VIDEO MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
ON THE OCCASION OF HIS UPCOMING
APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO BULGARIA
[5-7 May 2019]

[Multimedia]

Dear Brothers and Sisters of Bulgaria!

With God’s help, in a few days I will be among you. Coming to Bulgaria will be a pilgrimage for me and for my collaborators in the sign of faith, unity and peace. Your land is the homeland of witnesses of the faith, from the time when the Saintly Brothers, Cyril and Methodius, sowed the Gospel there: a fruitful sowing, which has brought abundant fruit even in the difficult times of the last century. This was often repeated by Saint John Paul II, who did so much to ensure that Europe might rediscover the liberating power of Christ, enabling it to breathe again with two lungs. In his footsteps I will have the joy of meeting His Holiness the Patriarch, and the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Together we will manifest our willingness to follow the Lord Jesus on the path of fraternal communion among all Christians.

Dear friends, my pilgrimage will be entirely in the memory of Saint Pope John XXIII, who in the almost 10 years he spent in Sofia as Apostolic Delegate, created with your people a bond of esteem and affection that still endures today. He was a man of faith, communion and peace. That is why I have chosen as the motto for this Journey the title of his historic Encyclical Pacem in Terris — Mir na zemyata”. I ask you please to accompany me with your prayer. Thank you! May God grant peace and prosperity to Bulgaria!