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BULGARIA
Annual pilgrimageBalkan delegations visit Rome
On May 22, Pope John Paul II received delegations from the governments of Macedonia and Bulgaria. These government officials were among a larger group of pilgrims from the Orthodox churches coming to Rome for an annual ceremony honoring Sts. Cyril and Methodius.
On the Orthodox liturgical calendar, May 24 is the feast of the two saints, who brought the Gospel to the Slavic world in the 9th century. Each year, Orthodox pilgrims come on that day to honor the relics of St. Cyril, which lie in St. Clement’s Church in Rome. This year, in conjunction with that ceremony, the wife of the Bulgarian president, Antonina Stojanova, presided at the opening of an exhibition of Balkan art in Rome. The exhibition, devoted to works of the 4th through 14th century, includes a number of Byzantine icons.
As he met with the Macedonian government delegation, Pope John Paul remarked that the people of that land should “find new interior strength as they pursue the immense task of rebuilding their country in peace and harmony.” He told the officials—led by President Boris Trajkowski—that Macedonia should participate in the common task of Europe, to become “more and more a place of civilization, of brotherhood, of solidarity and respect and the mutual exchange of gifts.”
When the Bulgarian delegation met with the Holy Father, foreign minister Nadejda Mihailova emerged to tell reporters that she had formally renewed her country’s invitation for the Pope to visit Bulgaria. While the Pope did not respond directly to that invitation, he did salute Bulgaria as “an irreplaceable instrument of dialogue between East and West.”