Bulgaria’s Patriarch Maxim to Be Named Honorary Sofia Citizen

22/11/2011

Bulgaria’s 97-year-old Patriarch Maxim will be declared an honorary citizen of the country’s capital Sofia, it was made clear on Monday.

The Patriarch’s honorary citizenship has been proposed by Mayor Yordanka Fandakova and Municipal Council chairman Andrey Ivanov, as well as other local officials, and is intended to mark Maxim’s 40th anniversary as head of the Bulgarian Orthodox church.

The Municipal Council will vote on the proposal on Thursday.

Maxim was born October 29, 1914 in the village of Oreshak, near Troyan in central northern Bulgaria as Marin Naydenov Minkov.

In 1938 he enrolled as a student at the Faculty of Theology at Sofia University, and in December 1941 he enlisted as a monk at Troyan Monastery.

He was chosen Patriarch by the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church on July 4, 1971.

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