Author: Olya Al-Ahmed
On Sunday, January 14, at 11 h in the Chamber Hall of the Sofia Opera, the audience will enjoy an amazing performance. The spectacle is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the restoration of the Bulgarian Patriarchate.
"The Hermit of Rila" is a musical poem in two acts and ten scenes.
"We all sing aloud to you: Rejoice, Our Reverend Father John!"
In 1937, the Bulgarian public figure, writer, poet and ethnographer Tihomir Pavlov (1880-1937) created and published his last poetic work "The Hermit of Rila", based on the life of the All-Bulgarian saint John of Rila the Miraclemaker. Unfortunately, this unique poem remained in oblivion until in 2022 our contemporary chaplain, composer, conductor and teacher Father Kiril Popov (b. 1955) found it in his personal archive and received musical inspiration.
Let us worthily praise the great desert-dweller of Rila and know that he always watches over us and is our prayerful intercessor before God.
The events take place at the end of the 9th and the first half of the 10th century in the central Sredets region of the then Bulgarian kingdom. As a historical time, this was the golden age of Bulgaria, under the reign of the kings St. Boris-Mihail, Simeon the Great and St. Petar. Churches and monasteries were built all over Bulgarian land, and the Orthodox Christian faith flourished. It was an era of both great spiritual conquests and resounding victories. All this is in complete contrast to the young and wild John's emphatic renunciation of all things earthly. After the death of his parents, he gave away his possessions to the needy and left a "false peace" in which the first divisions and struggles for supremacy had already begun. The geographical area of the life and exploits of St. John's life includes the Osogovo Mountains, the Struma River, Vitosha and the Rila Desert.