On Sunday, the Catholic world celebrates Easter. A relatively small community of Catholics in Bulgaria, just above 1 percent of the population in this country, have also been expecting the Resurrection. History of Catholicism in Bulgaria dates back to the Middle Ages, when monks from the Franciscan Order of today's Bosnia undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Their path passed through Bulgaria, then part of the Ottoman Empire. Some of the monks remained in these lands and on behalf of the Vatican laid the foundations of the Catholic Church in Bulgaria. Today Catholics along with Muslims, Jews and Armenians are one of the respected religious communities in Bulgaria.

At 10 o’clock on a weekday the service in the cathedral of the Assumption of Mary downtown Sofia starts... Behind the altar is parish priest, Archimandrite Blagovest Vangelov.

On Sunday and during big Christian feasts the church is full of people, Archimandrite Vangelov says. Catholics are a relatively small group in predominantly Orthodox Bulgaria, but religion does not play a big role in the everyday life of modern Bulgarians. In the heart of the Balkan Peninsula, the vicissitudes of history from antiquity to today have taught people tolerance. Archimandrite Vangelov often talks about history and origin of his parish of about 3,000 believers.

"Basically we are Bulgarians, but there are those who came many years ago from abroad to live in this country. These were families from Ukraine and Romania with established traditions."

Family history of Blagovest Vangelov is similar to the story of most Catholics in Bulgaria. Many of them were refugees after the Balkan wars and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

"My mother was born in Thessaloniki. My father is from Sofia, but in fact his family are refugees from Kukush (Kilkis in present-day northern Greece). In the 1920s my family arrived to Sofia, and my parents married here.”

The growing number of Catholics in the beginning of the 20th century required them to have their own church. The efforts of the Association of Catholics of the Eastern rite, created in 1912, were aimed at this goal. They were successful in 1921 when the Vatican sent its representative to check the needs of Eastern Catholics and provide support to them. This way in 1924 the Assumption Cathedral was built in Sofia. A year later, Monsignor Angelo Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII, arrived to Sofia to help the settlement of the Catholic administration.

"I have been a priest for 25 years. I graduated from the Classical High School; I studied theology for five years here in Sofia, during the times of communism. There was no way to study abroad and so I studied here as a private student. After the changes there were more opportunities and I specialised for two years in Rome. We are Catholics of the Eastern rite. All rituals are the same as those in the Orthodox Church."

Catholics in Bulgaria are very devoted to social causes and participate in charity campaigns. The Catholic Church is financed exclusively by donations. Money is never enough, but Archimandrite Vangelov is happy that his church can help people in need.

"We are a small church and we can hardly say we have done grand things but the church has an organized structure, which is called Caritas. It is involved with various charity campaigns. We also have a centre for disabled people, a centre for single mothers, and one for providing social services."

Recently, at the invitation of the Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church in Bulgaria and the Bulgarian government, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin paid a visit to Sofia. With a solemn service, Cardinal Parolin sanctified the renovated Assumption of Mary Cathedral.

English: Alexander Markov