My best Brief explanation of this news:
Because of the fact
that the Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church-though it is spread all
over Bulgaria and is growing, has had only one canonical bishop, its
head and founder, Vladyka Metropolitan
Foti, [or Photius], 'of Triaditsky', to help him temporarily round out
his Synod, [and which will thus allow him to canonically consecrate
other bishops for his
ever expanding church]..our ROCA
under our Vladyka Metropolitan Agafangel, has decided to give him ON
TEMPORARY LOAN, and at his request and desire, some of our ROCA
bishops,..as our fraternal aid to our beloved
brothers in Christ, the Bulgarian Old Calendarists.
This announcement is merely stating that our ROCA Bishop Anfim (Anthimus) of Bessarabia, will
now replace our ROCA Bishop
Kyrill in the Bulgarian Synod, for some practical reasons, nothing more.
For one obvious fact, Bishop Anfim is physically closer to Bulgaria
than is our more aged Bishop Kyrill of Voronezh
and South Russia, he is fluent in the local languages there and customs,
and perhaps because younger Bishop
Anfim has more time and energy to help with such Bulgarian- Bessarabian
matters.....which are his own cultural background.
And by the way:
This historic region of so-called, 'Bessarabia', [as it, or
parts of it!], has had various other names in past times, depending on
which country then invaded and ruled it, but Imperial Russia and Romania
and also Bulgaria claimed it at various times,
plus when it was under the heavy oppression of the Muslim Ottoman yoke]
& it has a long tortured twisted history, with various nations
fighting to conquer and to rule it in past centuries. Thus, it is a
very complicated human composite of various remnant ethnicities, some
'Rusin'-Carpatho or Little Russians, some other types of Russians,
some Ukrainians, some Romanians, some Bulgarians, and some Greeks, and plus a number of other assorted
named ethnics, and ancestral local indigenous tribes,
including many Roma-Gypsies. However, many of these people have been and still are historically and traditionally
ancestral Orthodox Christians.
It seems common for a lot of them to speak
or understand at least three or more local languages
and dialects, just to communicate with others, their neighbors, in
their vast region- a region which stretches over current national
boundaries, into present Romania and Bulgaria and Ukraine. In
church services, it seems common, in our ROCA parishes there, anyway, to use both Church Slavonic and Romanian. It is largely a rural farming but an economically poor region.
Pious
and wise and highly educated Vladyka Metropolitan Foti is fluent in
Bulgarian, Russian, English and no doubt in Romanian and Greek, plus
some other languages. He
knows patristics very well, and canon law. He was centrally instrumental
in helping to make peace between the various Greek Old Calendarists and
also with our ROCA. He is the God-blessed peacemaker, who is so highly
praised in the Bible.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God!"
May
God grant to our pious and loving and long-suffering and much
wrongfully-maligned, ROCA Vladyka Metropolitan Agafangel and to
Bulgarian Vladyka Metropolitan Foti,
MANY YEARS! MNOGAYA LETA! as also we pray for our brothers and sisters
in Christ of the GOC Greek, and Romanian and also our Georgian brothers
and sisters, not to forget to mention our Arab fellow Orthodox, and all.
Save, O Christ God!
Rd.
Daniel, in the dark fir forests of southwestern Oregon, among God's
innocent creatures, which have no evil in their hearts -as do we
spiritually impoverished and
proud devious fallen humans, made in God's holy image, but who are
defaced by sins and the lusts of our flesh.
They, His simple animals, are God's examples to us, of how we SHOULD be....what He intended, before Adam's Fall.
"The lusts of the flesh have estranged me from Thee, O Lord!"
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