The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has expressed concern over the legal proceedings against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) has denied reports by attorneys for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that the Primate of the BOC, Patriarch Daniel of Bulgaria, sent a letter in support of the UOC to a Ukrainian court. The Bulgarian Patriarchate points out that the letter was of a personal nature, and that support for the UOC was expressed in the context of Patriarch Daniel’s congratulatory message to the Primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kyiv and All Ukraine. This was reported by Radio Bulgaria.

The Patriarchate confirms that Metropolitan Gabriel of Lovech, a hierarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, did indeed appeal to a court in Kyiv, expressing his support for the canonical UOC, which faces the threat of having its activities suspended.

For his part, Patriarch Daniel of Bulgaria sent a letter to Metropolitan Onufry of Kyiv in response to a congratulatory message marking the anniversary of his election as Primate of the Bulgarian Church. In this letter, he expressed his concern regarding the upcoming trial against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church; however, it was not addressed to the court hearing the lawsuit filed by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience seeking to ban the activities of the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC.

As a reminder, it was previously reported that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church had expressed its support for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) amid the ongoing court proceedings regarding a lawsuit filed by the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (GESS), aimed at dissolving the Kyiv Metropolis. Corresponding appeals from Bulgarian Patriarch Daniel and a number of metropolitans of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church were submitted to the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal in Kyiv and the Kyiv Metropolis of the UOC.