A coloring book with the saints who have spread Christianity in Bulgaria with words and pious deeds has been translated into Ukrainian and distributed to refugee children in Orthodox churches in Bulgaria. "They will feel better when they see that they are not in a foreign place here," says Father Steliyan Kunev. It was he who organized the donation campaign to translate and reprint the booklet, which helps children in Orthodox Sunday schools take their first steps on the path of faith, through the centuries of Bulgarian history, by reading the stories and coloring the illustrations.

Father Steliyan Kunev from the St. Pimen Zografski Orthodox Church in Burgas took on the mission to address Ukrainian children to show them that Bulgarians and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church have always approached all peoples with care, "with a word of peace, understanding and love among us, no matter where we are in the world." But also with the most important message that people can only live together if they renounce hatred and revenge.

"Bulgarian Saints" is a teaching aid of a kind on Orthodox painting, because next to each biography there is an image of the saint, which children can colour - not so much according to the canons of icon painting, but according to each child's idea of the saints, once they get to know who they are.

"Talking about faith, in fact, we also tell the history of Bulgaria through the lives of the saints - says Presbyter Kalina Kuneva, author of the booklet and teacher at the Sunday school at St. Pimen Zografski Orthodox Church. - In this way, little ones can see the great value of faith in God and how God has protected our country throughout history. In fact, the booklet was created by children and for children.

Even we adults sometimes find it difficult to understand the ways of faith, especially if we have to explain them to children. Then the teacher needs a little help and finds it in art."

The religion teacher points out that drawing helps children more easily imagine and visualize what they are learning in religious studies.

"We have to start from the hearts of the children to embrace the Word of God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," adds Father Stelian Kunev, "When we have planted the seed of faith through all the resources of Christian art, of history, of mutual aid, then they will become better in the meaning given in the Holy Scriptures - to be perfect as God is."

The saints in the booklet have been selected according to their role in Bulgarian history and what they contributed to it through the Christian faith. But the work of many of them was not confined to their own homeland, as the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius, St. Tsar Boris and St. Patriarch Evtimius of Tarnovo contributed by their deeds to the good of the nations neighbouring Bulgaria.

"Little known is the fact that most of the saints in the neighboring nations - patriarchs, bishops and metropolitans, are of Bulgarian origin - says the cleric. - The first Serbian Patriarch recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople was Bulgarian - St. Ephraim, Patriarch of Serbia. The defender of the Romanian nation was St. Dimitar Basarbovski, and St. Cyprian became Metropolitan of Kiev, Lithuania and all Russia. Here, through the Christian faith, we have helped to ennoble other nations."

While there are many good examples of introducing children to the faith, the priest admits that the Church is not doing enough to bring them all into the temple. And he describes the problem as "quite sad for the moment". A silver lining, however, is the "collaboration with education" and the fact that many bishops are publishing books addressed "from a spiritual point of view to children."

According to Steliyan Kunev, the discussion on whether religious education should be present in Bulgarian schools is not over yet.

"This is a much needed discussion. We need to keep talking about it because it will raise the main problem of Bulgarian education - that we are no longer teaching our children to be good, conscientious, peace-loving and patient", he stresses. - Children must uphold the true values, not the false ones planted in their minds from one place or another. And the foundation of these values can only be faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I say this as a priest serving in the field of God. When the foundations of the Christian faith are laid, the benefits and the results are very good-beneficial and salvific."

English version: Elizabeth Radkova