 | Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia G.G. Stefan (1) "Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC) is the natural continuation of the Archepiscopy of Ohrid which had autocephaly during all of its existence until it was illegally annulled by the Ottoman sultan in 1767. One year earlier the same sultan annulled the Archepiscopy of Pekj and much earlier also Archepiscopy of Trnovo". This as "Dnevnik" writes, was stated by chief of MOC g.g. Stefan in interview for Serbian newspaper "Politika". G.g. Stefan stated that in Macedonia in 1959 and later in 1967 no new church was created, but it is continuation of Archepiscopy of Ohrid, i.e. renewed church of St. Kliment. According to him, from the three centers of Balkan - Ohrid, Trnovo and Pekj came three autocephaly churches - Macedonian Orthodox Church, Bulgarian Orthodox Church and Serbian Church. "This succession is clear, correct and historically confirmed because each of these three churches was spiritually connected to its nation. Macedonian nation was last in procedure for renewing of its ancient church because this nation was last from Balkan nations which gained its independence - state, language, cultural and church independence", stated g.g. Stefan for "Politika". |
 | Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia G.G. Stefan (2) "Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC) is the natural continuation of the Archepiscopy of Ohrid which had autocephaly during all of its existence until it was illegally annulled by the Ottoman sultan in 1767. One year earlier the same sultan annulled the Archepiscopy of Pekj and much earlier also Archepiscopy of Trnovo". This as "Dnevnik" writes, was stated by chief of MOC g.g. Stefan in interview for Serbian newspaper "Politika". G.g. Stefan stated that in Macedonia in 1959 and later in 1967 no new church was created, but it is continuation of Archepiscopy of Ohrid, i.e. renewed church of St. Kliment. According to him, from the three centers of Balkan - Ohrid, Trnovo and Pekj came three autocephaly churches - Macedonian Orthodox Church, Bulgarian Orthodox Church and Serbian Church. "This succession is clear, correct and historically confirmed because each of these three churches was spiritually connected to its nation. Macedonian nation was last in procedure for renewing of its ancient church because this nation was last from Balkan nations which gained its independence - state, language, cultural and church independence", stated g.g. Stefan for "Politika". |
 | INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT BULGARIA AND THE BULGARIANS READ 21 INTERESTING FACTS : 1.Bulgaria is one of the oldest European countries and is the only one that hasn't changed its namе ever since it was founded. 2.According to the statistics , Bulgaria ranks third in Europe only after Greece and Italy for the number of its valuable archeological monuments. 3.The recognition of the autocephalous Bulgarian Patriarchate by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 927 AD makes the Bulgarian Orthodox Church the oldest autocephalous Slavic Orthodox Church in the world. 4.The bulgarian autocephalous status preceded the autocephaly of the Serbian Orthodox Church (1219) by 292 years and of the Russian Orthodox Church (1589) by 662 years. 5.In 716 AD , the Bulgarians saved EUROPE from islamization .In 716 AD, the Bulgarians under the command of Kanasubigi Tervel came forward at the gates of Constantinople to help the Byzantines against the muslim threat. In a crucial battle in 718 AD the Bulgarian cavalry defeated the Arabs. "The Bulgarians assaulted the Arabs, slaying many of them... They were more afraid of the Bulgarians than of the Byzantines," reads the account of an Arab chronicler of Kanas Tervel's sweeping victory which left between 60 000 and 90 000 (by different sources) Arabs dead. This blow put an end to the muslim Arabs attempting to penetrate into the Old Continent through the Balkan Peninsula.The western chronicians called Tervel "The saviour of Europe" ! 6.The Bulgarians were the first people to use the Cyrillic alphabet immediately after its inception in the 9th century. 7.With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on January 1, 2007, Cyrillic became the third official alphabet of the EU. ( Bulgaria is the second EU country, after Greece, that use a non-Latin alphabet and the first to use Cyrillic, which originated in the medieval Bulgarian Empire.) 8.Bulgaria and Denmark were the only European countries to save their Jews during the Holocaust. 9.The Bulgarian Army is the only force in the world which has never lost a single flag , although it actively participated in all major wars in Europe since the end of the nineteenth century. 10.The first air-dropped bomb in military history was developed by the Bulgarian Air Force during the First Balkan War, and used on 16 October 1912 by Lieuts . Radul Milkov and Prodan Tarakchiev. 11.Rayna Kasabova was the first woman ever to take part in a combat air mission, accomplished on 30 October 1912. 12.The first wrestler in the world with 1500 wins and only 2 lost matches is the Bulgarian -- Dan Kolov . 13.World's first digital wristwatch was developed by the Bulgarian Peter Petroff. 14.The inventor of the first electronic computer John Vincent Atanassoff is of Bulgarian origin. Professor John Atanassoff, together with graduate student Clifford Berry, built the world's first electronic digital computer, at Iowa State University, between 1939 and 1942. 15.Bulgaria is second in the world in international IQ tests and SAT scores and fourth in the world in per capita university education after the U.S., Japan, and the United Kingdom. 16.Bulgaria has established itself as a preferred tourist destination, with 5 million tourists (in 2005), visiting its spa, mountain and sea resorts as well as its archaeological sites and cultural monuments. 17.The oldest golden treasure in the world was found in Bulgaria(In 294 graves were discovered more than 3000 golden objects dating back 6000 years). 18.The only nations in the world that use the bagpipe as a typical national instrument are Bulgaria , Ireland and Scotland. 19.As a Consultative Party to the Antarctic Treaty, Bulgaria takes part in the governing of Antarctica (since 1998 ). 20.Over 70,000 traditional bulgarian folk songs have been collected at the Folklore Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. 21.The bulgarian folk song "Izlel e Delio Haidutin" was sent in deep space on the board of the US Space Probe -Voyager I as part of a collection of our Civilization's finest cultural artefacts - a message to an alien intelligence. PS All those facts have been checked many times from many sources for mistakes and incorrectness! |
 | God Save The Royal House of Bagrationi & The United Georgian Kingdom In 1783 Erekle II Bagrationi, king of Kartli-Kakheti (Eastern Georgian Kingdom) signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with Russia, according to which his kingdom (including Georgian little town Tskhinvali) was to receive Russian protection. But Russians withdrew their troops from the region, leaving Erekle's kingdom unprotected. In 1795, the Persian shah, Agha Mohammed Khan, invaded the country and burnt the capital, Tbilisi, to the ground. After Erekle's and George XII's death, Tsar Paul I of Russia signed a decree on the incorporation of Eastern Georgia (Kartli-Kakheti) within the Russian Empire, which was confirmed by Tsar Alexander I on September 12, 1801. The Georgian Royal envoy in Saint Petersburg, Garsevan Chavchavadze, reacted with a note of protest that was presented to the Russian vice-chancellor Alexander Kurakin. In May 1801 Russian General Carl Heinrich Knorring removed the Georgian heir to the throne David Bagrationi from power and deployed a provisional government headed by General Ivan Petrovich Lasarev. Georgian nobility did not accept the decree until April 1802 when General Knorring held the nobility in Tbilisi's Sioni Cathedral and forced them to take an oath on the imperial crown of Russia. Those who disagreed were arrested. Newly established Russian administration started deporting the members of 1300 year old Georgian Royal Dynasty Bagrationi to Russia. On April 22, 1803, the Russian soldiers arrived at Queen's mansion and General Lazarev ordered Mariam (Maria, the Last Queen of Eastern Georgia) to get up and be ready for departure, but the queen refused to follow him. The general then took hold of her foot, to make her rise from the cushion on which she was sitting, surrounded by her sleeping children. Mariam, indignant at the attempt to take her by force, drew the dagger from beneath the cushion and stabbed Lazarev, killing him on the spot. Lazarev's interpreter drew his saber, and gave her a wound in the head, so that she fell down insensible. The soldiers burst into the bedroom and arrested the queen and her children. Escorted by a considerable armed force, they were carried away to Russia through the Daryal Pass. During her passage through Georgia, the inhabitants came out to testify their loyalty to the queen and bade her farewell. The tragic story of Queen Mariam was described in several contemporary accounts, based on the reports of eye-witnesses, and found its place in European literature of that time. In 1811, the autocephaly (i.e. independent status) of the 1500 years old Orthodox Church of Iveria and Tron of the Patriarch was abolished, the Catholicos-Patriarch Anton II was deported to Russia. After the conquest of Western Georgian Kingdom by Imperial Russia in 1810, the last king and the last Georgian Bagrationi ruler Solomon II fled to the Ottoman possessions in Trabzond where he died in 1815. In 1814, the Western Georgian Patriarchate of Abkhazia-Imeretia was also abolished, by the Russian authorities and annexed to the Exarchate of Georgia, a subdivision of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose part it was until the restoration of the unified and autocephalous Georgian Orthodox Church in 1917. The Patriarchs of Abkhazia-Imeretia mostly came from the leading Georgian noble houses, and were able to support the church financially and secure its continuous involvement in the political and cultural life of western Georgia during many centuries. Their spiritual jurisdiction extended over the Kingdom of Imereti and its vassal principalities -- Guria, Mingrelia, Svaneti and Abkhazia. They considered themselves as vicars of St.Andrew who, according to a medieval Georgian tradition, preached Christianity in western Georgia, then known to the Classical authors as Colchis (Kolkhida). In the latter part of the 16th century, Catholicos Eudemos I (Chkheidze) had to move his residence from Bichvinta (Pitsunda), Abkhazia to the Gelati Monastery at Kutaisi, fleeing the Ottoman and north caucasian pagan and muslim ethnic groups expansion into Abkhazia and western Mengrelia. |
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