Sofia, Bulgaria - Bulgaria's newly rich businessmen in search of respectability in a country suspicious of wealth and where it comes from have turned to religion, following a post-communist revival of the Christian Orthodox Church.
At Saint Mina monastery outside the capital Sofia, enormous new icons donated by people in business and cultural circles dwarf the much smaller original icon of Saint Mina himself, to whom believers write their wishes on scraps of paper.
Outside, a richly engraved wooden gate, a water fountain and several luxurious-looking buildings with plaques prominently displaying the names of their donors outshine the small old church.
"The public generally has a poor view of big business, associating it with either the mafia or the shadow economy," political analyst Evgeny Daynov told AFP. "So businessmen seek legitimacy by showing devotion to the church, without actually being believers."
Even the chairman of the major big-business union, Bozhidar Danev, last month said the underground economy was so widespread it accounted for 32 to 34 percent of all turnover and billions in unreported income in Bulgaria, which joined the
European Union in January.
The 1989 transition from communism was marked by spectacular turf wars for part of the new free-market pie, during which hundreds of underground bosses-turned-businessmen were assassinated.
In recent years, donations from this emergent business class have helped renovate orthodox monasteries around the country as well as build new churches.
"Everyone, even if he is rich, remembers he is mortal," said Zlatka, a worker at a newly restored and renovated church in Lozen, south of Sofia, who did not want her full name used. "The reasons behind their donations will be taken into account up there ."
Even church donations did not save two of BulgariaÂ’s richest and most emblematic businessmen.
Ilia Pavlov, president of the Multigroup holding with business interests in tourism and energy, had a chapel built in his village and gave the name of his patron, Saint Elias, to a beach resort he owned on the Black Sea.
He was gunned down, however, outside his Sofia office in 2003.
Similarly, top banker Emil Kyulev, who generously contributed to building a church commissioned by Bulgaria's most famous clairvoyant, was shot dead in his car on a boulevard in the capital in 2005.
Religious rituals have also become an essential part of inauguration ceremonies for every new building, business or undertaking in this former Soviet bloc state.
The recent launch of the centre-right GERB party of Sofia mayor and former crime buster Boiko Borissov was no exception.
"The uncertainty business people feel when they launch something new prompts them to seek moral support. It's debatable whether this is motivated by religious faith or superstition," said Tihomir Bezlov, an analyst at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia-based independent think-tank.
Patriarch Maxim, head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church to which almost 80 percent of the population belongs, blessed both former prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg and President Georgy Parvanov, a former Socialist leader whose party grew out of Bulgaria's old communist party, when each man took the oath of office.
"People latched onto religious rites to lend an air of legitimacy to important events, since the old communist ceremonies have been dropped, and also to show they are no longer communist," Gallup analyst Andrey Raychev said. Going to church was frowned upon under communism, which espouses atheism, but since the old regime's demise churches are overflowing on holy days. Most couples today choose to be married in religious church ceremonies and christenings are again common.
"It's not that Bulgarians have become believers. No more than 15 percent could be considered religious. But at Christmas, at Easter, they go to church to respect tradition and enjoy the festivities," Raychev said.
Superstition, which was fervently condemned under the Communist regime, is also on the upswing.
A 2004 Gallup poll showed that Bulgarians in their 30s and 40s were clearly more superstitious than their elders, and attributed the trend to their confusion during the profound social changes that accompanied the collapse of communism.
Half of those polled said they feared the "evil eye" and believed in black magic. One in five Bulgarians said he believed black cats brought bad luck, that it was possible to speak to the dead and that ghosts existed.