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Pastor Nikolay Danailov Kokonchev was born in Burgas on 09 November 1956. On his father's side he is a third generation protestant minister. His grandfather Georgi Kokonchevis among the first preachers and distributors of the Bible in Greek Macedonia (in the city of Thessalonica). His uncle Yosif Kokonchev is among the first pastors who received Bible university education in 1936-1938 in the city of Gdansk (those days called Danzig - a free city). He was a pastor of churches in Sliven, Stara Zagora and Varna, where he retired in 1972.

Nikolay Kokonchev has a university degree from the University of Economics - Varna. In 1988 he and his wife Elza took the decision to devote themselves fully to the ministry and they have pastured in EPC Karnobat for 2 years. In the meantime, pastor Nikolay graduated successfully as Pastor of Theology at Logos Bible Academy (now a faculty of the Evangelical Institute, Sofia). He is also an honorary Ph. D. at theology at World Christianship Ministries, California US.

In 1990 the family, together with their two daughters Milena and Michaela came to Varna to start leading the church. It was the period of the beginning of democracy in Bulgaria. The church quickly grew and reached the number of 1000 members in 1992. At the same time the old property of the church has been restituted and the new building has been built. Churches have been founded in all towns near Varna and for many of them were built church buildings.

Pastor Nikolay Kokonchev has been a member of the High Council of EPC since 1989 and is a regional pastor.

His vision is: to reach the unreached with the message of salvation!

He believes that THERE IS NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN GOD!