Между енорийския живот, поклонничеството и туризма: руската църква „Свети Николай Чудотворец Мирликийски“ в София
Between the parish life, pilgrimage and tourism: the Russian church “St. Nikolay Mirlikijski the Miracle Maker“ in Sofia

Summary/Abstract: After shortly presenting the viewpoints on pilgrimage in humanitarian sciences from the last decades, the author focuses on the current debate on the boundaries and interconnections among pilgrimage, tourism and local worship of a saint or another sacred object. In the light of this issue, the author discusses one of the most worshipped sacral places in contemporary Bulgaria – the church “St. Nikolay Miraklijski the Miracle Maker” in Sofia, more famous as the Russian church. In the crypt of the church there is the grave of the archbishop Seraphim Sobolev (1881–1950), widely worshiped as a saint, even though he was never sanctified so far. The present day visitors to the church are in the focus of attention: Russians and other immigrants, Bulgarian parishioners, pilgrims, tourists. The author marks the profiles of the separate groups in order to understand how each of them relives, experiences and instrumentalizes the sacred place and what the relations among them are. The presented observations in the text confirm the thesis that the pilgrimage, tourism and local religious life are interconnected and mutually dependent. They intermingle and merge expanding and overlapping over spaces and participants.

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