| Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Eastern Catholic |
| Structure | Eparchy |
| Pope | Francis |
| Bishop ofSofia | Christo Proykov |
| Associations | Congregation for the Oriental Churches |
| Region | Bulgaria |
| Language | Bulgarian |
| Liturgy | Byzantine Rite |
| Headquarters | Cathedral of the DormitionSofia,Bulgaria |
| Congregations | 13 |
| Members | 10,000 |
| Ministers | 21 |
| Official website | http://www.kae-bg.org |
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TheBulgarian Greek Catholic Church[a] is asui iuris ("autonomous")Eastern Catholic church based inBulgaria. As aparticular church of theCatholic Church, it is infull communion with theHoly See. The church'sliturgical usage is that of theByzantine Rite in theBulgarian language. The church is organized as a singleeparchy—theBulgarian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Sofia.
UnderKnyaz Boris (853–889) theBulgarians acceptedChristianity in itsByzantine form, with theliturgy celebrated inChurch Slavonic. For a variety of reasons, Boris became interested in converting to Christianity and undertook to do that at the hands of Western clergymen to be supplied byLouis the German in 863. However, late in the same year, theByzantine Empire invadedBulgaria during a period of famine and natural disasters. Taken by surprise, Boris was forced to sue for peace and agreed to convert to Christianity according to the eastern rites.[1] His successorSymeon the Great (893–927) proclaimed an autonomousBulgarian Patriarchate in 917, which won recognition fromConstantinople in 927 and lasted until the fall of the First Bulgarian Empire in 1018. In 1186 the Bulgarian state regained its independence.Pope Innocent III had written to tsarKaloyan, inviting him to unite his church with theCatholic Church, as early as 1199. Wanting to bear the title of Emperor and to restore the prestige, wealth and size of theFirst Bulgarian Empire, Kaloyan responded in 1202. In this political maneuver, he requested thatPope Innocent III bestow on him the imperial crown. Kaloyan also wanted the Papacy to recognize the head of the Bulgarian Church as aPatriarch.[2] The pope was not willing to make concessions on that scale, and when his envoy, Cardinal Leo, arrived in Bulgaria, he anointed theArchbishop Vasilij ofTărnovo asPrimate ofBulgarians. Kaloyan only receivedUniate crown, but not imperial. Meanwhile, in an attempt to foster an alliance with Kaloyan, the Byzantine EmperorAlexios III Angelos recognized his imperial title and promised him patriarchal recognition. In 1235 thePatriarch of Constantinople recognized the independence of the Bulgarian Church and the right of its leader to the patriarchal title. TheOttoman conquest of 1393 put an end to that patriarchate, whose territory was reunited with that ofConstantinople. In the succeeding centuries the Bulgarian Church was gradually Hellenized:Greek was used in the liturgy, and the bishops were ethnicGreeks.
The rise ofnationalism in the 19th century brought opposition to this situation. In the 19th century, there were three main Uniat movements in the thenBulgarians populated lands. They were connected to the nationalist emancipation from theGreek-dominatedPatriarchate of Constantinople and its pro-Greek influence over theSlavic population living in theThracian andMacedonian lands. The movement for union withRome initially won some 60,000 adherents, but, as a result of the Sultan's establishment in 1870 of theBulgarian Exarchate, at least three quarters of these returned to Orthodoxy by the end of the 19th century. The clergy's numerous shifts from theOrthodox to theCatholic Church and vice versa should not be viewed only as personal whims. They are symptomatic of the foreign powers’ game that the clergy got involved after the June 1878Berlin Treaty, which left Macedonia and Thrace within theOttoman Empire (after it had been given to Bulgaria with the March 1878San Stefano Treaty). Thus, in the interplay between the Orthodox and the Uniat doctrine, Bulgaria supported the Orthodox Exarchate, andRussia supportedBulgaria. The Greek-dominated Patriarchate of Constantinople supported theGreek side.France and theHabsburg Empire supported the Uniats. The support of the Habsburg Empire increased only after 1878. The Ottoman Empire's attitude was ambivalent – sometimes supporting, sometimes opposing the Uniat movement, depending on how it had to balance its own interests in the game with theGreat Powers.
This is the background of the approaches that some influentialBulgarians made toRome in 1859–1861, in the hope that union with Rome would gain their church the freedom they felt Constantinople was denying them. The leading figure of the Uniat movement was theBulgarian merchantDragan Tsankov, who had the support of CatholicFrance. He published the newspaper"Bulgaria" inConstantinople, in which he advocated a union with thePope. It criticizedRussia for its negative stance on the Bulgarian "church question" and published historical documents on the good connections between theCatholic Church and the Bulgarian kings in medieval times. The First Uniat movement originated in two centers:Kukush and Constantinople.[3] In 1859, Kukush citizens wrote a letter to the Pope, in which they acknowledged his administrative and spiritual leadership. In return, they demanded that no changes should be introduced to their Eastern rites of worship and that they would be the ones to choose their bishops and lower clergy, with the approval of the Pope. The letter stated that the teachers at the church schools are to be chosen by the domestic clergy and the education is to be pursued in theBulgarian language and its "national alphabet". In 1861,archimandrite Joseph Sokolsky led a delegation to Rome, where he was received byPope Pius IX. The pope ordained him as the archbishop for Bulgarian Catholics of the Byzantine rite on 8 April 1861. The new archbishop was associated with the Bulgarian nationalist cause. However, we was recognized in his new capacity by theSublime Porte. However, he was almost immediately removed on a Russian ship and held inKiev for the remainder of his life. By June 1861, there was no-one in Constantinople who could perform the Bulgarian Uniate services. This situation was not remedied until 1863 whenRaphael Popov was elected asbishop centered inAdrianople. At the same year aBulgarian Uniate Gymnasium at Adrianople was founded.[4] The First Uniat movement spread into several towns and villages in Macedonia and Thrace, but they did not yield any concrete results. The reasons for the failure of the First Uniat movement could be found in the political character of the movements, rather than in the population's deep religious devotion. The people demanded its domestic clergy. They received it first through thePatriarchate, and then through theBulgarian Exarchate, which was finally established in 1870.
The Second Uniat movement started again inKukush. In 1874,Nil Izvorov, the Bulgarian Orthodox bishop of Kukush, wrote a letter to the Bulgarian Uniat Bishop in Constantinople,Raphael Popov, saying that the will of the people inMacedonia was to join the Bulgarian Uniat Church. After that he sent a letter to thePope as well, asking him for a union. His attempt of a union was successful, and in the same year he held services in his new capacity of a Uniat Catholic bishop. There are several interpretations of the reasons behind this union. Some authors stress Izvorov's personal motivation to go for a union. Two months after, Izvorov arrived in Kukush as an Orthodox bishop, he was called back to Constantinople by thePatriarchate and the Russian diplomatic services. Looking for a way to remain in Macedonia, he first approached some Anglican missionaries, but he did not get any support from them. Only after that, he turned to theLazarists inSalonica and then to bishop Popov in Constantinople. Another researchers argued that Izvorov was not happy with his own position in the Exarchate, but added that the population too was not happy with the division of the local dioceses by the Patriarchate and theBulgarian Exarchate and mistrusted both of them. That is why the ordinary people had an interest to join theCatholic Church. Historical sources show that theOttoman government banned Izvorov from entering Kukush for several years. Bishop Popov took over his duties in Kukush, but in 1876 he died under unknown circumstances. In the same year Izvorov was promoted to be the Administering Bishop of all UniatBulgarians, directly subordinated to the Apostolic Delegate in Constantinople. After that he resumed his duties in Macedonia. That year, he became active once again inCentral Macedonia, based at Kukush. In one five-year period, there were 57 Catholic villages, whilst the Bulgarian uniate schools in theVilayet of Thessaloniki reached 64, including theBulgarian Uniate Gymnasium at Thessaloniki.[5] Several years later in 1883, he was promoted to Archbishop of all Uniat Bulgarians and went to Constantinople. As of 1883, there were already two apostolic vicars. BishopMichail Petkov inAdrianople was responsible toThrace and bishopLazar Mladenov in Salonica to Macedonia, both subordinated to the archbishopNil Izvorov in Constantinople. Earlier on the followers of Catholicism of the Eastern Rites had a joint hierarchy. In 1884 Izvorov went back to theBulgarian Orthodox Church. The personality of Bishop Mladenov was not less controversial than that of Bishop Izvorov. After theHigh Porte cancelled his accreditation as Bishop on the demand of the French Consul in Salonica in 1894, Mladenov also turned to the Bulgarian Exarchate. Then he returned to the Uniate Church. Nevertheless, this was the end of his career, he stayed in a monastery until the end of his life.
By the end of the 19th century, the Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church inMacedonia was based inKukush withEpiphany Shanov as Bishop afterMladenov's excommunication in 1895. The other Vicariat was that of theThrace. It was led byMihail Mirov, who was proclaimed as also Administering Bishop of all UniatBulgarians, with sead inConstantinople as of 1907. In 1893, theInternal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization emerged as the main Bulgarian factor in the Macedonian and Thracian lands. In the late 1890s, IMARO was extremely anti-Catholic. On its part, theCatholic Church did not support IMARO, because it was against any revolutionary movements in theOttoman Empire. This attitude changed for a short period of time after the 1903Ilinden-Preobrazhenie uprising. The Ottoman terror following the failure of the uprising prompted theBulgarian Exarchate and the Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church alike to embark on the same mission: helping the people to cope with the tragedy. However, this rapprochement was short-lived. After 1903, the IMARO revolutionaries and the Exarchate continued to act against the Catholic Church. The immediate effect of the partition of the Ottoman Empire during theBalkan Wars was the anti-Bulgarian campaign in areas underSerbian andGreek rule. TheSerbians expelled Bulgarian churchmen. TheGreeks burned Kukush, the center of Bulgarian politics and culture.Bulgarian language was prohibited, and its surreptitious use, whenever detected, was ridiculed or punished.[6] TheOttomans managed to keep theAdrianople region, where the wholeThracian Bulgarian population was put to totalethnic cleansing by theYoung Turks' army.[7] As a result of the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars and the 1914–1918 First World War, manyBulgarians fled from the territories of present-dayGreece,North Macedonia andTurkey to what is nowBulgaria.
In 1926, an Apostolic Exarchate was established inSofia for the pastoral care of the Byzantine Catholics inBulgaria among them. This was arranged largely with the help of Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the futurePope John XXIII, who in 1925 was named Apostolic Visitator and, later, Apostolic Delegate for Bulgaria, where he stayed until 1934. During theSecond World War Bulgaria occupied the bigger part ofMacedonia andWestern Thrace. In 1941, the Uniat parishes went under the jurisdiction of the Apostolic Exarchate in Sofia. Many of the clergymen and the Euharistinki sisters who had found refuge in Bulgaria earlier, returned to Macedonia andThrace and resumed their work until the end of the war, when Bulgaria lost these territories again. Unlike otherCommunist regimes inEastern Europe, the Communist government that took power in Bulgaria after World War II did not abolish the Byzantine Catholic Church, but did subject it to severereligious persecution which is said to have been somewhat eased after the election ofPope John XXIII on 28 October 1958.
At the end of 2004, the Apostolic Exarchate of Sofia numbered 10,000 Catholics in 21 parishes, under the care of five diocesan and sixteen religious priests, with 17 other male religious and 41 female religious. The church was elevated from anApostolic Exarchate to a full eparchy byPope Francis on 12 October 2019.[8] Thecathedral church of the eparchy is theCathedral of the Dormition (Катедрала Успение Богородично), inBulgaria's capitalSofia. Theincumbent eparch isChristo Proykov.
Like other Eastern Catholic Churches, the Bulgarian Byzantine Catholic Church ordainsmarried men to the priesthood.[9]
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42°41′29″N23°18′48″E / 42.6913°N 23.3134°E /42.6913; 23.3134
