Day of Reformation in Bulgaria
October 31st is celebrated worldwide as Reformation Day – the day when Dr. Martin Luther posted his 95 Thesis on the doors of the Wittenberg Cathedral. The day is reserved in the Bulgarian national calendar as a holiday for the Bulgarian Church of God. Traditionally, Evangelical churches across the nation mark it as “Day of Open Doors,” but this year, the special celebration was accompanied by the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin and the centennial anniversary of the Bulgarian Evangelical Alliance (a.k.a Bulgarian Evangelical Churches). As churches across the country opened the doors of their sanctuaries and toured visitors of all walks of life, we traveled to Bulgaria’s largest port city of Varna for a national press conference at the prestige Festival and Congress Center located in the city’s Black Sea garden. Journalists from various medias who were present posted the news of some 150, 000 Bulgarian protestants nationwide. The press conference was followed by a Mega Youth service in the building of the First Baptist Church of Varna, where youth from all protestant denominations in town were present for an explosive worship lead by the First Assemblies of God praise team and a lecture by our team on the subject of “Reformation for Today.”
Five Services in a Day
From the largest evangelical church in Bulgaria, we traveled to five small regional village congregations. The change was the least to say drastic. We left behind the large, two million people metropolis of Sofia and quickly moved East crossing almost the entire country of Bulgaria on its long side. Moving at a fast pace, we arrived to our destination three hours later and began preparing for a day of ministry.
The day started about 7 a.m. with prayer. The team assembled around 9:30 a.m. and began the daylong trip. The five churches on our schedule were located in a circle rout with 15-30 minutes of traveling between them. They were much smaller than the Central Church of God congregation, which has close to 1,000 members. Nevertheless, the people received us with the same joy and the services began.
Some of the congregations rent small auditoriums from the villages and others meet at a designated home with varying number of attendees. Many of the regular members have been pressed to leave Bulgaria and work in another country. One lady had just returned from such trip to Italy and attended one of the services. Read more
