{"id":2707,"date":"2014-12-16T21:21:06","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T02:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theoptimists.com\/?p=2707"},"modified":"2018-02-18T01:36:25","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T01:36:25","slug":"metropolitan-stephan-metropolitan-kiril","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/metropolitan-stephan-metropolitan-kiril\/","title":{"rendered":"Metropolitan Stephan and the Bulgarian Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"Image_080\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two Heads of the Independent Orthodox Church (Bulgaria\u2019s largest Church), who saved Jews during the Holocaust, have been named as Righteous Among the Nations by the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem.<\/span><\/p>\n

Metropolitan (Bishop) <\/span>Stephan, the Head of the Sofian Church, and in practice, the highest ranking Bulgarian Church official during the Holocaust, and <\/span>Metropolitan Kiril, the Head of the Church in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv, vigorously opposed the anti-Jewish policies of the Bulgarian regime and took active steps against its policy of deporting the Jews of Bulgaria and handing them over to the Germans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Toward the end of 1940 Bulgaria, a member of the Axis powers, made known its intention to pass the \u201cLaw for the Defense of the Nation.\u201d The aim of the Law was to limit the rights of minorities suspected of practical subversion; however, its true intention was to deny the rights of the Jews. In November of that same year the Holy Synod (the highest body in the Bulgarian Church, made up of 11 bishops), headed by Metropolitan Stephan, sent a letter to the Bulgarian Prime Minister with a copy to the Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament asking to amend the proposed law. One of the amendments was a separate clause relating to the Jews: \u201cLet no account be taken of laws against the Jews as a national minority, but let purposeful steps be taken against all the real dangers to the spiritual, cultural, economical, public, and political life of the Bulgarian people, from whatever direction these dangers come.\u201d
\nAfter the passing of the Law by the Bulgarian Parliament, and its signing by King Boris III in January 1941, Metropolitan Stephan continued to speak out against the persecution of the Jews.
\nIn November 1942 Beckerle, the German Ambassador in Bulgaria, reported to his superiors in Germany on Metropolitan Stephan\u2019s actions against the Bulgarian authorities\u2019 anti-Jewish policy. In a later report to his superiors, Beckerle sent the German translation of an announcement by the Bulgarian Fascist Party, dated July 1943, calling for the liquidation of Stephan \u201cthe sooner the better!\u201d
\nIn early March 1943 the Bulgarian Government decided to hand over the first group of 800 Jews from Sofia to the Germans. All the preparations had been made and the cattle cars were waiting in the capital\u2019s train station. The Head of the Sofia Jewish Community, Abraham Alphasy, requested Metropolitan Stephan\u2019s intervention. Stephan immediately traveled to the king\u2019s palace and asked to meet him. The king, aware of his request feigned illness to avoid him, but Stephan refused to leave the palace until he met with the king. The king was forced to receive him and was asked by Stephan to postpone the decision to hand the Jews over to the Germans, or Stephan would instruct all churches and monasteries to open their doors to Jews and give them a place to hide, thus violating the order of the authorities. The king gave into Stephan\u2019s demands, and after additional parties asked the Bulgarian Government to halt the deportation, the decision to deport the 800 Jews was postponed.
\nIn the same month that the deportation of the 1,500 Jews of the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv began, the local bishop, Metropolitan Kiril, succeeded in halting it. Kiril sent a personal telegram to the king begging for his mercy towards the Jews and contacted the head of the local police, threatening to end his loyalty towards Bulgaria and to act as he wished. Further testimony claims that he threatened to lie across the railway tracks in order to stop the deportation. When told that his actions had proved successful and that this deportation order had been cancelled he rushed to the Jewish school\u2014which the authorities had turned into a roundup point for the Jews\u2014and told them the good news.
\nIn April 1943 Metropolitan Stephan convened a special Holy Synod plenary session to discuss the persecution of the country\u2019s converted Jews as well as all other Jews. At the end of the session a general consensus was reached and it was decided among other things that the Bulgarian Church could not accept this racist law. The Church could not agree to the restriction and deprivation of the rights of certain members of the community, which would be in total contravention to the principles of the Christian doctrine. It was also decided that the Church could not deny help and protection to the persecuted and oppressed\u2014both Jews and Christian Bulgarians had asked the Church to help and protect the Jews. Thus the Church called for the cancellation of the restrictions against the Jews and for the protection of converted Jews\u2014allowing them full rights as citizens. The text of the decision was sent to the Bulgarian Prime Minister with a copy to the king, which resulted in the king\u2019s arranging a meeting of the Holy Synod at his palace. At the meeting the king tried to persuade the members of the Holy Synod to support the anti-Jewish policy by using the Church\u2019s love of the Bulgarian Nation. However they continued to insist on the cancellation of the restricting decrees against the Jews and to take converted Jews into special consideration.<\/p>\n

As the German pressure to deport the Bulgarian Jews increased, Alexander Belev\u2014the Head of the Commission for Jewish Affairs, responsible for the Jews of Bulgaria\u2014 presented two alternate plans for the deportation of the Jews: to hand over the Sofian Jews directly to the Germans or to evacuate them to the countryside. The king chose the second option, which held up the handing over of the Jews to the Germans. When the Sofian Jews received their deportation order the Jewish community\u2019s Chief Rabbi Asher Hananel and Rabbi Daniel Zion contacted Metropolitan Stephan and pleaded for the cancellation of the deportation order. Stephan immediately took active steps and sent a number of messages to the king, including a plea to have mercy on the Jews and a caution \u201cDo not persecute so that you yourself will not be persecuted. Your measures shall be returned to you. I know Boris that from heaven God will keep watch over your actions.\u201d At the same time the Bulgarian authorities\u2014the Ministry of the Interior and the Prime Minister\u2019s Office\u2014informed Metropolitan Stephan that the country would not recognize the Church\u2019s conversion ceremonies (on the Jews) and therefore those citizens were to be considered Jews and eligible for deportation; however, this was not accepted by Stephan. Bulgaria\u2019s Attorney General opened an investigation into Stephan\u2019s suspected handing out of certificates of baptism to all who requested them, and the police raided his office, confiscating all Jewish requests for conversions.
\nDespite Stephan\u2019s and other public leaders\u2019ignored protests, and the Sofian Jews\u2019 deportation to the countryside, Alexander Belev\u2019s plan did not reach the second stage, and the Jews were not handed over to the Germans. The deportation of the Jews of Bulgaria was postponed again and again until it was finally cancelled with the sudden and mysterious death of King Boris, the Allied invasion of Italy, and the fear of an invasion of the Balkans. In September
\n1944, with the Red Army closing in on Bulgaria\u2019s borders, the new Bulgarian government declared war on Germany.<\/p>\n

Metropolitan Stephan passed away in 1957 and Metropolitan Kiril in 1971<\/p>\n

Source: Yad Vashem, Israel\u2019s Holocaust Martyrs\u2019 and Heroes\u2019 Remembrance Authority<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Two Heads of the Independent Orthodox Church (Bulgaria\u2019s largest Church), who saved Jews during the Holocaust, have been named as Righteous Among the Nations by the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem. Metropolitan (Bishop) Stephan, the Head of the Sofian Church, and in practice, the highest ranking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-role-models","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7073,"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions\/7073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comforty.com\/theoptimists\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}