Cathedral of the Sleeping of the Mother of God of Sofia
In Sofia there is no Catholic church dedicated to the Immaculate; the Latin cathedral of the capital is that of San José. The great Marian Catholic temple of the city is the Cathedral of the Sleep of the Mother of God (Uspie Bogorodichno), mother church of the Greek-Catholic Bulgarian epoch, which celebrates in Byzantine rite the glorious transit of the Virgin.
🌹 Wonders and anecdotes
- His first stone was placed on September 17, 1922 and the temple was completed on August 27, 1924, thanks to the commitment of Monsignor Vikenti Peev and the personal donations of the Pope Benedict XV and Pius XI.
- It was the first church built in concrete in Sofia, then erected on the outskirts of the city to attend to the Eastern Rite Catholics.
- With the arrival in 1925 of Monsignor Angelo Roncalli - the future Saint John XXIII - as an apostolic visitor in Bulgaria, the temple was linked to the organization of the Bulgarian Catholics of Byzantine rite, of whose epoch is today a cathedral.
- St. John Paul II prayed in this cathedral during his apostolic journey to Bulgaria in 2002; in 2019 Pope Francis raised the exarcate to full epoch, under the name of St. John XXIII of Sofia.
Sleep of the Mother of God
The Cathedral of the Sleep brings together the Bulgarian Catholics of Byzantine rite around the mystery of the transit of the Virgin. It was raised in 1924 with the help of two potatoes and visited by John Paul II, and is the Marian heart of Eastern Catholicism in Sofia.
"Mother of God, led to glory in body and soul, pray for us.
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