Bulgarian Orthodox Church calls for vigilance against self-proclaimed spiritual leaders

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has issued an official statement on “pagan neo-Hindu propaganda with pseudo-Christian elements”. The bishops of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church call for greater vigilance against “touring gurus, self-proclaimed “spiritual teachers” and the communities that gravitate around them”.

“For us, it is extremely unacceptable for Jesus Christ to be presented by one guru or another as yet another of the many “spiritual teachers” or as an “avatar” of the Hindu deity Krishna”, the Synod categorically emphasizes.

“Based on its many years of pastoral experience, the Church knows that such pagan cults in many cases are a threat to the physical and mental health of people, to their property, to the health of their families, to their professional realization and social integration”, the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church warns.

“Most communities that deify such guru leaders declare to the public that they aim to improve the individual and society as a whole by creating attitudes, skills and conditions for “self-realization” and “harmony”. They present themselves as educational, cultural and sports programs, seminars and courses for self-improvement, relief from stress, improvement of health, strengthening of concentration and memory, peace-making projects and general progress of all humanity. Through such positive messages, they infiltrate temporarily or permanently the calendar of a number of cultural and educational institutes. In this way, uninformed Bulgarian citizens are misled: mayors, directors, secretaries, teachers, educators, parents and children, who are put in a situation to join initiatives directed against their Christian worldview and destroying their Orthodox identity,” the Synod says.

Edited by Ivo Ivanov
English publication: R. Petkova