The Controversial Bulgarian Archimandrite Nikanor Tried to Drag the Vatican Into a Scheme to Elect the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (Part Three)

Part Two

Nikanor: Wait, wait, wait. You don’t understand… What is your nuncio doing here? Don’t you have a diplomatic representative?

Vatican Representative: All right, all right.

Nikanor: He’ll take care of everything as needed. Listen, I’m no diplomat—you know how these things work. I’m just… I don’t know what you’d call me. I’m just a strategist at headquarters. I tell you what needs to happen. So…

Vatican Representative: (words indistinct)

Nicanor: Come on, don’t do that—otherwise he’ll end up badly, they’ll cut off his head, and someday they’ll cut mine off too.

Vatican Representative: He’s paving the way for everyone.

Nicanor: That’s right. This is very important, because this is the decisive moment. So that Nikolai doesn’t slip up, so that he’s… and again, I’m saying that Borisov is really the key factor here. He listens to him; they listen to each other. So that Borisov understands that the Vatican would truly be pleased, so to speak....not to say “would like,” because that sounds too much like... Would be pleased—they would be very pleasantly surprised, and His Holiness the Pope would be overjoyed if the Bulgarian state (translator’s note: a slip in the original; the Church is meant) were led by Patriarch Naum, who would open... But it’s true. We’re not just saying this for the sake of it; you know him—the one who would open the Bulgarian Church...

Vatican Representative: I don’t… I don’t know him, but you know, it’s never… you could say the same thing about other Patriarchs from whom we expected a lot—both hopes and progress… And then, when they became Patriarchs, they did a complete 180—no, a 360-degree turn.

Nikanor: That was... That’s the Russian one. No, not that one... So, look, you have an opportunity; I agree. Kirill, Kirill... And Porphyry turned away a bit. But look, personally, I—listen... You’re right, but on the other hand, someone who...

Vatican Representative: You know more. I don’t know them. That’s how it is. You know them even more intimately, more like—forum internum (their inner world).

Nikanor: I know them intimately. Naum and I have known each other for a very long time. We’ve talked; we go to the Holy Mountain...
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