There is a theme emerging in these monthly round-ups, a theme of bookends! I’ve already pointed out that while July was bookended by happy gatherings of family and friends, August was similarly bookended with funerals. And now we come to September and we are back to happier bookends: city breaks.
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Is it ever OK to be late? It’s something I try my very best to avoid, but occasionally it can be a good thing, as in the case of Boris III of Bulgaria. This is the Hagia Nedelja church. The previous church on this spot was destroyed in a terrorist plot in 1925 to assassinate the king, Boris III. He was attending the funeral service of General Konstantin Georgiev, who had been killed in an assault two days previously, on 14 April of that year. The group from the Bulgarian Communist Party knew that in killing such a high powered…
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Sofia is the only city in Europe where you will find places of worship for four major religions almost within sight of each other. Clustered in the vicinity of its Square of Tolerance are: an Eastern Orthodox church; a Roman Catholic cathedral; a mosque and a synagogue. This embodies the pride that Bulgarians have in their history of religious tolerance. Unlike some other countries in the region, its different faith communities have tended to coexist peacefully.
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Before I came to Bulgaria’s capital I was warned that Sofia was not an especially attractive city and had little to see. I soon found out how wrong that is. In recent years the city has tidied itself up and done a lot to highlight its history, especially its Roman antiquities.
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Sofia’s St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is not only a place of worship but also a memorial and a symbol of gratitude – the gratitude of the Bulgarian people to the Russian and Bulgarian soldiers who had earned the country its freedom.
