THE DEVELOPMENTS UP TO 1860

There were few nationally conscious Bulgarians who did not now believe that the next step should be towards a fully separate Bulgarian church, an idea which was reinforced in 1850 when the protestants, thanks to strong diplomatic support from Great Britain, had been granted their own millet.

Much more importantly, in 1850 the patriarchate had finally been forced to recognise the Orthodox church in the Greek kingdom as an autocephalous institution.

The patriarchate, however, was not disposed to give way to reformist pressures and would never contemplate a split in the Orthodox community, even more so after its defeat over the church in Greece controversy.

If there to make any progress towards ecclesiastical independence it seemed the Bulgarians would need foreign sponsorship similar to that which the British had given the Protestants. For many Bulgarians, especially those educated in Russia, the tsar seemed the obvious source of such backing, not least because Russia had consistently supported the call for the appointment of Bulgarian bishops to Bulgarian sees.

Like the patriarch, Russia did not want divisions in Orthodoxy.

Her purported right to protect Orthodox Christians (treaty of Kutchuk Kainadji 1774) provided justification for diplomatic intervention in the Ottoman empire. Many Bulgarians were puzzled by the Russian position. To some degree their conundrum about Russia was eased by the latter's defeat in the Crimean war of 1854-6.

The war lessened Russian power and influence and it left the Bulgarians with a choice between pressing ahead on their own or finding an alternative sponsor.

The former was always the more popular strategy. And it was encouraged by the Hatt-i-Humayoun, the Porte's declaration of intent, issued at the conclusion of the war, to further reform the imperial administration.

In 1856 enthusiasts for the Bulgarian church cause decided to act alone, and presented the sultan with a petition claimed to represent the 6.5 million Bulgarians living in the empire.

In the same year, the Bulgarian communal council in Constantinople circulated a letter to all large Bulgarian communities asking them to send elected delegates to Constantinople to join in pressing for an independent church. These delegates, when they met in the imperial capital constituted the first remotely representative body in modern Bulgarian history, and included in their number were many who were to achieve prominence in Bulgarian national affairs both before and after the liberation of 1878.

In 1857 the Porte ordered the patriarchate to institute a reform programme. In 1858 the patriarch agreed to call a council which was to include three Bulgarians; it was the first of seven such councils, all of them equally unproductive, to meet between 1858 and 1872.

The Bulgarians suffered from a number of disadvantages.

• Despite the overwhelming popularity of their cause amongst the Bulgarian laity there were small but powerful elements in the Bulgarian clergy who were not prepared to split the Orthodox church; they included the abbot of the Rila monastery and two of the four Bulgarian bishops recently nominated by the patriarchate.
• Secondly, no official body created by the patriarchate would ever contain anything but an overwhelming Greek majority, and reform through official channels was therefore an illusion.
• Thirdly, the recognition of this truth strengthened for a while the minority who had always favoured the alternative strategy of seeking new forms of foreign sponsorship.

In 1860 matters came to a head. It was a time of further change in Europe, the Balkans and the Ottoman empire, a time which saw the emergence of a unified Italy, the unification of the Danubian provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia into Romania, and the intervention of the great powers to secure autonomy for the rebellious Ottoman provinces in Syria and Lebanon.

In Constantinople 1860 witnessed a virtual declaration of ecclesiastical independence by the Bulgarian church. It happened on Easter Sunday in St Stephen's. According to the pre-arranged plan the congregation interrupted the priest, Bishop Ilarion Makariopolski, at that point in the service where he was to pray for the patriarch. The patriarch's name was omitted and Ilarion prayed directly for the sultan's welfare; this direct prayer was an implicit rejection of the patriarchate which was still legally the body through which all Orthodox Christians were represented to the imperial ruler. In the evening service, for which the customary permission had not been secured, the Gospels were read in eleven different languages; Greek was not one of them.

Ilarion's bold move won widespread support amongst the Bulgarians communities; 33 towns petitioned the sultan in support of Ilarion, as did 700 merchants who had gathered for the annual fair in Uzundjovo. A number of bishops immediately aligned with the Constantinople church, including Gideon of Sofia who, though Greek, dared not offend the feelings of his flock.

The Easter declaration of independence in 1860, despite the widespread support it rapidly gained, did not bring official recognition of a separate Bulgarian church.

• The Porte did not wish to hasten to a conclusion a dispute which conveniently divided two of its major subject groups;
• the Russians remained reluctant to see any division in the patriarchate; and
• the patriarch himself was as adamantly opposed as ever to the loss of his Bulgarian flock, and, of course, the revenue he derived from it.
• Much more importantly, was the impact recognition of the Bulgarian church would have upon other non-Greek Orthodox communities. The Ottoman millet system had made cultural identity a consequence of religious affiliation; the Bulgarians wanted the reverse that order and make religious affiliation a consequence of national allegiance. Such a doctrine if accepted would fragment the Orthodox church in the Ottoman empire with Romanians, Vlachs and Albanians, as well as Serbs, making similar claims. Understandably, the status of the Bulgarian church now became the central theme in the seemingly endless councils and other discussions held in the higher ranks of the Orthodox church.

Those amongst the Bulgarians who had advocated internal action, the Bulgarian 'fara da se', had hoped that the bold move such as that Ilarion had made would cut the Gordian knot, force St Petersburg to come off the fence, and free the Bulgarian church from its ties to the patriarchate. That Russia still did not back the call for an independent Bulgarian Church inevitably strengthened the confidence of those who all along had believed that the Bulgarians would be better off finding alternative foreign sponsorship.

The sponsor they had in mind was the Roman Catholic church; behind the Roman Church stood the Habsburg empire and, more significantly, the France of Napoleon III whose taste for foreign adventures and entanglements had not yet been dulled by the Mexican fiasco.

The association with Rome would be achieved by joining the Uniate church, which allowed former Orthodox communities to worship in their own language with rites identical to those of the Orthodox church; in return those communities would acknowledge the pope as head of the church.