Back in 2002, Pope John Paul II presented the church as a gift to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and since then it has been the home of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Bulgarian Orthodox parish in Rome.
The Church of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi is also the seat of the Bulgarian Orthodox bishop for Italy, San Marino and Malta.
"Our Sunday school has been closed because of this wayward sexton," Father Antony, vicar of the Bulgarian Metropolitan Bishop for Europe, Simeon, complained.
As the church was closed on Christmas, Archimandrite Kliment Bobchev had to serve the Christmas mass in his apartment at the Bulgarian embassy in Rome.
Laymen told the Standart that the sexton had removed all Bulgarian orthodox icons from the church's walls and was preparing to do so with the expensive candlesticks.
Clergymen fear that the liberties of the Romanian sexton may cause unnecessary tensions between the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Holy See.