to the Directorate for Religious Denominations, which requested an expert opinion from the Holy Synod.
„The court had the opportunity to familiarize itself with this opinion, which states that it is not possible to approach this case as with commercial companies, because with a small difference in the name of the company, a new such company can be registered. In this case, there is a mixing of legal entities“, commented Patriarch Daniil and added that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is by law inextricably linked to the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, that is, it is in communion with the other local Orthodox churches, which is a condition for a church to be Orthodox.
“With this decision, we seem to be going back years, because when the schism was created, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church suffered this to explain to the state that an Orthodox church can be one that is in communion with the other Orthodox churches. For this, the Pan-Orthodox Council was convened in 1998.“, added Patriarch Daniil and indicated that he was at a loss as to why, how and from where this decision was made.