We are seeking individuals and families with Bulgarian background and/or an abiding interest in Bulgarian heritage, residing in the greater Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland area, interested in forming a new Bulgarian Orthodox Church Mission Parish under the Washington, D.C. Archdiocese of the Orthodox Church of America (OCA). There is no other Bulgarian Orthodox Church under the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. of the OCA. The OCA Archdiocese of Washington is headed by the Metropolitan of the whole OCA, Metropolitan Herman, and being a part of this Archdiocese would associate us communally with American, Serbian, Russian, Romanian and other sister OCA Orthodox churches in the greater Washington metropolitan area including the national OCA cathedral parish, St. Nicholas.  It would also provide us visibility and fraternal association with numerous other Orthodox jurisdictions such as the Antiochian, Greek, Ukrainian and others that regularly attend OCA events.

 ABOUT THE OCA
 IDEA FOR A NEW CHURCH AND HISTORICAL
 FOCUS
 INTENTIONS
 METHOD
 WHY THE OCA in the WASHINGTON ARCHDIOCESE?
 HOW TO JOIN THE FOUNDERS
 EXAMPLES OF INFORMATION for the FOUNDERS

ABOUT THE OCA
The OCA is a canonical jurisdiction, given autocephaly by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970 and conceived as American Orthodox.  The OCA contains many heritages of Orthodox including Czechs, Macedonians, Serbs, Russians, Belorussians, Carpathorussians, Ukrainians, Poles and Albanians, among others,  as well as the majority of Macedonian/Bulgarian parishes formed in the US starting in 1903. Additionally, interest in Orthodoxy is growing in the United States resulting in many converts.  The OCA has services in many languages that individual parishes have chosen .  Many of its churches, cathedrals, seminaries and monasteries conduct services in English.  OCA parishioners need not have any particular citizenship status to be members, but should be Orthodox.  People interested in learning about Orthodoxy are welcome.
 

IDEA FOR A NEW CHURCH AND HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS.
The idea to begin a new parish in Washington originated at a well-attended church service on 9 March, 2002 among former parishioners of St. George Church (OCA) and other Bulgarian residents in the area. Many present at this service expressed interest in starting a new parish with Father Dimitar Neitchev, former priest at St. George Bulgarian Orthodox Church of the OCA, as its priest.  This would make official Father Neitchev’s large role in unselfishly serving as a priest at large to the Bulgarian community.

OCA Bulgarian Orthodox Community  Father Neitchev’s firing by the parish council president at St. George Bulgarian Church had previously caused a migration of the majority of parishioners despite the fact that many parishioners had worked long to build a church in the Washington area. He was the seventh priest to be fired or resign in the past twenty years in this parish that is closely held by a small group and controls access to information going to and from the church via one personal and private post office box and a personal telephone number.  It has had no parish priest for four years and holds services in rental space in a Carpathorussian Orthodox Church under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, utilizing substitute priests inconsistently on a biweekly basis with summers off.    St. George parish has bought property in Adelphi, Maryland and has substantial sums with which to finance a church building.  If the parish resolves its problems at some later date, it might make a good parish convenient for people in Maryland to attend but is now reduced to a skeleton of its former membership.  Parish members worked over four years to resolve majority issues in the parish without success.  The majority of current and potential parishioners lives in or very near Washington, D.C., wish a national focus, and need an accessible church location for a large number of potential parishioners using public transportation.

BOC Bulgarian Community  Recently, a number of current parishioners of St. John of Rila Church, already having lost their pastor and about to lose their church building, have expressed interest in joining this core group. At a service and picnic meeting officiated by Metropolitan Josif, presiding US, Canadian and Australian Archbishop for the Bulgarian Patriarchate in Sofia, suggested that the flock of St. John of Rila should seek to heal Bulgarian community divisions and join into one community as a first focus, and that jurisdiction of church membership is of lesser importance. He stated that the necessarily new parish to replace the Church property on Van Buren Street about to be sold, could be either under him, i.e. the BOC, or under the OCA.  No proceeds from the sale of the Church building would be forthcoming to the existing parish.  He stated that he had attended numerous OCA and SCOBA (Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in America, of which both the BOC and OCA are members) events, which included OCA bishops.  Some Washington area Bulgarian Orthodox currently maintain membership in both the OCA and BOC church communities. Two recent priests of St. John of Rila BOC have resigned and no other priest has been reassigned.  The Orthodox community at St. John of Rila should form a new church by themselves, in the Metropolitan’s opinion.  A parish in Chicago had recently been successful in forming a new parish, for example, drawing form a diaspora four times the size of the Washington, D.C. Bulgarian community.  Although on leave of absence, Father Rosen Radev, who served St. John of Rila for eight years before requesting a leave of absence, has indicated a willingness to help his Orthodox brothers and sisters in a transition to a new parish in his spare time for six months.

Combined Factors The fact that in the past two years the OCA and the BOC have had close relations is a hopeful precedent for bring the OCA and BOC Bulgarian Orthodox communities together.  At every major feast, the diptychs are sung in the OCA cathedral in Washington, intoning and proclaiming “To Maxim, Patriarch of Bulgaria, Many Years!”  Two years ago, Metropolitan Josif of the BOC and Bishop Kiril, head of the Bulgarian Archdiocese of the OCA sat at the same table together at a SCOBA meeting.  And the OCA is used to fraternity between its heritage speaking parishes and their mother church equivalents.  For example, a close fraternity exists between the OCA and Moscow Patriarchal churches in Baltimore and here in Washington, while there is a tiny representative Patriarchal church on the property of the Russian Embassy grounds, the majority of staff attend the OCA cathedral as does the entire Georgian Orthodox community of Washington, the representative of the Serbian Orthodox Church in America and many English speakers. When the Georgian Patriarch and other representatives of Patriarchates, Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches come to Washington, they come to the OCA cathedral in addition to their own representative churches in the US.   Bulgarians and other Orthodox peoples of the Balkans have over a hundred years relationship with the OCA in America and Canada. So there is precedent for the Bulgarian Patriarchal parish members joining the OCA.

FOCUS
Our desire as a combined community committee is to expand Orthodoxy by attracting people of Bulgarian and other backgrounds committed to preserving Bulgarian Orthodox religious traditions. We wish to build a self- sustaining permanent home for Bulgarian religious and communal events.  We are interested in promoting and becoming the focal point for Bulgarian culture in the nation’s capital and maintaining a cooperative relationship with area folk groups, artists and the Bulgarian embassy for joint secular activities.  We are adverse to any politicalization of the Holy Church.

INTENTIONS
As a part of the Orthodox Church of America, our church mission is intended to be:

1. Canonical and Democratic - An OCA church led by an elected church board with a church constitution.
2. Financially Independent - We will have our own budget and accounts.  All donations will belong to the church and accounting will be transparent with oversight and regular reports to parishioners. The OCA Synod would initially help the church to become established but the congregation would be expected to raise its own self-sustaining funds including funds for maintaining salaries for clergy, for church buildings and for events.
3. Ownership - The future church buildings would belong to the parish congregation, not to the OCA Synod. The OCA Synod would not sell anything belonging to the church congregation.
4. Language - Church services are proposed to be in Church Slavonic (OCS), Bulgarian rescension, in order to attract numerous peoples that follow the same Orthodox customs and traditions and to reflect the fact that all Bulgarian parishes in Washington, D.C. to date have preferred and are used to this language.  Sermons, the Nicene Creed and the Lord’s Prayer and announcements would be in Bulgarian and English. Language use is still open to discussion but should reflect the most easily understood common languages of the parish in order to keep intelligible the Word of God and our holy services.    We would hope to have a weekly Orthodox bulletin that would also list upcoming cultural events in Bulgarian and English.  We have already established the basis of a website.
5. Cultural Traditions - Our Church congregation intends to support and encourage Bulgarian culture by organizing celebrations of traditional Bulgarian Orthodox religious feasts and practices, Bulgarian heritage events such as Letter Day, Bulgarian music concerts and traditional dance parties, Bulgarian language acquisition and Bulgarian cooking.
6. Commitment - members of the church would commit to paying annual membership dues, yet to be determined, and to actively involving themselves in Church community life.  Common area annual church dues in the Washington area range from $50-200 per person and $100-400 per family with the expectation that beyond the maintenance dues, individuals and families would be expected to substantially contribute to the church on a regular weekly basis both financially and physically, by providing time and labor to the glory of God. Money spent on church contributions yields benefits to members of normal Orthodox parishes in preserving family life, community and heritage.  We intend to build the kind of parish community where going to Church is an expected opportunity to” lay aside all earthly cares” (Cherubimic Hymn) and partake of the mystical supper in beauty and in peace, with both children and adults encouraged to grow in our Faith.
7. Organizations - We intend to expand our existing Women’s organization and Choir and intend to establish a valuable Church School, Language School, Theological Study group and a group for Orthodox enquirers so that people can learn more about Orthodoxy in Bulgarian and English.  The last would be a chance for people raised in atheist or other than Orthodox backgrounds to learn about the fundamentals of Orthodoxy and hopefully decide to join our Faith, or improve their knowledge of the Faith.  A primary goal is to have both a church and a community center.  The community center would operate for the entire Bulgarian community and as a showplace for Bulgarian culture, which people could join regardless of religion or ethnicity, but also be available for parish activities.  The choir, if it can enlarge, would seek, for example to showcase the many jewels of Bulgarian Orthodox church music and join with other Washington area choirs in multi-parish choir events like the yearly Diocesan Day choir and at choir festivals.
8. Democracy - We are committed to democracy and openness in all our Church affairs. To that end, we are open to all suggestions on how to form, improve, and conceptualize the new parish.  We want everyone to commit themselves and their families to participating in an active parish and hope that our parish becomes the center of their Orthodox lifestyle and social life.  We need and welcome your expertise, ideas and involvement. We appreciate any donations and will be setting up a specific church account upon approval from the OCA for a mission parish.
9. Citizenship Status - Citizenship is not necessary to be a member of our new Church.  Only Orthodox Christians may be voting members of the parish or take communion, but all peoples are encouraged to come and share the communal bread, nafora after our services and be an honored part of our community.    Orthodox and non-Orthodox may be members of our cultural association. People interested in Orthodoxy and/or Bulgarian culture are encouraged to join and support us.
10. A mission parish is intended as a beginning parish with outreach to the community.  As Orthodox Christians we do not openly proselytize but make the tenets of Orthodoxy readily available to enquirers and try, under spiritual direction, to live the kind of lives so that people not yet Orthodox “will see [our] good works and glorify our Father Who is in Heaven.” We hope our parish will grow beyond Mission Church status to be financially stable enough to support clergy, a permanent church and a community center.
11. We want to help those people halfway between being members of Bulgarian and other secular or atheist culture and being members of the Church to be baptized and/or chrysmated (Chrysmation is the ceremony necessary to joining the Orthodox Church, usually appended to infant baptism but often performed for adults), have their previous secular marriages sanctified in the Church, and provide a venue for such normal Orthodox services as morning and evening and liturgical services, baptisms, weddings, prayers before travel, unction for the ill, and memorial and burial services for those brother and sisters in Christ who have fallen asleep.  And wouldn’t it be beautiful to showcase Bulgarian Orthodox holy days in Washington!
12. We would like to provide outreach to Balkan Orthodox students at area colleges and universities.
13. We want to focus on being a real neighborhood type community, getting to know the hopes, desires and interests of each and every one of the parishioners in our parish family so that we can help each others lives.  We want to consistently prove to the Washington, D.C. area that Bulgarian Orthodox are something special.
 
METHOD.
We will be seeking approval of the formation of our parish by Metropolitan Herman, head of the OCA in America and Bishop of Washington.  We will elect our own Patron Saint for our Church and choose our favored calendar!

To date, our committee has organized several religious services, cultural events and conducted an exploratory meeting with the OCA.  We requested information on how to canonically form a new parish, requested reinstatement of Father Dimitar Neitchev as an OCA priest to continue providing interim services and have promised to compose a list of those individuals committed to being members of a new parish, list events held to date, and indicate a commitment to a particular calendar.  We will then meet with the Chancellor of the OCA, Reverend Kondratick, and Metropolitan Herman, the OCA spiritual leader.  As a mission parish, we would be eligible for some small organizing funds. We already have the support of two large churches in the Washington, D.C. area for space for services and church communal events.  The Bulgarian community is already well organized for social events.   On the calendar issue it has been noted that the Bulgarian Patriarchate in Sofia is new calendar, like the majority of Antiochian, Greek Orthodox and OCA parishes, but that the majority of Orthodox worldwide are old calendar including the Belorussians, Carpathorussians, Macedonians, Serbs, Russians and Ukrainians.  Many conservative Orthodox in Bulgaria are also committed to the old calendar.  In the OCA, a parish may choose either the Julian (old) or the Gregorian (new), and may change its parish calendar at a later date. The founding member list will vote on its preferred calendar.

WHY THE OCA in the WASHINGTON ARCHDIOCESE?
Because belonging to the Washington Archdiocese would provide a national and international focus, because Bishop of the OCA’s “Bulgarian Archdiocese”, Kiril, is extremely busy as the Bishop of Pittsburgh and unable to come to Washington on a regular basis, because the Bishop of Washington, Metropolitan Herman, is regularly in Washington and able to provide spiritual help to the parish on a regular basis, because the committee for a new parish has no desire to compete with St. George parish in the Bulgarian Archdiocese in any way, because the committee wishes a focus on inclusion rather than divisive politics, and because the Bulgarian and Bulgarian American community in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. area is large enough to support more than one parish, and because being a part of a geographic rather than an ethnic jursidiction gives us more flexibility, the organizing committee has already determined that it wishes to apply as a parish in the Washington, D.C. Archdiocese of the OCA.

Certain members of the greater Washington OCA community have family members who have suffered under the former communist Bulgarian Orthodox Church and cannot in their generation accept belonging to the official BOC at this time even as they currently acclaim it and pray for its future. A healthy Orthodox church, in our opinion, is one in which the parishioners feel secure enough to regularly seek spiritual direction through confession, without fear, so that they may regularly take communion, to “Receive the Body and Blood of Christ, taste the Fountain of Immortality/ Тялото Христово приемете, извора  на безсмъртието вкусете."   The OCA has an impeccable anti-communist past.

HOW TO JOIN THE FOUNDERS LIST.
 
You have a unique opportunity to become a founding member of our new parish church by means of mailing or emailing your name, home address, an email address (optional) and day and evening telephone numbers.  Include the following statement of, using the options in brackets for single individuals
“[I]/ We wish to become [a] founding [member]/ members of a new OCA Mission Parish for the Bulgarian community in the Washington D.C. Archdiocese.”  After your address, telephone number and email address, include your suggestion/s for Church Patron name and choice of old or new church calendar.  Patron names suggested so far include Saint Petka, Saint Nedelja, Saints Kiril and Metodi, Saint Panteleimon, Saint John of Rila, Saint George the Great Martyr, Saint Dimitri of Salonika, Saint Nestor of Salonika, Saint John Kukuzeles, Saint Clement/Kliment of Ohrid, Saint Naum and Falling Asleep of the Birthgiver of God/Uspenje Bogorodica. You may mention more than one patron name for the church that you like.   Patron names will be narrowed down to a popular list and voted upon again by our list of founding members.   One suggestion is that we not choose the name of any existing parish in the Washington, D.C. or Baltimore area in order to retain our uniqueness and not be confused with any other parish.

All information provided will be kept completely private and provided to no one else outside the founding members list collectors except officials of the OCA who will themselves be committed to privacy of information.  Here are examples to indicate how to provide us information to join our founders’ list.  Note that names, addresses, telephone numbers and statements of desire to join a Bulgarian parish of the OCA are essential ;  other information is optional but useful.  Persons interested in becoming Orthodox may declare as catechumens.  Persons who belong to another faith but who may attend church with an Orthodox spouse or friend (but cannot take communion in the Orthodox Church until conversion) should state their current religion.  Anyone wishing to have their communist or secular marriage blessed by the Church may request a service of Orthodox marriage, and may wish to state this. We wish to organize services that focus on facilitating having Orthodoxy being a normal part of daily life. Examples:

EXAMPLES OF INFORMATION for the FOUNDERS LIST

Example 1, for a family:  We wish to become founding members of a new OCA Mission parish for the Bulgarian community in the Washington D.C. Archdiocese:
Ivan Ivanov
Ivanka Ivanova
Robert Ivanov, age 2
Roberta Ivanova, age 2
Rumen Ivanov, age 7
1234 Memory Lane
Apartment 567
Arlington, VA , 55555-1234
703-522-2225 (work, Ivan)
703-225-5222 (work, Ivanka)
703-355-5553 (home)
Ivanovi5@aol.com
Votes for patron saint:  St. Clement of Ohrid(1), St. Michael the Archangel (1), St. Nicholas (3 votes– the children)
Vote for language of services:  OCS and Bulgarian and Macedonian
Calendar vote:  I like the old Julian calendar
Ideas and skills:  We suggest initiating a nursery, kindergarten and primary school as a way for the church to make money and sustain itself.  Ivan would like to provide his services as an accountant to the new church.  Ivanka would like to offer her services as a  nursery school teacher to the church.  We had a secular marriage service and wish to have an Orthodox service to bless our fine marriage.  We have not yet baptized out twins and need kumovi.

Example 2, for a single person:
I wish to become a member of a new OCA Mission parish for the Bulgarian community in the Washington D.C. Archdiocese:
Antonina Daskalova
89 Choctaw Place
Bethesda, MD, , 55555-1234
310-998-8999
Patron saint vote: St. Anthony
Calendar vote:  I like the new Gregorian calendar
Ideas and skills:  As a great Bulgarian cook, according to my grandchildren, I could cook for church events and offer cooking lessons for a small fee as a money making idea for the church.  Teaching Bulgarian cooking would help maintain Bulgarian culture and introduce Bulgarian food to the Washington, D.C. community.  If enough people in the parish learn good Bulgarian cooking, perhaps our church could have a catering facility to sustain itself.

Example 3, for a married couple where one is Orthodox and the other not Orthodox
We wish to become members of the Bulgarian OCA Mission Church in the Washington Archdiocese.
Iskren Arturov, Orthodox
Jasmin Arturov, Muslim/Roman Catholic/Protestant/agnostic/athiest
787-B Variety Court
Baltimore, MD, 22222-4444
Patron Saint vote:  Saint Prophet Ilja
Calendar:  I like the new calendar
Ideas and skills:  As a physician specializing in geriatrics, my dream is to start an Orthodox retirement community and nursing home.  I would like to join the choir as a baritone.  I can man a barbeque grill for church events and get involved in fundraising. Jasmin has a vocal repertoire of 2000 folk songs and is a part time teacher of Bulgarian dance.
 

Note:  These are examples only, not real people, telephone numbers, addresses or zip codes. Expressing the desire for membership in a mission parish is a profound, important act.  We are interested in people who are committed to the future of a parish, who are willing to work together, and who hopefully abhor the kind of politics, which has proved destructive to community and church cohesiveness in the past.  You may, by providing us with contact information only, indicate by statement that you are not interested in becoming a founding member of the new Bulgarian Orthodox church community, but would like to be kept informed about us.
 
Please email to the following persons collecting information for the founding member list:

Anguelov, Evgeniy (evgeniyanguelov@yahoo.com) (301-984-7330)
Assenov, Assen (assenov@hotmail.com) (301-588-0314)

Please send any postal mail to:

[address]

Time is of the essence.  We wish to join and organize the Bulgarian Orthodox community as soon as possible and must have a list of committed future parishioners to present to the OCA.
.