Metropolitan Stefan, the nation's top religious official, applied moral pressure on Boris, imploring the king "to demonstrate the compassion and lucidity incumbent" on his position "by defending the right to the freedom and human dignity that the Bulgarian people have always upheld by tradition and by temperament. . . . The wails and tears of these Bulgarian citizens of Jewish origin whose rights are being denied them," Bishop Stefan insisted, "are a legitimate protest against the injustice being done to them."
