Vatican Wants to Return Bulgaria's Plaque from Rome

Politics » DIPLOMACY | January 7, 2011, Friday // 11:55
Bulgaria: Vatican Wants to Return Bulgaria's Plaque from Rome Bulgaria's PM Boyko Borisov at the opening of the new Bulgarian plaque in the church "San Vincenzo e Anastasio" in Rome in July 2010. Photo by BGNES

The plaque that the Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov opened last year in the church "San Vincenzo e Anastasio" in Rome has not been installed yet, Deutsche Welle has reported.

In July, Borisov made an official visit to Italy for the opening of the Bulgarian plaque in Rome.

According to the report, the Vatican wants to return the plaque to Bulgaria because the golden letters on it are too big and because the Bulgarians claimed it should be installed on the central wall of the church.

The plaque was also too big - 1 m in height and about 100 kg in weight - and that was yet another reason for the delay of its installment.

However, according to Deutsche Welle, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry has announced that this were not the real reasons. They have stated that a permission is required for the installment of the plaque and such was not requested.

"On November 22, 2002, His Holiness Pope John Paul II granted this gorgeous temple to the Bulgarian community in Italy, so that they can keep the Bulgarian spirituality and legacy of the two co-patrons of Europe, the holy brothers, St. Cyril and St. Methodius. From the grateful Bulgarian nation, 2010. Prime Minister Boyko Borisov," reads the plaque in both Bulgarian and Italian.

The spokesperson of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, Vesela Cherneva, has stated that the only problem is the text of the plaque.

In her words, since the church "San Vincenzo e Anastasio" is a Catholic Church and the text could be interpreted as suggesting that the temple was granted for use as Orthodox, the text needed further coordination.

Cherneva has explained that there is currently coordination with the Vatican, which should have happened before the opening of the plaque. In her words, there were different reasons for the lack of coordination.

The Foreign Minister spokesperson also refuted the information that the Vatican did not accept the big size of the plaque. She said that the size and the looks of it did not matter.

She also pointed out that there was no reason that the plaque would not be placed, but she did not specify an exact date when this would happen.

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Tags: Boyko Borisov, Vatican, Rome, plaque, Foreign Ministry, Vesela Cherneva, Italy

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