The Church of St. Haralambos in Bulgaria's Shabla keeps the faith of generations alive

Every year on February 10, the feast of St. Haralambos , Bishop of Magnesia, is celebrated with special solemnity in a small Bulgarian town in the northernmost part of the country's Black Sea coast. For Shabla and its residents, this is the temple feast of the church "St. Holy Martyr Haralambos", which they built with great dedication, personal labor and sacrifices, but also a day of gratitude.

The memory of the construction is alive in the hearts of the people of Shabla, who go to church every Sunday, and then gather to share their spiritual joy and the material common table. From them we learn about the history of the church, which begins at the end of the 19th century, with its first construction, with the name of the Holy Cross of the Lord. Father Pavel Maksimov, who has been serving in the church for 25 years, specifies that construction began in 1896, but in 1900 Shabla suffered a devastating earthquake:

"Almost a magnitude 7 earthquake, with many victims and destruction of houses, and the church was completely destroyed," says Father Pavel. "The people of Shabla wondered if they should change its location, but they said that the foundations had been laid and they finished building it like this. As can be seen from the iconostasis, the icons were painted in 1909 and 1910. There is also a document that makes it clear that in 1907 they were still collecting funds for its completion, but it is not noted exactly when it was completely built. It was probably in 1908, because the icons for the iconostasis date to 1909-1910."

Father Pavel's story is supplemented by Daniela Todorova, director of the Green Educational Center in Shabla, where the school was once located.

"What we know from the stories of local people is that at the beginning of the 20th century, the local authorities met and decided to build three main buildings - the church, the school and the town hall. The masonry of the new church and the Green Educational Center are very similar and perhaps the same craftsmen worked on both. Everything was done by local people, who put in their labor, efforts and materials to be able to support the construction."

The joy of the people of Shabla did not last long and in 1913, after the end of the Inter-Allied War, by virtue of the Bucharest Treaty, the entire Southern Dobrudja region up to present-day Balchik became Romanian territory. The archives of the church of the Holy Martyr Haralambos also preserve the Romanian registers, where the bright personality of one of the first priests who took care of the Shabla parish and the surrounding villages stands out - Father Nikola Tsitsov, who donated the iconostasis icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker:

The Church of Saint Haralambos in Shabla, 1944
"The archives show that he had 51 years of service", continues Father Pavel. "His name appears as a young priest from 1897. In the last registers, when he baptized, he already wrote in large block letters and apparently in 1948 he was already very old. The most interesting thing is that he personally left a detailed description of the coast with geodetic points in the Shabla lighthouse, which shows that he was а educated and, in this respect, a versatile person."

According to the registers, Father Nikola did not serve in the parish between 1914 and 1917 and there is information that he was interned somewhere in Northern Romania. By the will of God and the intercession of his heavenly patrons St. Nicholas and St. Haralambos he returned to Shabla where his earthly journey probably ended. After him, of course, came other priests, who continued to care for the temple and the congregation, and the solid walls, erected under the expert eye of master Hristo Bozhkov-Zagoretsa, remain to remind generations of the God-loving work of their ancestors, and in 1999 the restoration of the church began:

"The renovation of the temple in its current form dates back to the year 2000, without the bell tower, which was built around 2010. Many people have enthusiastically participated in the restoration, among whom is Grandma Denka, who is the most active. Most of them were parishioners who regularly visited the church. Unfortunately, a large part of them are no longer with us, but there are still, of course, those alive who participated entirely with personal labor."

The three-nave basilica with the beautiful and impressive bell tower rises in the center of Shabla. Its four bells, made in the famous bell foundry of Voronezh (Russia), donated for the glory of God, invite the faithful to come to church. Among them are Romanians and Russians and Ukrainians, guests from near and far, who, as brothers in Christ do not divide and do not hate each other, but love one another. "Through this Christ-like love, overcoming all inter-national pride, the salvific work of God is accomplished in the Church, and it heals the wounds of society," concludes Father Pavel.

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