Cosmopolitan spirit and Orthodox faith: The story of Jivka Agov from Zurich

Jivka Agov is a person with a remarkable life story. She left Bulgaria at the age of just 14 to follow her father, a doctor whose profession took the family to Ethiopia and Switzerland.

"I left Bulgaria when I was 14. We first lived in Africa because my father was a doctor", she recalls. The family’s journey took them through Ethiopia, Switzerland, and later South Africa. The Bulgarian woman studied finance in Switzerland, where she met her husband — a Bulgarian emigrant from Plovdiv — and eventually settled permanently in the country.

Having spent her childhood in Bulgaria during the years of the atheist socialist regime, Jivka Agov found her path to faith later in life. She was baptized in a Greek Orthodox church in Switzerland shortly before marrying her husband. When the couple settled permanently in Switzerland, she was about 25 years old. She went on to build a successful career, working in finance and administration for major corporations.

After more than 40 years in the country, Mrs. Agov remains highly active. "I am retired now, but I continue to run the private business my husband used to manage. He passed away three years ago, and I kept the companies rather than selling them. I have two sons, both over 30, who are educated and independent. So now I have enough free time to help the Bulgarian church in Zurich — to stabilize it and help it grow."

She channels all the experience she has accumulated over the years in finance and management into supporting the Bulgarian cause as chair of the church board of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Community ''St. George the Victorious'' in Zurich. 

Although the Bulgarian church community in Zurich was officially founded in 2009, with various attempts made over the years to create a regular church life for Bulgarians in the region, for Jivka Agov the heart of the community has always been one and the same person — Father Yordan.

"Father Yordan has always been the priest who has guided the church throughout the years. There have been organizations, reorganizations, and restructuring... Other priests came and sometimes served alongside him, sometimes on their own, but in the end Father Yordan always returned. That is why the faithful have known him for a very long time. He is the brightest person I have ever met — the most genuine. His soul is completely pure. Everything he does comes from within. He is so devoted! He works day and night for this organization'', says Jivka Agov.

Jivka Agov describes the Bulgarian priest as a person who brings peace and unites people. Father Yordan is a member of the local association of Orthodox churches, which includes Russian, Greek, Serbian and other communities. According to her, whatever disagreements may arise among them, Father Yordan always manages to reconcile and bring them together, which is why he is constantly invited to take part in joint services.

"He is constantly overworking himself", she says with concern. "He simply cannot say 'no' to anyone, and that is why we worry about him. He needs to learn to say no sometimes because, besides everything else, he also has to work. The church generates no income. The only funds come from collections during services, and it is not much as the congregation is not very large. That is why he works at a pizzeria. The job itself is not difficult, but it is hard when you have so many spiritual responsibilities and your heart is somewhere else", she says.

Father Yordan's ministry extends far beyond the boundaries of his parish. On Epiphany, he performs the water blessing ceremony at Lake Constance, and later, together with the other Orthodox communities, he takes part in the great blessing of the waters of Lake Zurich.

Asked whether foreigners and believers from other Orthodox denominations attend services at the Bulgarian church, Jivka Agov notes that this happens rarely, as language remains the main barrier.

According to her, the same applies to the spouses of Bulgarians in mixed marriages abroad: "They come from time to time. We have a very devout young man from a mixed marriage who comes every Sunday. However, his wife does not understand the language. In these mixed marriages, language is definitely an issue — it is not only a matter of faith. And there are not that many Orthodox Christians here either'', says Jivka Agov.

In many Bulgarian Orthodox church communities abroad, there is a practice of delivering key parts of the service — such as the Gospel reading, the Epistle reading and the Lord’s Prayer — in two languages (Bulgarian and the local language) so that everyone present can understand. The sermon is also often translated live for foreign worshippers.

For their services, Bulgarians use a small chapel attached to a large Catholic church in Leimbach, a district of Zurich, which has been provided to them free of charge for several years.

Although the Bulgarian parish in Zurich is still taking shape, its example highlights something important: every Christian has a specific ministry within the body of the Church. God grants each person different gifts — to one, spiritual wisdom and the ability to listen, support and comfort; to another, organizational skills and the ability to manage finances; to a third, culinary talents... When people devote their gifts to serving God and their neighbors, those gifts multiply and bear good fruit — just as in the Parable of the Talents.

Translated by Kostadin Atanasov