The funeral ceremony of the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC), Metropolitan Neophyte of Sofia, who died on March 13 at the age of 78, took place in Sofia.
"We are all grieving, the death of the patriarch is a great loss. Patriarch Neophyte was a true priest. A great friend of Russia. Our church grieves together with the Bulgarian Church and the Bulgarian people," said Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova, who attended the funeral liturgy and funeral service of Patriarch Neophyte. The Russian Orthodox Church was represented at the farewell ceremony by Metropolitan Nestor of Kostura and Western Europe.
According to a TASS correspondent, after the funeral service, the coffin with the patriarch's body was placed on a carriage and transported with a litany procession from the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, where the liturgy and funeral service took place, to the Temple of Sveta Nedelya (Holy Sunday), where he was buried. The funeral ceremony was attended by President Rumen Radev, members of the government and Parliament, politicians and public figures, church hierarchs and hundreds of Bulgarians who accompanied the funeral procession. March 15 and 16 were declared days of national mourning in the country.
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Patriarch Neophyte (in the world Simeon Nikolov Dimitrov) was born on October 15, 1945 in Sofia. After graduating from high school in 1959, he was admitted to the Sofia Theological Seminary. From 1967 to 1971, he studied at the St. Kliment Ohridsky Theological Academy, and studied at the Moscow Theological Academy at the Department of Church Singing until 1973. In 1975, he was tonsured a monk in the Trojan Monastery under the name Neophyte, and in 1985 he received the rank of bishop. In 1989, Bishop Neophyte was appointed rector of the Theological Academy in Sofia, and in 1991 - Dean of the Theological Faculty of the Sofia University named after Kliment Ohridsky. In 1994, he was confirmed Metropolitan of Dorostolsky and Chervensky, and since 2001, after the division of the diocese into Rusensk and Dorostolsky, he has been the Metropolitan of Rusensk.
In February 2013, the Holy Synod of the BOC elected him Patriarch of Bulgaria and Metropolitan of Sofia.
The election of the new head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is to take place in the next four months after the death of the patriarch, nine metropolitans can apply for the highest church post.

Photo – screenshot of the program of the Bulgarian National Television