Bulgaria's Church Wants Its Opinion on Some Draft Laws to Be Considered

Bulgarian Patriarch Neofit has sent a letter to Parliament Speaker Tsetska Tsacheva wherein he demands that bills concerning healthcare, education, morals, and cultural heritage be handed to the Holy Synod for an opinion.

Neofit reminds that such a practice was adopted by former governments and calls for it to be restored.

"It impresses one that, lately, this mutually beneficial practice has been forgotten, but we sincerely hope it hasn't been abandoned," the letter reads.

A draft law on pre-school education and schooling is cited as an example when the Holy Synod could have been invited to discussions in Parliament, given the church's insistence on the introduction of Religion as a subject in school.

"We should not forget that when there was not Bulgarian state and education system in the years of slavery [sic!] it was only the Church that preserved education through the schools it created and supported."

The Holy Synod, the governing body of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (in a country where Orthodox Christianity is the religion of the majority), is presided by the Patriarch.

Neofit took over as Patriarch after his predecessor, Maxim, died in 2012 aged 98.

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