A Bulgarian monk is reopening an age-old debate in the Balkan country between Orthodox authorities and psychics.
In a new book, Monk Visarion denounced internationally respected healer Vanga and spiritual leader Petar Danov and attributed Bulgarians' interest in fortune-tellers and mysticism to decades of atheist communist rule.
Although the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has never explicitly condemned Vanga and Danov, the announcement on its official website says the monk will present his book in two lectures on the "pseudo-icons Vanga and Danov."
Visarion, who serves in a monastery in the all-male Orthodox monastic community of the Mount Athos peninsula in Greece, told the local 24 Chasa daily the book -- "Petar Danov and Vanga - prophets and precursors of the antichrist" -- aims to show the difference between occultism and authentic Christianity.
A recent poll showed some 30 percent of Bulgarians have at least once turned to alternative medicine, most often healers and herbalists, to solve a medical problem. According to another survey, some 47 percent approve of the Orthodox Church while 37 percent do not have an opinion.
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