Meeting here last week at the 16th annual Conference of the Bulgarian Diocese in the United States and Canada, the Rt. Rev Bishop Kyrill, Prelate of the Bulgarian Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America, issued an Encyclical condemning anti-Semitism as “contrary to our Christian philosophy and as “contrary to our Christian philosophy and as such violates the will of God.”
The Encyclical further declared that the “Holocaust … should not be forgotten but rather should be taught in Christian and Jewish settings as a never ending reminder of what man has done against man and God.” The Very Rev. George Nedelkoff Chancellor of the Diocese, was co-signatory to the document.
The Bishop urged clergy and lay representatives from all the 10 parishes in the Diocese to “reach out to our Jewish brothers and sisters … to create a relationship of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation,” and reaffirmed the belief that “only through example of deeds can we remove the cancer of anti-Semitism from the heart of man.”
The Encyclical was presented to representatives of the Fort Wayne Jewish Federation. In acceptance, Ben Eibart, executive director of the Federation called the event “a meaningful and significant chapter in the continuing development of inter-religious understanding.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
