site.btaVazrazhdane Will Request Meeting with Patriarch Daniil Over Introduction of Virtues and Religion Subject in Schools

Speaking in the parliamentary lobby on Thursday, Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov said that the party will request a meeting with Patriarch Daniil regarding a bill on the introduction of the subject Virtues and Religion in Bulgarian schools, which was rejected on Wednesday by the parliamentary committee on human rights and religious affairs.

Kostadinov said the party will resubmit the bill after the required legal waiting period.

“We will request a meeting with Patriarch Daniil, at which we will say that in this situation it is appropriate, not only for the Bulgarian Patriarchate but also for the other long-established religious denominations in Bulgaria, to come out with a clear appeal to the Bulgarian Prime Minister to fulfill at least what he promised during his election campaign,” he said.

Kostadinov explained that at Wednesday’s committee meeting, the strongest opposition to the bill came from representatives of Progressive Bulgaria.

Six days ago, there was a meeting between Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radevand Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil, concerning issues related to the introduction of religious education in schools. For us, it remains extremely inexplicable why yesterday the strongest opposition to introducing such a subject in Bulgarian schools came precisely from representatives of Progressive Bulgaria, some of whom, incidentally, demonstrated a remarkable level of ignorance by claiming that there are no qualified people in Bulgaria to teach such a subject, despite the fact that we have not one but two theological faculties from which, over the decades, thousands of highly qualified theologians have graduated,” Kostadinov said.

According to him, immediately after the meeting, a statement was published on the website of the Council of Ministers stating that the topic of introducing the subject had been specifically discussed.

“If Rumen Radev’s position has not changed, it means he does not control his own group. If, on the other hand, he does control his group and they voted against it, then this means that Rumen Radev last week lied not to just anyone, but to His Holiness the Bulgarian Patriarch,” Kostadinov said.