The
Sofia Synagogue is the largest
synagogueA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer....
in Southeastern Europe, one of two functioning in
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
and the third-largest in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
.
Constructed for the needs of the Bulgarian capital
SofiaSofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city by population in the European Union, with 1.4 million people living in the Capital Municipality...
's mainly Sephardic
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish community after a project by the
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n architect
Friedrich GrünangerFriedrich Grünanger was an Austro-Hungarian architect who worked primarily in Bulgaria.Born in Schäßburg in Austria-Hungary , Grünanger studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna architecture school between 1877 and 1879, under Friedrich von Schmidt...
, it resembles the old Sephardic synagogue
Leopoldstädter TempelThe Leopoldstädter Tempel was the largest synagogue of Vienna, in the district of Leopoldstadt. It was also known as the Israelitische Bethaus in der Wiener Vorstadt Leopoldstadt. It was built in 1858 in a Moorish Revival style by the architect Ludwig Förster...
in
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
and was officially opened on 9 September 1909 in the presence of
TsarTsar or czar , occasionally spelled csar or Tzar in English, is a Slavic term with Bulgarian origins used to designate certain monarchs...
Ferdinand I of BulgariaFerdinand , born Prince Ferdinand Maximilian Karl Leopold Maria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was the Knjaz and later Tsar of Bulgaria as well as an author, botanist, entomologist and philatelist....
.
The
Sofia Synagogue is the largest
synagogueA synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer....
in Southeastern Europe, one of two functioning in
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
and the third-largest in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
.
Constructed for the needs of the Bulgarian capital
SofiaSofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city by population in the European Union, with 1.4 million people living in the Capital Municipality...
's mainly Sephardic
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
ish community after a project by the
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n architect
Friedrich GrünangerFriedrich Grünanger was an Austro-Hungarian architect who worked primarily in Bulgaria.Born in Schäßburg in Austria-Hungary , Grünanger studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna architecture school between 1877 and 1879, under Friedrich von Schmidt...
, it resembles the old Sephardic synagogue
Leopoldstädter TempelThe Leopoldstädter Tempel was the largest synagogue of Vienna, in the district of Leopoldstadt. It was also known as the Israelitische Bethaus in der Wiener Vorstadt Leopoldstadt. It was built in 1858 in a Moorish Revival style by the architect Ludwig Förster...
in
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
and was officially opened on 9 September 1909 in the presence of
TsarTsar or czar , occasionally spelled csar or Tzar in English, is a Slavic term with Bulgarian origins used to designate certain monarchs...
Ferdinand I of BulgariaFerdinand , born Prince Ferdinand Maximilian Karl Leopold Maria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was the Knjaz and later Tsar of Bulgaria as well as an author, botanist, entomologist and philatelist....
. The first preparations for the synagogue's construction date to 1903, while the construction itself had begun on 13 November 1905. The construction of a grand new synagogue was part of the reorganization efforts of the Bulgarian Jewish community under
LembergLviv is a major city in western Ukraine.It is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically also for Ukraine’s neighbour Poland. The historic centre of Lviv with its old buildings and cobblestone roads has survived the Second World War and the Soviet presence...
-born
Chief RabbiChief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
Marcus Ehrenpreis and local leaders Ezra Tadjer and Avram Davidjon Levy. Prior to the construction of the new synagogue, the lot in central Sofia had been occupied by an older synagogue.
One of the architectural monuments of Sofia, the synagogue, located in the very centre of the city near the
Central Market HallThe Central Sofia Market Hall , known popularly simply as The Market Hall is a covered market in the centre of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, located on Marie Louise Boulevard...
, can accommodate 1,300 worshippers. The Sofia Synagogue's main
chandelierA chandelier is a branched decorative ceiling-mounted light fixture with two or more arms bearing lights. Chandeliers are often ornate, containing dozens of lamps and complex arrays of glass or crystal prisms to illuminate a room with refracted light....
weighs 1.7
tonThe term ton or tonne generally refers to a unit of mass. However, there exists more than one measure of mass that are named "ton", so one has to be specific when using the term. While they do vary considerably, a ton is generally one of the heaviest units of mass referred to in colloquial speech...
s and is the largest in the country.
Despite the building's size, the
servicesJewish services are the prayer recitations that form part of the observance of Judaism...
are normally only attended by some 50 to 60 worshippers due to the
aliyahAliyah is the immigration of Jews to Eretz Israel. It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology, and a value in almost all movements of Judaism...
of most of Bulgaria's Jews to
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
and the
secularitySecularity is the state of being separate from religion.For instance, eating and bathing may be regarded as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them...
of the local Jewish population.
The architectural style is essentially
Moorish RevivalMoorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of the Romanticist fascination with all things oriental...
, with elements of the
Vienna SecessionThe Vienna Secession was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus.This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects...
and, in the facade,
VenetianVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
architecture. The main premise has a diameter of 20
mThe metre or meter is the basic unit of length in the International System of Units . Historically, the metre was defined by the French Academy of Sciences as the length between two marks on a platinum-iridium bar, which was designed to represent one ten-millionth of the distance from the Equator...
and is 31 m high. It is topped by an octagonal dome. The interior is richly decorated, featuring columns of
CarraraCarrara is a city in the province of Massa-Carrara , famous for the white or blue-gray marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione river, some 100 km west-northwest of Florence....
marble and multicoloured Venetian mosaics, as well as decorative woodcarving. The entire building takes up 659
m²The square metre is the SI derived unit of area, with symbol m2. It is defined as the area of a square whose sides measure exactly one metre...
.
Since 8 May 1992 the Sofia Synagogue also houses the Jewish Museum of History, which includes the Jewish Communities in Bulgaria and the Holocaust and the Salvation of the Jews in Bulgaria expositions. A souvenir shop is also in operation.