Sofia, July 23, 2024
Photo: glasove.com
The new Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil gave his first television interview for Bulgarian National Television’s Panorama program over the weekend, speaking on a number topics on the Church and politics.
Highlights from the interview were published by the Bulgarian Patriarchate.
“The role of the Church is precisely to show people that there’s a way. If a political crisis reaches a dead end and no understanding can be reached, the Church always points to this path, which is towards the Kingdom of God. The Lord has told us: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,” the Patriarch said.
“Our mission can be nothing other than testifying to our entrusted spiritual flock that the Lord Jesus Christ is with us. How will this happen? If we have love among us. This is also the main message we have for our spiritual flock: to love God. If we fulfill this, gradually all other problems will begin to be solved,” His Holiness said.
State power can’t solve the basic problems of man, which are related to the meaning of human life, to the salvation of the human soul, and the Church has shown that in this respect there is no alternative, Pat. Daniil said.
“Where there is alienation and pessimism, this is a consequence of sin. Sin acts in this way to turn us away from God, to discourage us, to stop us on this path. When there are relationships between us of human brotherhood, responsibility, care for each other, this will inevitably bring God’s paradise into our souls and it will become visible around us,” the Bulgarian primate emphasized.
Asked about his stance on the war in Ukraine, the newly elected primate said:
“If we proceed from the principle of philanthropy, we’ll be on the side of all people and we won’t allow them to divide us with various philias and phobias.”
“Even before I became Patriarch, I’ve repeatedly stated that in this conflict, and in any conflict, the best thing is to stop military actions, bloodshed, and for the warring parties and others who are involved to sit down and talk,” he explained.
His Holiness also addressed the war during his time as Metropolitan of Vidin. In a letter to his clergy in November 2022, he laid out his spiritual interpretation of the conflict:
It’s obvious that the passions “envy, anger, irreconcilability, hatred of brothers, and all other passions that are in us, from which all quarrels, discord, disorder, and bloodshed arise” (petitions for peace) have taken over and are the reason for the ignition and continuation of bloodshed in Ukraine.
In no case can we say that these passions are found only in one of the warring parties, while in the other and in third parties related to the conflict, these passions are absent.
For Pat. Daniil, all parties share the blame:
We accuse of aggression the country whose army entered the territory of another country and carries out military actions there that lead to human casualties and destruction. But what should we call the financing and carrying out of subversive activities and the coup in the same Ukraine by a third party, in which the perpetrating country purposefully provoked murders, innocent human lives were lost?...
We’re amazed at the blindness of those who, condemning lightly, obviously err, doing the same thing and at the same time are convinced of their own righteousness, forgetting the words of the Apostle: 2 Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things (Rom. 2:1)…
Therefore, as we keep ourselves from falling into dependencies on untruths, lies, fears, cunning, with which the evil one tries to catch people, to distance them from God, to sow division and enmity, to lead them, God forbid, to self-destruction and eternal perdition, we fervently pray to God to give peace in Ukraine and in the world, to forgive our sins, to give repentance, to uproot enmity in the warring, to give rest to the deceased, to give comfort and healing to the suffering, to establish lasting, just peace for all.
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