The 40-year-old priest of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Kancho Kabadiiski is president of the board of trustees of the Holy Trinity Church in the town of Lovech, Northern Bulgaria, chaplain of the prison in Lovech and a mountaineer. Conquering mountain tops is his passion. The last conquest he made was the 2 999 m peak of Cima Grande in the Italian Alps. He is one of the co-founders of the “Mountain Angels” mountaineering association, whose members dream of climbing even higher mountain tops. As a priest he leads the souls of his congregation to the heights of what is best in them with God’s help.
© Photo: personal archive
He grew up in Lovech but he used to spend a great deal of time as a child and teenager in the village of his grandparents, where he learned many things that keep his senses wide awake to this day. It was then that he started dreaming of adventures, and the search for that hidden creature that is inside each and every one of us, and wants to get out and understand the world. Nowadays technologies can get anywhere but, in a way, they narrow and tame our world. It looks as if those vast areas that once caused the admiration and awe of our forefathers no longer exist in the present day, Father Kabadiiski argues. In his opinion mountaineering helps a great deal with self-knowledge, and makes one see clearly what one is capable of and whether one is capable of sacrificing oneself in the name of another person by putting oneself to the test. “On the mountain top, when you find yourself in a borderline, extreme condition of human existence, you find out whether you are a coward or not. Cowards stick to the low plains, which can also be interpreted in another way,” he adds.
“We have made plans to try and climb some of the northern walls of the Alps next year,” Father Kancho Kabadiiski says. “The northern walls are the most difficult to climb and therefore climbers prefer them as the more extreme ones. Mountaineering is fast developing pretty much like all other sports do. That is why athletes prepare for overcoming greater and greater challenges. This is an individual sport because most of the time one is left all alone. You meet a fellow climber only when you reach a platform to cede or take over the lead. These are brief moments of interaction between two people, far from the world, but the rest of the time one is left alone. And then you have all the time in the world to think and reconsider a great deal. And what may sound trivial in other circumstances suddenly becomes profound, and one learns to value the small things that constitute our everyday lives in the civilized world of which we are so negligent.”
On the top of the mountain a person feels more strongly for the meaning of the word ‘freedom’, Father Kabadiiski argues. Having overcome many obstacles of physical and psychological nature one realizes how petty one’s existence may be when it is obsessed with the banality of the day. Climbing is a way to escape the traps of the mundane and makes one experience their freedom, so that it stays with them forever. “From the point of view of religion a man is always free but he should come closer to it in a decent way, recognize it as his own and try to bring it out in his acts.” And this is the guidance he gives to the prisoners who come to his chapel.
“There are many souls that have to be salvaged and brought to the knowledge of truth,” Father Kancho Kabadiiski says. “And this is the chaplain’s job. He turns to these people, who unfortunately are mostly uneducated, and sometimes lack general knowledge, using a somewhat different approach. They come from the society lows, whose existence an ordinary man finds it hard even to imagine. For them crime has not only become a way of life, but also a source of delight. And yet, even they may have come to the chapel with evil thoughts they still come closer to God. Somehow they become touched by God because He is almighty, and sometimes the human heart yearns secretly to reach the depths that religion might offer. Of course, there are other people, who understand what they have done, repent and feel sorry for the years, months and days they had wasted in prison. They try to make up for the lack of freedom by searching for something new and different. And these are the kind of people I work with in Lovech prison and I approach each and every one of them in a different way.”
© Photo: personal archive
Father Kancho Kabadiiski argues that physical education is essential to one’s health, and laments that the Bulgarians are sometimes negligent of their spiritual and physical upbringing. Mountaineering is not so popular in Bulgaria despite the gorgeous mountains in the country. This is an expensive hobby, which often requires the purchase of new equipment, but equipment is key to survival in extreme situations. Father Kancho Kabadiiski teaches also his skills to the children who attend the climbing school organized by the “Mountain Angels” association in the town of Lovech.
English version by Radostin Zhelev
