BULGARIA: POPE JOHN PAUL II VISITS THE RILA MONASTERY

Record ID: 547627

  • Title: BULGARIA: POPE JOHN PAUL II VISITS THE RILA MONASTERY
  • Date: 25th May 2002
  • Summary: INSIDE RILA MONASTERY, RILA, BULGARIA (MAY 25, 2002) (AGENCY POOL) VARIOUS OF POPE ENTERING RILA MONASTERY (3 SHOTS) SLV-ZOOM IN POPE HOLDING A CANDLE SCU CARDINAL WATCHING VARIOUS OF POPE AT CEREMONY (3 SHOTS) SCU ARCHBISHOP IOAN, PRIOR OF THE RILA MONASTERY SLV PRIESTS KISSING POPES HANDS
  • Embargoed: 9th June 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: RILA, BULGARIA
  • Country: Bulgaria
  • Topics: International Relations,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA7MD9WJSLAQI3Z562FTH18DXOX
  • Story Text: Pope John Paul II has visited a mountain sanctuary that inspired centuries of Bulgarian resistance to Ottoman rule as he struggled on with a trip meant to spread the message of Christian unity.
    The aged Pope, frail and short of breath, flew to the Rila monastery on Saturday (May 25, 2002) on the third day of his visit to Orthodox Bulgaria to tour the frescoed halls and venerated icons that symbolise the blend of eastern and western traditions here.
    He was greeted within the fortress-like walls by the former King and current Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg, who guided him to the grave of his father King Boris III.
    The fact that he came to Bulgaria is important but to see him saying a prayer at my fathers grave was more than moving for me, said Saxe-Coburg. I have no words to describe it.
    As he has throughout the trip that started in Azerbaijan on Wednesday (May 22) the Pope looked frail and moved with great difficulty. His appeals for togetherness and praise for the resistance of clerics to communist-era oppression have been barely audible.
    It was obvious that the Popes mental condition is much better than his physical, said Saxe-Coburg, who spoke Italian to the Pope and cut short their meeting so as not to tire him.
    The condition of the Pope is obvious to all, said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. He will continue to travel under these limitations.
    The Papal visit is a coup for his young government, which hopes the trip will bring Bulgaria closer to the West and distract people disgruntled that the post-communist years have yet to bring wealth.
    The former king, who came to the throne at the age of six and who fled in 1946 after communists rigged an election abolishing the monarchy, says he simply wants to serve his people and does not want his crown back.
    Boris died of a mystery illness in 1943 after a trip to Berlin, with many suspecting Nazis poisoned him to punish his refusal to send his troops to fight along with German forces.
    He was buried at Rila, but the communist authorities disinterred the body to prevent it becoming a focus of resistance and scattered it in parts. Only the heart was recovered to be reburied amid great ceremony in 1993.
    The monastery founded in the 14th century in snow-capped mountains 130 km (80 miles) southwest of Sofia was a focal point for national pride in the five centuries of repressive Ottoman rule that ended in 1878.
    The Pope has already boosted Bulgaria's self-esteem by dismissing any suggestion the country's communist-era secret services were linked to Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca in a plot to assassinate him in 1981. The Pope survived Agcas bullets.
    The 96th official foreign trip of the Polish-born Popes 23-year Pontificateon Sunday in Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second city and home to most of its 80,000-strong Roman Catholic minority.
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