BFF-35 Pope asks Bulgarians to ‘open hearts’ to migrants

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Pope asks Bulgarians to ‘open hearts’ to migrants

SOFIA, May 5, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Pope Francis urged Bulgarians to open
their hearts and doors to refugees as he began a visit to the European
Union’s poorest country, where the main Orthodox Church snubbed holding joint
prayers with the pontiff.

Prime Minister Boyko Borisov met Francis at the airport, welcoming him
with a large pot of kiselo mlyako, a mildly sour-tasting local yoghurt,
saying: “This is your grandmother’s yoghurt.”

“The first time I heard the word yoghurt was from my grandmother,” the
pope replied.

The Bulgarian emissary to the Vatican Kiril Topalev had earlier quoted
the pope as telling him: “I grew up with Bulgarian yoghurt. When I was two
years old, my grandmother gave me Bulgarian yoghurt.”

Pope Francis’s three-day tour, which also takes in North Macedonia,
includes a visit to a refugee camp on the outskirts of Sofia and a
commemoration of Mother Teresa, the most famous native of the Macedonian
capital Skopje.

The Pope evoked a “new winter” plaguing Bulgaria and other European
nations who face an an exodus of their people as well as falling birth rates,
in his first address to Bulgarian officials.

– ‘Don’t close your hearts’ –

The population has fallen to seven million against nine million in 1989,
the year communism ended in Bulgaria, and is projected to plunge to 5.4
million in 2050.

“Bulgaria faces the effects of the emigration in recent decades of over
two million of her citizens in search of new opportunities for employment,”
he said.

This has “led to the depopulation and abandonment of many villages and
cities,” he added.

He also touched on the plight of migrants and refugees flocking to the
country.

“Bulgaria confronts the phenomenon of those seeking to cross its borders
in order to flee wars, conflicts or dire poverty, in the attempt to reach the
wealthiest areas of Europe, there to find new opportunities in life or simply
a safe refuge,” the pope said.

“To all Bulgarians, who are familiar with the drama of emigration, I
respectfully suggest that you not close your eyes, your hearts or your hands
— in accordance with your best tradition — to those who knock at your
door,” he said.

Francis, whose papacy has been marred by a wave of child sex abuse
allegations against clergy, has made improving interfaith dialogue a
priority.

But last month the Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod rejected the
idea of Orthodox priests participating in a joint “prayer for peace” with the
pope in a Sofia square planned for Monday.

The Orthodox Church is instead sending a children’s choir to the
downgraded meeting which will be attended by at least one of the capital’s
Muslim leaders, a Vatican source said. – Warming ties –

While the visit will be a particular highlight for the tiny Catholic
communities in both countries — 44,000 in Bulgaria and 20,000 in North
Macedonia — it is the interaction with their two Orthodox churches that will
be most keenly watched.

The Bulgarian church also made clear its opposition to any religious
service when the pope visited Sofia’s St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. The Pope
offered prayers there on Sunday afternoon alone.

But the pontiff sought to stress on the unity of Christians, referring
to their persecution irrespective of the church they belonged to.

“How many Christians have suffered for the name of Jesus in this
country, particularly during the last century,” of which 45 years were under
communist rule, he said.

Bulgaria is the only Orthodox church not to participate in a commission
fostering dialogue with the Roman Catholic church.

Relations between Rome and other Orthodox churches have been warming,
with February 2016 seeing the historic meeting between Francis and Russian
Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Cuba.

That was the first such encounter since the schism nearly 1,000 years
ago that tore Christianity in two.

– Pope ‘open and sensitive’ –

“I am Orthodox Christian but I admire the openness and sensitivity of
the Pope,” said Dora Kraytcheva, a 48-year-old woman. “Why should we cling to
dogmas from the Middle Ages?”

The Argentine pontiff’s visit to Bulgaria and North Macedonia comes
after the leaders of both countries extended an invitation to him following a
traditional annual visit to the tomb of St Cyril in Rome.

In April 2018, the Council of Europe voiced concern about Bulgarian
efforts to integrate Middle Eastern refugees and the “generally negative
public opinion” concerning refugees.

Days before arriving in Sofia, the pope hit out at “conflictual
nationalism” which “raises walls, even racism”.

“The way in which a nation welcomes migrants reveals its vision of human
dignity,” he said on Thursday.

Currently Bulgaria’s migrant reception centres have an occupancy rate of
only 10 percent, while the entire 274-kilometre (170-mile) Bulgarian-Turkish
border is blocked by a barbed-wire fence.

BSS/AFP/RY/20:32 hrs