On January 24, 2010 Messiah church remembered the Holocaust along with other 412 Bulgarian protestant churches.

Maybe more than ever, the world today has the need to remember of the events that made the Holocaust happen. We should remember and honour the memory of the innocent victims – 6 millions Jews, who was brutally killed from the Nazi during the Second World War. This massive murder happen in civilized place with intensity, cruelty and in such measure that anything like that had ever happened before in the world history. And it is of great importance to keep the memory of this alive.

The generations who were witnesses to these events passed. We can say that the group of people who were alive during that time and had seen with their own eye the tragedy of the people of Israel, is actually a small group of people in comparison with the whole population on the earth. A huge part of the people on the earth today have not been born in those dark ages and because of that to talk and to educate these next generations have become something very important.

As Christians we are deeply convinced in the protection of the Jewish people, who gave the world the Scriptures of the God’s word; this should be part of the church mission as well. Because of that, thousands of churches from the whole Europe honoured this day. 412 protestant churches have announced their will to note this anniversary of the Holocaust. Turning it into numbers, this means that about 60 thousand people from hundreds of towns and villages in Bulgaria have listened about what have happened to the Jewish people during the time of the Holocaust. Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know something like this to be done before and it will have its effect and impact. It is known that the most proper way to oppose the growing antisemitism in our country is the existence of educated and knowing people.

After the liberation of the Auschwitz and the discoveries of the genocide over the Jewish people, done by the Third Reich, the whole Europe has had the good will not to forget what have happened. The world is shocked and stunned by the discoveries that were made after the liberation of the death camps. As a result of the horror they have seen, 8 European countries created laws according to which ‘the denial of the fact of Holocaust on the territory of these countries is a crime and it is sanctioned by the law.’

Recently, Germany announced that it wills this to be a law, valid for the whole territory of the European union. The pictures, the documentaries and the documents from the death camps are like shock for the whole world, stirring waves of horror and shame and thus making the population of the after- war Europe to recognize that the old continent have become a house and a scene of the greatest nightmare, the world has ever seen. People from the old generations in West Europe tell that the discoveries from the death camps made great impact on the life of the whole continent.

The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans despised the Jews in the same way as the medieval Christians, and later Nazi, communists and Muslims have done. But I doubt you have ever heard a lot of Jews to ask themselves “Why we?” The reason is that they have always known why. Throughout their whole History, the Jews have looked on the question of antisemitism as part of their mission. Contrary to the modern conception of antisemitism, the century-old Jewish interpretation of the reason for it is found in the God of Israel with his commandments. Jews have always been hated because of their God and his commandments, which they accepted and keeping them makes the Jewish people to be different in comparison with the other nations. Jews are hated because they are the people of the Book, who have been cared by God as a nation through the scripture. The roots of antisemitism are in the fact that Jews believe that there are only one God, who has given principles and regulations, which concerns all aspects of life and which should be kept. The mission of the people of Israel has been not only to believe in the only living God, but also to write down and give the world his moral law. The role of the Jews is one of the major reasons for the antisemitism. And this conflict between the moral laws of the Jewish God with the unmoral life of the surrounding nations is in the center of the tension, which is stirred where the Jews appear.

But as a result of keeping God’s regulations, Jewish people have reached greater accomplishments than the other nations- as a life standard and as intellect. From historical point of view it is clear that Jews have always been better educated, their families have been healthier, they have helped more each other than the rest of the surrounding nations have helped each other and definitely less Jewish men have become drunkards, committed adultery or have beaten their wives, and to say about leaving their children. As a result of the following God’s commandments, the quality of life of the average Jew, no matter how rich or poor he is, has been higher than the quality of life of non- Jewish people in the same society. These are the virtues and the standards of life of the Jews, which provoke the other peoples, because these virtues are expose as wrong the way in which the non-Jews have been living. When the people realized that the root of the antisemitism is in the Law, which God has given to the Jews, it also become clear why the antisemitism have become a phenomenon wherever Jews live. This also explains the measure and the strength of the antisemitism. Today we also witness how antisemitism gains new strength. This puts forward the question of the unique hatred towards the Jews. This hatred is the deepest and the most endurable one in the whole history of the mankind. There have been hatred towards several other groups of people, but it was not as deep, general and constant as the antisemitism. This is why this day should be noted again and again and again because the silence and stillness of the good people is something very dangerous. Our silence creates space and conditions not only for the ideas of the antisemitism to find place in people’s understandings, but for this hatred to grow and progress. We cannot keep silence, because silence is not proper when it concerns an evil deed. Wherever we are, even among people, who do not agree with you, dare to speak, oppose every hatred towards the Jews because this is the only way this history not to happen again. And in a world, in which everything is a question of the clash of the ideas and all means are allowed, someone has to dare to stand for what he believes.

Albert Einstein: ‘This world is a dangerous place to live in, but not because of the people, who do evil, but because of those, who stand aside and allow them to do it!’