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Patriarch Maxim and Pope Benedict XVI send President Plevneliev their congratulations to the Bulgarian people on the occasion of March 3

President Rosen Plevneliev received congratulations from His Beatitude Patriarch Maxim and from Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church, on the occasion of Bulgaria’s national holiday, March 3.

“As we once again congratulate you on the occasion of your having assumed office as President of the Republic of Bulgaria, in the name of the Holy Synod and in our own name personally, we welcome with you the Fatherland’s National Day, March 3, the Day of Bulgaria’s liberation from Ottoman rule,” Patriarch Maxim said in a letter to the Head of State.

“For 134 years, this shining day has solemnly marked the resurrection of our pious people, who for nearly five centuries were stripped of their spiritual and political freedom. Our native Bulgarian Orthodox Church, its clergy, scholars, monks and believers not only unabatedly nursed our suffering people of Christian faith, but kept awake national consciousness and patriotism. The deeds of martyrdom of the whole Bulgarian nation in the years of slavery gave the impulse for freedom that now, thanks to the sacrifice of our compatriots and the solidarity of the Russians, Romanians, Poles, Finns and others, are crowned with an independent Bulgarian state,” the Bulgarian Patriarch said in his letter of congratulations to President Plevneliev.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his congratulatory letter to the President and the Bulgarian people, said: "On the national holiday of Bulgaria, I am happy to convey hearty wishes to Your Excellency and to your fellow citizens. I pray to the Lord that the Bulgarian people will find in their human and spiritual heritage the moral strength necessary to ensure unity and the continuation of progress. I wish abundant Divine grace on Your Excellency, the leaders and the citizens of the country,” Benedict XVI said in his letter to the Head of Sta