Patriarch Neophyte, the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, has passed away at the age of 78 after battling a severe illness, Novinite reported Thursday.
He was born on October 15, 1945 in Sofia. He studied at the Theological Academy of Sofia and further studied in Moscow, Orthodox Times wrote.
He was enthroned in 2013.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, like all post-Soviet churches, bore the burden of “political Orthodoxy”, recently experienced a division and even a period of “dual patriarchy” (the operation of the Parallel Synod), religious scholar Oleksandr Sahan recalls.
On January 17, 2012, the State Committee working on “revealing the affiliation of citizens with state security agencies during the communist period” officially reported that 11 out of 14 metropolitans of the BOC, including Patriarch Maxim, closely cooperated with security agencies.
Judging by the position of the church on many issues, for example, failing to attend the All-Orthodox Council in Crete in 2016, failing to recognizing the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, etc., the traditions of such cooperation remain in place and, unfortunately, the church is quite close not only to the Bulgarian special services.
“Currently, the Moscow minions in cassocks have received a new job – to put an equally pro-Moscow candidate on the throne. And although Bulgaria recently underwent certain purges of outspoken Moscow assets, including those holding diplomatic passports, the church circles, as Ukraine’s sad experience shows, is a completely different field of reality, where ‘everything is not as it might seem’…” Sahan notes.
At the same time, according to the expert, there is a chance for the OCU to establish Eucharistic unity and fraternal communication, if a new primate of the BOC is not a pro-Moscow cleric.
At the end of 2023, the patriarch was hospitalized. In January of this year, Patriarch Neophyte condemned the “devastating war against brotherly Ukraine.” Patriarch Kirill also expressed regret over the breakdown of relations with the Bulgarian Church.
