Europe 2019 - Day 37 (Part 3)

12 June 2019, Wednesday

Now to the present, and let me start with places of worship. The St Nikolai Russian church was built especially for the needs of the Russian immigrants in Sofia, between 1907-1914. It was built at the site of the Saray mosque which was destroyed in 1882. It is designed in the typical Russian medieval style. It’s really a beautiful church.

Next, the St Nedelya Cathedral Church, an Orthodox Church. Nearly 75% of the population here are Orthodox Christians. From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the church guards the relics of Serbian King Ştefan Uros II, declared a saint. It was built in 1867. In 1925, there was a communist revolution with a plot to kill the King of Bulgaria when he attended a funeral at this church. The church was bombed and almost completely destroyed, but the King survived as he arrived late. I guess sometimes it’s good to be late.

Then the Cathedral of St Joseph which is a Roman Catholic cathedral. It was rebuilt and inaugurated in 2006 in its original location after air raids in WW II completely destroyed it. The foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid personally by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Bulgaria in 2002. It is the largest Catholic cathedral in Bulgaria. 

Next, the Banya-Bashi Mosque which is a remnant of the 500 years of Ottoman Empire occupation in Bulgaria, built sometime in 1553, and is still being used as a mosque by the minority Muslims in Sofia. It was designed by the Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan and made of red bricks and stones. The name means “many baths” because it was built over the natural mineral springs. 

Then the Synagogue. It was built in 1909 on the site of the old Sofia Synagogue. It is the largest synagogue in the Balkan Peninsula and the third largest in Europe. There is a story here about Bulgarian Jews. As I mentioned earlier, Bulgaria was on the losing side in both World Wars. During WW II, the orders were given to deport all Jews to concentration camps. In Bulgaria, the government received some leaked information that the Jews are in fact being sent to their deaths. Since they were Bulgarians, the government did not want that for their citizens; at the same time woe to those who dared defy the Fuhrer. 

So they created concentration camps of their own in Bulgaria, and some 48,000 Bulgarian Jews were placed in these camps, the men made to do labour work such as building roads etc. So when Nazi Germany asked about the Jews, the Bulgarian government said “yes, we will send them but later, now they work for us.” And always later, later, but the later never came in the end. There is also a story about how, once, the Bulgarian government could not delay the inevitable anymore and loaded some Jews into trains bound for concentration camps. The bishop of the Orthodox Church heard about this and went to the train station and stopped the deportation, saying they are Bulgarians first, Jews second. In this way, about 48,000 Bulgarian Jews were saved from persecution.

However, there were some 11,000 Jews from both Northern Greece and parts of ex-Yugoslavia which were under Bulgarian administration at that time, who were deported and murdered in the Treblinka death camp. After WW II, many Jews left Bulgaria for Israel; hence there is only 1 synagogue in Sofia.

In this regard, there is also the Monument of Salvation as an acknowledgement of the efforts of members of Parliament, leaders of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, public figures, intellectuals and others for the prevention of the deportation to the Nazi death camps and the physical annihilation of more than 48,000 Bulgarian Jews, and also as a remembrance for the more than 11,000 Jews from other territories under Bulgarian administration who were unfortunately sent to their deaths.

This area is known as the Square of Tolerance due to the close proximity of the different places of worship - the Orthodox Christian church, the Catholic Church, the Mosque and the Synagogue. It is kind of cool.