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Famous Orthodox clergyman Archimandrite Seraphim Bit-Kharibi from the Georgian Orthodox Church is in Bulgaria

Chants in Aramaic performed at Bulgaria's Bachkovo Monastery, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

Photo: Bulgarian Orthodox Church

The world-famous Orthodox clergyman Archimandrite Seraphim Bit-Kharibi from the Georgian Orthodox Church is visiting Bulgaria, the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has announced. 

Today, Archimandrite Seraphim will give a concert with chants in the ancient Aramaic language (spoken by Christ) in the Bachkovo Monastery, Bulgaria's second-biggest monastery located near Plovdiv.

On Sunday, he will perform Orthodox chants in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky in Sofia at the Hierarch's Holy Liturgy.

Archimandrite Seraphim was born in 1978 to a Georgian Assyrian father and a Georgian mother. In his youth, he was an active athlete, practicing taekwondo and karate, and becoming a four-time Georgian champion in Eastern style wrestling. He is married and has three children. He was running a sports school in Kyiv. 

In 2006, Seraphim Bit-Kharibi became a monk in Ukraine, and in 2008 he began serving in Stara Kanda, near Tbilisi, where he was ordained a deacon in 2010. With the blessing of Georgian Catholic Patriarch Elijah II, Father Seraphim began serving in Assyrian and Old Aramaic. composing polyphonic chants and psalms in ancient languages with modern melodies. 

In 2015, he received the rank of skhiarchimandrite of the newly built monastery "Thirteen Holy Syrian Fathers".




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