Bulgarian Patriarch Neofit has announced that Znepol Bishop Yoan (John) has been elected Varna and Veliki Preslav Metropolitan.

He has collected 9 votes, while 3 votes have been cast for Melnik Bishop Seraphim.

The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church held Sunday a meeting to elect a Metropolitan of Varna among these two top runners for the post.

Znepol Bishop Yoan (his secular name is Ivo Ivanov) was born in 1969 in the southern city of Yambol. He graduated from the Faculty of Theology at the University of Sofia. Later, he specialized in the Moscow Theological Academy Trinity - Sergiev Lavra. In 1998, Yoan joined as novice the Kokalyane monastery where Archimandrite Nazariy was his spiritual father.

In 1999, he was ordained priest-monk in Sofia's cathedral Sveta Nedelya (St. Sunday). In 2002, he accepted to be appointed coadjutor of the Diocese of Sofia and late Bulgarian Patriarch Maxim made him Archimandrite. Yoan became Bishop in 2007 and since then he is vicar of the Metropolitan of Sofia.

Yoan and Seraphim were selected last Sunday as the two finalists for the post of Varna and Veliki Preslav Metropolitan.