Tuesday morning was gloomy but after our international energizing games we were all feeling enthusiastic. Although there were clouds outside we had a sunny atmosphere during our morning discussions. Everyone finally got the oppurtunity to present his/her homework for the academy and talk about the religious situation in his/her own country. Feel free to compare, Eustorians! 🙂 We had two aims and we achieved them both – we learned new information and prepared ourselves for what was coming up next in the seminar. Everyone was so inspired by the topic that we almost skipped lunch but then we realized we needed some calories if we wanted to make it through the day. 🙂
In the afternoon we had the honour to meet a really special lecturer – Momchil Metodiev, doctor in History from Sofia University. His presentation was focused on the connection between the Orthodox church and the government, the State police in particular, during totalitarianism in Bulgaria (1944-1989). “He really filled up the blanks of my knowledge about the religious situation in Bulgaria during those times”, said Sofia from Finland and Mara added that she liked the lecturer’s examples from everyday life and all the pictures he showed us to understand things we had neither seen or heard.
The presentation provoked a lively discussion which continued in the bus during the trip to Plovdiv – the second biggest city in Bulgaria. In the next few days we will be working hard on our topic so stay online and share our process of understanding and gaining an intimate knowledge of different religions.