Bulgarian Church suspends archimandrite who concelebrated with OCU

The Sofia Metropolis of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has suspended Archimandrite Nikanor (Mishkov) – the cleric who concelebrated with Epifaniy Dumenko at St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral in Kyiv on July 14 and 15, 2026.

According to the Metropolis, under Order No. 134 of July 28, 2026, issued by Metropolitan of Sofia and Bulgarian Patriarch Daniel, Archimandrite Nikanor – abbot of the Chernogorski Monastery of the Holy Unmercenary Saints Cosmas and Damian near the village of Gigintsi in the Sofia Eparchy – was placed under argos, a complete suspension from priestly ministry for 15 days beginning on July 29, 2026.

The grounds cited were actions incompatible with the priestly office and the monastic vow of obedience, as well as conduct undermining the authority of the Church – Article 95, Paragraph 19, and Article 139, Part 2 of the Statute of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

In addition, ecclesiastical case No. 2/2026 has been opened against Archimandrite Nikanor in the Sofia Eparchial Court to consider the imposition of a canonical penalty.

The order could not be delivered to him personally. Three clerics from the Sofia Eparchy traveled to the Chernogorski Monastery, but the abbot was not there – he had left the monastery without the blessing of his eparchial metropolitan. He was therefore informed of the disciplinary measure by telephone.

On July 28 – the day before the suspension took effect – Archimandrite Nikanor published an “official statement” on Facebook in which he refused to appear in response to a summons from the Primate of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

He wrote that he would not enter the Sofia Metropolis building “either today or at any other time” for as long as Patriarch Daniel remained there, adding: “May God shorten those days!”

The cleric then launched into direct insults against the Primate of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church:

• He demonstratively refused to address the Patriarch by his ecclesiastical title, instead using his secular name: “Atanas Trendafilov, who is playing at being ‘patriarch,’ has convinced himself that he has some authority over me. Well, I hereby declare to him that he has no authority whatsoever!”
• Nikanor described the election of Patriarch Daniel as “a particularly vile crime against the Orthodox faith and against the Bulgarian people.”
• He also claimed that the Primate’s contribution to the Church was insignificant: "Patriarch Daniel has not contributed even one-thousandth as much as this. And even if everyone around him were added together, they still wouldn't have."
• Responding to the possibility of further disciplinary measures, he said that he would “not play church” and would simply ignore the Primate.
• He declared that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Daniel had become an enemy of its own people – “captured and enslaved, forced onto demonic Kremlin tracks” – and “a pitiful imitation of a church, a lackey of Russian imperialism.”
• The archimandrite concluded his statement with the appeal: “It is time for the so-called ‘Patriarch Daniel’ to go!”

Nikanor also accused the Primate of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church of refusing to publicly renounce the “heresy of the ‘Russian world’ and ‘Orthodox shahidism.’”

He described his future as ministry in “blessed ‘disobedience’ to Atanas Trendafilov.” He also claimed that he had “never submitted a written application to join the organization called the ‘Bulgarian Orthodox Church.’”

Archimandrite Nikanor’s conflict with the hierarchy of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has continued for several years. In October 2025, he was already placed under a 15-day argos for “systematic violations – failure to observe or negligent observance of Church rules, provisions of the Statute, official duties, or lawful directives of the Church authorities.”

As the UOJ previously reported, Patriarch Daniel has said that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church – like 11 other Local Orthodox Churches – does not recognize the OCU and supports the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.