Cathedral Church “Sveta Nedelya”

Sveta Nedelya Church is an Eastern Orthodox church in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, and a cathedral of the Bulgarian Patriarchate’s Sofia bishopric. Sveta Nedelya is a medieval church that has been destroyed and rebuilt many times throughout the centuries. The current temple structure is one of Sofia’s monuments. Vasilyov-Tsolov, a well-known Bulgarian architectural firm, designed it.

The name Sveta Nedelya has an enigmatic origin. Depending on whatever etymology is used as a foundation, it may be rendered as “Holy Sunday,” “Saint Nedelya,” or even “Saint Sunday.” According to the Bulgarian Orthodox website pravoslavieto.com, the church was known by several names in 1578, including “The Lord’s Church” (Bulgarian: Gospodnya Tsurkva) and “Jesus Christ Church” (Tsurkva Isus Hristos), but most importantly, by the Greek name Kyriaki, which literally means “Sunday” but derives from Kyrios – “Lord” (i.e. Sunday, Furthermore, Saint Kyriaki, also known in Bulgarian as Sveta Nedelya (Nedelya = “Sunday”), was a third-century Christian martyr. So, although the word now seems to pertain to the sanctity of Sunday, it might have initially referred to the youthful martyr Saint Kyriaki, or eventually to Jesus Christ.

History of St. Nedelya Church

The first years of the cathedral’s history are mostly unknown. It was most likely erected in the 10th century, with stone foundations and a mostly wooden structure that, unlike most other churches in the city, remained wooden until the mid-nineteenth century. Stephan Gerlach, a German traveller, visited Sofia in 1578 and noticed the chapel.

The bones of Serbian monarch Stefan Milutin were transported to Bulgaria in 1460 and housed in several churches and monasteries until they were relocated to St Nedelya in the 18th century when it became a bishop’s palace. The bones have been kept in the cathedral ever since, with minor interruptions, and the church was given a new name in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Holy King (“вети рaл,” “Sveti Kral”).

On April 25, 1856, the previous structure was destroyed to make way for a bigger and more spectacular cathedral. In the summer of that year, work on the 35.5-meter-long and 19-meter-wide chapel started. An earthquake struck the still-under-construction structure in 1858, delaying the completion of the project until 1863. It was opened to the public on May 11, 1867, in front of a crowd of 20,000 people. To house the 8 bells presented to the church as a gift by Russian Knyaz (Prince) Alexander Mikhailovich Dondukov-Korsakov in 1879, a new belfry was built.

In 1898, the church was rebuilt, and new domes were installed. In 1915, Exarch Joseph I of Bulgaria was buried beyond the walls of St Nedelya. The church was destroyed in the 1925 attack, which claimed the lives of nearly 150 people. Between the summer of 1927 and the spring of 1933, the church was restored to its contemporary appearance after the attack (once again inaugurated on 7 April 1933). It was virtually rebuilt as a temple with a central dome measuring 31 meters in height and measuring 30 meters in length and 15.50 meters in breadth. The church received the golden iconostasis that had survived the bombing.

Between 1971 and 1973, a crew headed by Nikolay Rostovtsev painted the mural. Between 1992 and 1994, the floor was repaired, and the north colonnade was glazed. In the year 2000, the façade was carefully cleaned, and a system to mechanically strike the eleven bells was installed (the eight ones from Knyaz Dondukov-Korsakov, two made in Serbia and one cast in Bulgaria)