A council of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has elected Metropolitan Daniil of Vidin as the church’s new patriarch.
The election by 69 of 138 delegates puts a man seen as a pro-Russian who is close to Moscow at the head of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction, with some 6 million members in Bulgaria and 1-2 million more adherents outside the country.
The 52-year-old Daniil takes over after the death in March of Patriarch Neophyte.
Daniil has called Ukraine an aggressor alongside Russia in the current full-scale invasion by Russian troops of Ukraine.
He has also suggested that Ukraine is a creation of Vladimir Lenin’s.
Daniil also criticized the closure of the Russian Church in Sofia last year and expressed outrage after the decision to expel its head, Archimandrite Vasian, and two other clerics on suspicion of espionage.
Daniil’s main challenger in the election had been Metropolitan Hryhoriy of Vratsa, who was seen as more neutral on the war question./rferl/
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