The hoir of the Sofia Theological Seminary “St. John of Rila” dates back to the first years of the school. Its conductors have been prominent music teachers and supporters of church music such as Manasiy Poptodorov, Avram Vachev, Todor Tsenkov and Associate Professor Lyubomir Ignatov, to whom we owe not only the preservation but also the development of the art of psaltery in Bulgaria.
The choir consists of students from 9th to 12th grades, who perform classical examples of Eastern church singing. The choir places particular emphasis on the study of works less known in Bulgaria, as well as on the musical adaptation of works from Greek to Slavic.
The choir leader since 2017 is Archimandrite Meletius.
Archimandrite Meletius (Spasov) was born in Sofia in 1985. He completed his secondary education at 31 SUCHEM “Ivan Vazov” with a German language profile in 2005. The same year he was accepted as a student at the Faculty of Theology of Sofia University, graduating in 2009 as a bachelor of theology with pedagogical qualifications. In the academic year 2007-2008 he specialized in theology at the University of Jena, Germany. In 2013 he successfully graduated as a master in the Department of Classical Philology of Sofia University. Since 2012 he has been accepted as a novice at the Divot Monastery of the Holy Trinity, where he was tonsured a monk on June 23, 2014 by Bishop Grigoriy of Branitski and led under the mantle by the abbot, Archimandrite Pachomius. In 2015 he was ordained a hierodeacon and hieromonk by Bishop Grigoriy. In the period 2016-2017 he was sent for theological specialization at the Central Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity “St. St. Cyril and Methodius” in Moscow.
Since 2017 he has been appointed Deputy Rector for Academic Affairs of the Sofia Theological Seminary and a lecturer in the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. Since then he has also led the choir of the Seminary. Since 2018 he has been a part-time doctoral student in philosophy at the Sofia University. On June 29, 2022 he was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite by Metropolitan Cyprian of Stara Zagora.
He is fluent in German, Russian, English and Greek.