Can Bulgaria Learn Faith?

Early morning. The cathedral is cold and dark. It smells of incense. Maria Zabova starts to climb the narrow, winding ladder up to the bell tower. Two hundred and twenty stairs later, she is standing up upon the platform. The wind blows through the open arches. A last look at her watch. She stretches out her hands, grabs the ropes and pulls them with all her might. The dance of the bells begins.

The belfry is open on all sides and left to the mercy of the unsparing winds, which clash against the elderly woman's fragile body and play havoc with her hair. She looks like a captain, who is steering the ship along the road of righteousness.

Maria Zabova has been bell ringer at Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia, the biggest temple on the Balkans, for 27 years. During big religious holidays she performs the ritual three times a day, while on special occasions, such as the first visit to Bulgaria of the exiled former king Simeon Saxe-Coburg, the bells chime joyfully for more than three hours.

Last Friday she performed the ritual once again as over 5,000 Bulgarians demonstrated in Sofia to demand that religious instruction in the country become compulsory in schools. I heard the bells ring that day and remembered my recent meeting with her as her story may be an epiphany for each of us.

The communist era was a period of great persecution for the religious people in Bulgaria, turbulent times when religion officially did not exist and the entry into churches was banned. And it was on many occasions that Zabova found her close affinity to the church has stirred up a hornet's nest.

"I faced unthinkable obstacles. I constantly lived with the fear that I will be punished or deported. The true communist is a Christian. Bulgaria was not ruled by communists, but by greedy and not that ethical members of the regime's nomenclature," Zabova told me.

Zabova believes that now, more than twenty years after the collapse of the communist regime, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but says that the years of dictatorship have exacted their toll.

"I have been recently struck by an epiphany of my own – I am convinced that Bulgarians will again turn to God one day, but this will be a very tough and long process. Three generations have been left crippled by the ban to enter churches."

Pitched against this background, the demonstration for compulsory religious classes, organized by the Orthodox Church, looks like a big step forward.

Are Bulgarians learning faith?

Probably, but this will be difficult for more than one reason. The country has a secular education system and the currently optional religious classes are attended mostly by Muslims, while the children of the Christians hardly take any notice.

Small wonder. Plagued by wrangling and greed, Bulgaria's Orthodox church has been greatly discredited in recent years, leaving Christian believers nothing but disturbed. The disagreement between the two churches in the country - one legitimized by an old political regime, the other one set up in protest against the state meddling in religious matters - has been smoldering for years and has even exploded at times into barbarity.

Zabova however says:

"I had a very rich and diverse life, despite the incredible obstacles that I faced. I always felt God next to me and he never failed me. I will never let him down either."

That faith will hopefully live on in people's daily life, in the intimacy of family and friends, in sudden surges of hope, kindness and joy. As for religion, or its embodiment the official Church, it's left only with its wealth and lots of bitterness.

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