The construction of a church in Sofia turned out to be the apple of discord. A scandal over the completion of the church “St. Pimen Zografski” in the capital's "Izgrev" district, with accusations flying between the mayor of the area and the Sofia Holy Metropolis, writes Nova TV.
The dispute began after Mayor Delyan Georgiev announced that the construction was delayed, despite the one and a half million leva allocated by the Sofia Municipality. The metropolis, in turn, took this as a hint that they were illegally withholding the money and responded that the mayor had pressured them to hire a specific company. Where is the truth?
The legal advisor of the Holy Metropolis, lawyer Iliyana Mavrodieva, explained that the Metropolis did not unreasonably withhold funds.
"In order to provide them to the church board, there must be a construction contract, approved by the Sofia Diocesan Council, and subject to execution. We are talking about a public resource that should be spent honestly and transparently, without raising suspicions of misuse. Is it not pressure to insist, by setting terms and conditions, that the Metropolis transfer all funds, given that the proposed contractor is the company "Doka Stroy", which has been established that in 2023 and 2025 it worked mainly on orders assigned by the "Izgrev" region? The mayor suggests that the Sofia Metropolis wants to keep the funds for itself and sabotage the process of completing the temple - this is not true. We did not assign the construction to the company in question, because the contract it proposed did not sufficiently protect the interests of the client", commented Mavrodieva.
For his part, Mayor Delyan Georgiev denied putting pressure on the Metropolis.
"It is categorically not true that a specific company was proposed. The church board has collected three offers and this one is the best in terms of price and time. It has undertaken to build the temple. Proposals have been made that can be corrected or canceled. I have negotiated on behalf of the residents of "Izgrev" - about 40,000 people. I want the church to be completed, because we are the only region without its own temple. The Metropolitanate can change the proposed company and make a different decision. I have not set a deadline for the money to be returned. It was transferred to the Metropolitanate 4 months ago. The company in question has completed two sites in the area, it did a great job, we have no complaints about it", said Georgiev.
Eng. Borislav Pelov has been one of the initiators of the construction of the temple since 2015: “We have done the rough construction. We have done the electrical installations. The dome is finished at the top, covered with gilded sheet metal”.
Four years after the start of construction, the temple already has it. The altar has also been built.
“The iconostasis will lie in front of these two columns. It will be entirely made of stone. It is ambitious to succeed next year for Easter”, said Pelov.