The Foreign Minister of Bulgaria, Velislava Petrova-Chamova, said in exclusive comments to Euronews that the reason her government worked vociferously to remove the head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, from the European Commission’s proposed 21st package of sanctions against Russia was to avoid fuelling EU scepticism.
“When you have sanctions that have purely symbolic measure but no economic consequence on Russia, what you are risking is that, in a country – an Eastern Orthodox country, such as Bulgaria – is creating the environment for brewing anti-European rhetoric,” she said.
“That's why we're not supporting it, and that's why we we're really happy that in the end the name was dropped out,” she said in comments on Euronews’ flagship morning programme, Europe Today.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church are autonomous churches with different patriarchs. But they both belong to the Eastern Orthodox communion, share the same core beliefs and teachings, and have deep-rooted cultural and historical links.
The EU executive proposed the 21st package of sanctions against Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 9 June.
