Caught in the Middle: Europe and the Iran Crisis
Nobody asked Europe whether it wanted this war. The US and Israel acted alone on February 28th, and the continent woke up to a crisis it had no hand in starting but now has no choice but to navigate.
None of Religion's Business
- Tweet
Send to Kindle
Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (Sofia Photo Agency)
By Milena Hristova
My mom and dad used to call me a princess, but recent events show it is high time that I picked a much more prestigious "title". Titles, after all, have always been an important thing. During the communist times it was a really big deal if you were an engineer, lawyer, director of a directorate or an honored artist, so that you could put a title before your name.
The tradition has been revived, together with a virtually dead for the Orthodox world title - the archon. A businessman, known best for his striptease club, was conferred in Rome the title for his "contribution to the church and humankind welfare". The Vatican envoy interfered and this brought the apparently religious scandal down to the laymen's world of politicians.
Bulgaria will surely not benefit from blowing up the scandal, but it is scandalizing enough to speak for itself.
It speaks of the chaos that reigns in the Bulgarian church, its business-like operations that split it into two synods and left it with none in the end.
Money and avidity for real estate properties have been at the bottom of the smouldering and now and then exploding disagreements in the Bulgarian church. What clergymen actually do is take even further the degrading process in the "holy" institution, which was first started by the state itself decades ago. As they get smarter and smarter, better acquainted with obsolete and non-Orthodox titles and... corruption practices.
The question remains what a businessman could benefit from being crowned an archon. All the more so if he has paid BGN 300, 000 to get it...
My mom and dad used to call me a princess, but recent events show it is high time that I picked a much more prestigious "title". Titles, after all, have always been an important thing. During the communist times it was a really big deal if you were an engineer, lawyer, director of a directorate or an honored artist, so that you could put a title before your name.
The tradition has been revived, together with a virtually dead for the Orthodox world title - the archon. A businessman, known best for his striptease club, was conferred in Rome the title for his "contribution to the church and humankind welfare". The Vatican envoy interfered and this brought the apparently religious scandal down to the laymen's world of politicians.
Bulgaria will surely not benefit from blowing up the scandal, but it is scandalizing enough to speak for itself.
It speaks of the chaos that reigns in the Bulgarian church, its business-like operations that split it into two synods and left it with none in the end.
Money and avidity for real estate properties have been at the bottom of the smouldering and now and then exploding disagreements in the Bulgarian church. What clergymen actually do is take even further the degrading process in the "holy" institution, which was first started by the state itself decades ago. As they get smarter and smarter, better acquainted with obsolete and non-Orthodox titles and... corruption practices.
The question remains what a businessman could benefit from being crowned an archon. All the more so if he has paid BGN 300, 000 to get it...
Their Names Must Not Be Forgotten: Bulgarians Who Fell in Ukraine
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it did not count on one thing: that among the defenders standing in its way would be Bulgarians.
The Caretaker Republic: How Bulgaria Learned to Govern Without Governing
Bulgaria has a constitution, a parliament, and a president. What it has struggled to maintain, with remarkable consistency over the past decade, is an actual functioning government. Since 2021 alone, the country has cycled through five caretaker cabinets,
More Than a Budget Crisis: Bulgaria's Gen-Z Demands a Political Reckoning
On the evening of December 1, 2025, Bulgaria witnessed its most significant popular mobilization since the 1990s
How many Times were Diplomatic Relations between Russia and Bulgaria Severed
If we look at history, there are not many cases in which relations between Bulgaria and Russia at the state level were as bad as they are at the moment.
Boycott of Moscow's Victory Day Parade Helps New Iron Curtain Fall
The term “Iron Curtain” was not coined by Winston Churchill, but it was he who turned it into one of the symbols of the latter part of the twentieth century by using it in his famous Fulton speech of 1946.
