Patriarch Cyril of Bulgaria
Encyclopedia
Patriarch Cyril (January 3, 1901 - March 7, 1971), born Konstantin Markov , was the first Patriarch of the restored Bulgarian Patriarchate
Patriarch of All Bulgaria
The Patriarch of All Bulgaria is the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The Bulgarian patriarchate was re-established in 1953.-History:...

.

Born in Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...

, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

, he adopted his religious name of Cyril in the St Nedelya Church
St Nedelya Church
Holy Sunday Church is an Eastern Orthodox church in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, a cathedral of the Sofia bishopric of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. Sveta Nedelya is a medieval church that has suffered destruction through the ages and has been reconstructed many times.-History:The history of the...

 on December 30, 1923 and became Metropolitan
Metropolitan bishop
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of a historical Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital.Before the establishment of...

 of Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

 in 1938. On May 10, 1953 Cyril was elected Patriarch of Bulgaria, holding the position until his death.

Cyril was buried in the main church of the Bachkovo Monastery
Bachkovo Monastery
The Bachkovo Monastery , archaically the Petritsoni Monastery or Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bulgaria is an important monument of Christian architecture and one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe...

, 89 kilometres from Sofia.

Cyril's historical role in the Bulgarian popular resistance to the Holocaust is recounted in the oratorio "A Melancholy Beauty," composed by Georgi Andreev with libretto by Scott Cairns and Aryeh Finklestein, first performed in June 2011 in Washington, D.C. The text describes "Metropolitan Kyril" in 1943 confronting the captors of Bulgarian Jews slated to be deported. Kyril first pledges to go with the deportees in solidarity and then tells the guards he will block the train with his own body. The guards reply that they have just received new orders to release the Jews.
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