cinquante - deuxieme

annee

LII
2016/2
Comité de rédaction
Raïa Zaïmova, rédacteur en chef, Institut d’Études balkaniques & Centre de Thracologie
(Институт за балканистика с Център по тракология – ИБЦТ, София)
Fikret Adanır, Université Sabancı (Sabancı Üniversitesi, Istanbul), Ivo Banac, Université
Yale (Yale University, Connecticut), Stanoje Bojanin, Institut d’Études byzantines, Belgrade
(Византолошки институт САНУ, Београд), Ulf Brunnbauer, Université de Ratisbonne
(Universität Regensburg), Nathalie Clayer, CNRS; EHESS, Paris, Nadia Danova, Académie
bulgare des Sciences (БАН, София), Raymond Detrez, Université de Gand (Universitеit
Gent), Rossitsa Gradeva, Institut d’Études balkaniques & Centre de Thracologie (ИБЦТ,
София), Francesco Guida, Université de Rome III (Università degli Studi di Roma Tre),
Wolfgang Höpken, Université de Leipzig (Universität Leipzig), Ivan Ilchev, Université
de Sofia (СУ „Св. Климент Охридски“), Pascalis Kitromilidis, Université d’Athènes
(Εθνικόν και Καποδιστριακόν Πανεπιστήμιον Αθηνών), Alexandre Kostov, Institut d’Études
balkaniques & Centre de Thracologie (ИБЦТ, София), Ana Lalaj, Centre d’Études
albanaises (Qendra e Studimeve Albanologjike, Tirana), Dobrinka Parusheva, Université
de Plovdiv; Institut d’Études balkaniques & Centre de Thracologie (ПУ „Паисий
Хилендарски“; ИБЦТ, София), Roumiana Preshlenova, Institut d’Études balkaniques &
Centre de Thracologie (ИБЦТ, София), Ljubodrag P. Ristic, Institut d’Études balkaniques,
Belgrade (Балканолошки институт САНУ, Београд), Liliana Simeonova, Institut
d’Études balkaniques & Centre de Thracologie (ИБЦТ, София), Elena Siupiur, Institut
d’Études Sud-Est Européennes, Bucarest (Institutul de Studii Sud-Est Europene, Academia
Română, Bucureşti), Vassilka Tăpkova-Zaïmova, Académie bulgare des Sciences (БАН,
София), Maria Todorova, Université de l’Illinois (University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign), Galina Valtchinova, Université de Toulouse II
Malamir Spassov, secrétaire scientifique du Comité de rédaction, Institut d’Études
balkaniques & Centre de Thracologie (ИБЦТ, София)
Мargarita Serafimova, coordinatrice de la revue, Institut d’Études balkaniques & Centre
de Thracologie (ИБЦТ, София)

ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES
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Mise en page : FABER

ISSN 0324-1645
© Institut d’Études balkaniques & Centre de Thracologie
2016
 ACADÉMIE BULGARE DES SCIENCES
INSTITUT D’ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES & CENTRE DE THRACOLOGIE

ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES
LІІ / 2

Sofia ∙ 2016
 ISSN 0324 – 1645

ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES
Sofia ∙ 2016 ∙ LІІ ◆ 2
ACADÉMIE BULGARE DES SCIENCES
INSTITUT D’ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES & CENTRE DE THRACOLOGIE

Sommaire

Simeon MITROPOLITSKI, Types of euroscepticism: the case of Bulgaria....185

Blagovest NJAGULOV, Entre le paradis et l’enfer : l’histoire, Baltchik
et la Dobroudja mises au point.............................................................................. 205
Tsvetomir TODOROV, The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian
Schism (1872) through the Postsecular Perspective – Reasons and
Consequences........................................................................................................... 242
Ivaylo NAYDENOV, The Merchant Network of the Puliev Family
in the First Half of the 19th Century.................................................................... 265

« Frontières aux confins de l’Europe : mémoires et identités parallèles »

Catherine HOREL, Fiume-Rijeka, frontières et identités 1880 – 1921............ 282
Stefka PARVEVA, Creating and preserving the collective memory
of war conflicts in the Ottoman border periphery: the battles of
Michael Viteazul with the Ottoman Empire during the War of
the Holy League (1593 – 1606)............................................................................ 313

Comptes rendus
Yura KONSTANTINOVA, Russia in Search of Itself: Historical Roots and
Present Day Projections (Тина Георгиева, Консерватизъм и национализъм
в Русия. Втората половина на 60-те – средата на 80-те години на ХІХ век,
Фабер, 2015)............................................................................................................ 351
Liudmila MINDOVA, Voir l’Autre (Саня Велкова-Кожухарова.
Българи и гърци. Черти от взаимните им представи. София,
ИБЦТ – БАН, 2014)............................................................................................ 357
Gergana GEORGIEVA, A New Study on the Seventeenth-Eighteenth
Century Balkan Rural Society (Стефка Първева, Земята и хората
през ХVІІ – първите десетилетия на ХVІІІ век. Овладяване и
организация на аграрното и социалното пространство в Централните
и Южните Балкани под османска власт. София, АИ „Проф. Марин
Дринов“, 2011)........................................................................................................ 365

Notices bibliographiques
Pierre Gilles, Itinéraires byzantins. Lettre à un ami. Du Bosphore de Thrace.
De la topographie de Constantinople et de ses antiquités. Introd., trad. du latin
et notes par Jean-Pierre Grélois [CNRS – Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation
de Byzance. Monographies 28], Paris, Association des amis du Centre
d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, 2007 (Liliana SIMEONOVA)........ 374
 ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES, LІІ, 2016, 2

THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL RETHINKING OF THE BULGARIAN

SCHISM (1872) THROUGH THE POSTSECULAR PERSPECTIVE –
REASONS AND CONSEQUENCES

Tsvetomir Todorov

Abstract: The Bulgarian schism from 1872 is considered the focal point in the syn-
thesis between secularization and nationalization of the religious life of the Ortho-
dox Christians in the modernizing 19th century Balkans. The Bulgarian separation
from the Patriarchate of Constantinople was not a precedent in the context of the
epoch. Quite similar were the administrative church disunions, common for most
of the emerging nationalistic movements in Eastern Europe. But it was only the
Bulgarian case in which a whole nation was proclaimed schismatic and excom-
municated from the Orthodox ecumene. What is more, it was for the promulga-
tion of the autocephaly of the Bulgarian Exarchate that the nationalism within the
Church (ethnophyletism) was declared heresy. That exclusiveness of the Bulgarian
case makes it a rather convenient resource for historical, theological and sociologi-
cal arguments in the ongoing scientific debates, concerning the modern relation-
ships between church, state and society and especially for the explanation of some
conflict crossroads within the modern Orthodox world. Apart from the academic
discourse, in the past two decades the Bulgarian schism from 1872 is actively being
used, both by local and foreign thinkers, as a ground for predefinition of the popular
grand narratives in the Bulgarian history. To the intensity and the reasons for that
rethinking of the historical discourse, which could be quite radical in some cases, is
devoted the following research.
Keywords: Eastern Orthodox Church, Desecularisation, Modernity, Bulgaria,
Schism

The storylines from the history of the Bulgarian National Revival are rare-
ly present in the studies of international scholars. Yet, matters stand differently
when it comes to the Bulgarian-Greek ecclesiastical struggle, and particularly
to the Bulgarian schism of 1872, which, in the recent decade, have been ana-
lyzed by a number of historians, theologians, sociologists and cultural anthro-
pologists, dealing both with the history of the Orthodox Church and with
the contemporary dimensions of religious life. The attention of the scholars
is easy to explain. After the collapse of the socialist system in Eastern Europe
242
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 243

and the return of the religion in the public life in the post-communist coun-
tries, for many reasons the issue of nationalism within the Church has become
one of the prime topics for the Orthodox Ecumene and it was the Bulgarian
Question in the 19th century that served as a pretext for qualifying national-
ism within the Church (or ethnophiletism) as heresy. Along with researchers,
the schism and the condemnation of the Bulgarian people for being involved
in heresy by the 1872 Council of Constantinople, also occupies the minds of
many Bulgarian Orthodox Christians, actively practicing the faith. Some of
them tend to construe the hardships faced by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
in the last century, and by the Bulgarian people as a whole, by resorting to a
metaphysical interpretation of the historical processes in the 19th century. This
study explores the reasons for the current academic and popular interest in
the Bulgarian Church history during its National Revival period, whose use
sometimes astounds with its radicalism.

I. On secularization, desecularization and why social sciences

turn to history
In the past two decades the comeback of religiosity or the deseculariza-
tion of the world, if we borrow Peter Berger’s felicitous term used in his pro-
gramme article under the same title1, has become a key topic in the debates
of all social sciences2. However, as it often happens with the trendy academic
fields, the accumulation of theoretical knowledge on an issue is not particu-
larly helpful for its clarification. On the contrary. In the case with the desecu-
larisation paradigm, the theorisation of the topic has brought relativism to the
field. The latter makes it increasingly difficult for one to distinguish among
the key concepts in the field, including those, associated with the very foun-
dations of religion and religiosity. Still, in an attempt to exculpate science, we
have to admit that in the case of desecularization the problem is not the aca-
demization of the discourse itself, even though the latter also matters, but the
1  P. Berger, The Desecularization of the World: a Global Overview, In: P. Berger (ed.),
The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Washington DC,
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1999, p. 1 – 18.
2  M. Розати, Постсекулярные современности: социологическое прочтение, Государ-

ство, религия, церковь в России и за рубежом, 2014, N 1, 268 – 293.

http://religion.rane.ru/sites/default/files/GRC_1 – 2014_final.272 – 293.pdf, с. 272
– 24.07.2014.
244 Tsvetomir Todorov

manner in which religiosity has returned to the social life. The historical pro-
cesses in the past decades have forced in a dramatic way the topic of religion
back into the social debate making it unavoidable part of the subdisciplines of
social sciences and political theory3. But was the academic community ready
for this big comeback of religion?
Many thinkers, who have accepted the thesis of the desecularization of
society ex officio, i.e. by succumbing to the pressure of the political and social
events, have continued to analyse the religious field and the phenomenon of
desecularizatoin mostly through the prism of its antipode, namely via the sec-
ular, which Jose Casanova qualifies as “a central modern epistemic category”.4
But if we wholeheartedly accept that the secular is an emanation of moderni-
ty, should we conclude that desecularization, ergo religion can be a threat for
the very foundations of modernity? Of course, such a statement is not true,
or at least so it seems for the moment. That is why scholars dealing with the
topic are forced to seek more or less adequate explanations whereby to bridge
the theoretical gap between the persisting religiosity and the invariably devel-
oping modernity5. In this intellectual process Enlightenment and its thinking
paradigm still constitute the main key both to the critical scholarly view of

3 K. Stoeckl, The Theology Blind Spot. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/author/stoecklk/ –

07.07.2014.
4  J. Casanova, The Secular and the Secularism, Social Research, 2009, N 4, p. 1049 – 1066.
5  It is curious that in this sense the scholars from the former Eastern Bloc, due to the

forcefully stepped up secular processes in the socialist societies, were compelled to provide
a reasoned explanation of the persistence of religion earlier than their counterparts in the
West. An example for the latter is the study of the Bulgarian sociologist Zhivko Oshavkov,
who, after a large-scale sociological survey of religiosity in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria,
which revealed that the “progressive” working class was still quite religious, came up with the
conclusion that in fact that was not genuine religiosity but rather formal, “domestic” Christi-
anity – an explanation that would become a favourite refrain of the following generations of
local ethnologists, sociologists and historians (See: Ж. Ошавков, Духовно производство
и обществено управление. Религия, В: Социологическата структура на съвременното
българско общество. София, Изд. на БАН, 1976, с. 377 – 416). See a possible present-day
explanation of this “communist” phenomenon of “secularization without secularism” in: А.
Кръстева, Еластичен (пост)секуларизъм, София, 2014, с. 18 – 21. http://www.seminar-
bg.eu/item/423-elastichen_postsekularizam.html – 24.07.2014.
Another explanation, which for the time being seems to be most successful in explaining

the processes of desecularization, is offered by Jose Casanova, who defines the distinctions
between the concepts of secularism and secularization by distinguishing among several levels
of their use, Casanova, The Secular and the Secularism.
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 245

modernity and desecularization, as well as to the individual self-reflections on

the topic. However, Enlightenment, as a paradigm for perceiving the world, in
terms of religiosity most frequently correspondents with deism. That creates
another controversial situation where the processes of religiosity, or desecu-
larization of society, should be explained without the instruments of the re-
ligion itself. This phenomenon, where the science of religion, i.e. theology, is
excluded from the debate about itself, is referred to as “the theology blind spot”
by Kristina Stoeckl6, even though in our opinion it would be more felicitous
to qualify it as “the blind spot of sociology and anthropology, since, again in
Stoeckl’s words, while social sciences return to religion, theology has nothing
to return to. It has always been there7.
Whatever the reasons for the deficit in the theoretical explanation of the
contemporary religious phenomena are, a direct outcome of it is the tendency
the explanations about present-day desecularization to be reduced to a series
of philosophical and political reconciliations between religion and moderni-
ty8. Thus it becomes possible to raise questions otherwise dubious from a sci-
entific perspective, such as that posed by Elizabeth Prodromou: is (Orthodox)
Christianity compatible with the institutional and cultural dimensions of de-
mocracy9. That is also how the vague but rather popular conclusions that the
new dimensions of religiosity are underpinned solely by political goals have
6  K. Stoeckl, The Theology Blind Spot: http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/author/stoecklk/ –
07.07.2014.
7  As regards philosophy, Gianni Vattimo proved in an original way that after the end

of the secular era, which he seemingly and paradoxically linked to the “murder” of God pro-
claimed by Nietzsche and Heidegger and to the triumph of pluralism, this science had been
liberated and obliged to revisit religion and “to speak of God, angels, and salvation” once
again, Д. Ватимо, След християнството. За едно нерелигиозно християнство. София,
Критика и хуманизъм, 2006, с. 21 – 37.
8  An example of the latter is the reasoning of Daniel Smilov, a political scientist: “For

similar reasons Christian democratic values could hardly substitute a true republican ideal.
Bulgarian Christianity is either domestic in nature or of an individualistic spiritual type –
in either case it has no specific messages about political arrangements. Even though com-
manding respect as a tradition, it cannot be the supporting stone of a modern republic”, Д.
Смилов, Републиканизмът и десните партии, Разум. Теоретично списание за политика
и култура, 2004, N 2.
http://www.razum.org/bg/spisanie-razum/106-republikanizmut-i-desnite-partii.html
– 20.07.2014).
9  Е. Продрому, Противоречивото православие, В: Световните религии и

демокрацията. Антология, София, Българско училище за политика, 2010, с. 23 – 47.

246 Tsvetomir Todorov

also come to seem acceptable10. However the latter is nothing else but an at-
tempt for instrumentalization of religion for political goals that usually serve
various types of religious fundamentalists, which, fortunately, are far from
covering the whole range of religious diversity in any confession.
In an attempt to surmount the theoretical vacuum in the field, social sci-
ences ever more frequently turn to the past. However in the case of studying
the desecularization phenomena they willingly forget their chronic antago-
nism with history, in which they have defined the latter, quite artificially in my
opinion, as science du passé, and social sciences as science du présent11. In this
process of rethinking important symbolic events in the history of religion “It
is not surprising that the persons at the intellectual forefront are steeped in specific
traditions of theological (or religious philosophical) thought”12. These traditions,
which commonly coincide with the specific religious, cultural and historic
habitus of each scholar, also determine the various topics that are crucial to
the debate on the desecularization of the different societies.

II. Why the Bulgarian schism?

For the scholars dealing with the secular processes and desecularization in
Christian Orthodox societies such a crucial topic borrowed from the field of
history is that of the Bulgarian-Greek ecclesiastical relations in the 19th cen-
tury. The interest in that particular episode of the long history of Orthodox
Christianity and its linkage to contemporary situation may seem odd at first
glance, since the 19th century Bulgarian-Greek religious dissension, though
related to the most important axis of today’s political and religious relations
in the Christian Orthodox world, i.e. the links between the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian Church, still played no key

10 An interesting and at the same time explicit, along these lines, is a statement made in
2012 by Erdoğan Bayraktar, the Turkish Environment and Urbanism Minister, at an interna-
tional forum in Geneva, namely: “Christianity is no longer a religion. It’s a culture now. That
is what they want to turn [Islam] into as well“, Hurriyet Daily News, 31.12.2012: http://
www.hurriyetdailynews.com/christianity-no-longer-a-religion-says-turkish-minister.aspx-
?PageID=238&NID=38021&NewsCatID=393 – 20.07.2014)
11  К. Джордано, Миналото в настоящето. Актуализираната история в социал-

ното конструиране на реалността, Във: Власт, недоверие и наследство. Скептична

антропология. София, Полис, 2006, с. 64 – 88.
12  К. Stoeckl, The Theology Blind Spot.
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 247

part in them. Nonetheless, in recent years the topic is frequently addressed in

academic and theological discussions. Naturally, the root of that interest is the
Bulgarian schism of 1872, by means of which an entire traditionally Christian
Orthodox nation was declared heretic and deprived of communion with the
other Churches for reasons of mostly administrative nature13. Hence, the de-
cision of the 1872 Council of Constantinople about the excommunication
of the Bulgarians was a harsh precedent in the modern history of Orthodoxy,
and it would be no overstatement to qualify it as the highlight in the powerful
movements of ecclesiastical nationalism in Eastern Europe in the 19th century.
Nowadays nationalism within the Church is still among the most signifi-
cant topics for the Eastern Orthodox Christians. The issue corresponds both
with the resurgence of religious life in post-socialist societies and with the at-
tempts to use religion as a tool for the purposes of renewed national political
ideology. Therefore, the topic is consistent with the present-day relations not
only between the two “antagonistic” (I use this word with all its conditional-
ity, when it concerns the relationships between two Christian Orthodox sis-
ter Churches) political centres in the Orthodox domain, i.e. the Russian and
the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but also with all autocephalous Churches in the
Orthodox ecumene. Thus the events related to the Bulgarian-Greek ecclesias-
tical struggle and the 1872 Schism seems to be a convenient and easy source
of theological and political arguments for the heated debates on the modern
dimensions of ethno-phyletism14.

13  In the case of the Bulgarian schism, similarly to that of the big schism between Or-
thodox and Catholic Christians, the different sciences provide contradictory explanations
as to what exactly the schism is and to what extent this condition can be treated as heresy.
The popular mind frequently views them as identical. Theology provides a more nuanced
explanation of the schism – heresy relation, but here also the different theological schools
offer different interpretations. We find the reason for the controversial understanding of the
concept of schism in the definition provided by Blessed Jerome (c. 347 – 420): “Between her-
esy and schism there is this difference, that heresy perverts dogma, while schism, by rebellion
against the bishop, separates from the Church. Nevertheless there is no schism which does
not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church.”
(See: Schism, In: Тhe Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/
13529a.htm – 20.07.2014)
14  The Bulgarian Schism was the underlying issue at one of the panels of the “Ecclesi-

ology and Nationalism in the Postmodern Era” Conference held in the Greek city of Volos
in 2012, where the matter was actively discussed by some of the most popular contempo-
rary Orthodox theologians. For further information on the conference see: З. Иванова,
248 Tsvetomir Todorov

Curiously, the split of the Bulgarian Exarchate from the Ecumenical

Patriarchate was in no way an isolated case in the context of the nineteenth cen-
tury. Similar organizational church disunions also occurred between Croats
and Hungarians within the Roman Catholic Church, between Romanians
and Ruthenians within the Greek Catholic Church, between Romanians
and Serbians, Romanians and Greeks in the Orthodox Church15. Only a few
decades before the proclamation of the independent Bulgarian Exarchate a
similar split, occurred between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church
of the independent Greek state16. In the eyes of the coevals, the separation of
these two essentially Greek Churches, one of which without any historical
justification for its existence, except the political situation brought about by
the Greek War of Independence (1821 – 1832), was not a canonical at all.
The actual establishment of the Archbishopric of the Greek kingdom, i.e. the
Hellas Church, was the result of a completely secular decision of the Greek
Parliament in Nafplion, which, along with the independence of the Church
stipulated the closure of all monasteries with brotherhoods of fewer than 6
monks17. The decision evoked massive resistance both among the subjects of
the Greek kingdom and on the part of the Fener Patriarchate. Nevertheless
in 1850 the autocephaly of the new church was officially recognized by the
Patriarchate of Constantinople, which prompted one Catholic Church
historian of the early 20th century to qualify the Greek (Hellas) Church as
“the oldest of the national Churches” in modern times that “was born in the
throes of one of the greatest of the many domestic quarrels of the Orthodox”18.
Despite being the oldest of the “national Churches” and despite its non-ca-
nonical birth, the communion of the Hellas Church with the Ecumenical
Patriarchate has never been discontinued, nor has its separation been declared

Етнофилетизмът – най-голямото историческо изкушение на Православието. http://

dveri.bg/kyfyq – 24.07.2014.
15  N. Bocsan, The Hierarchical Separation between the Romanian and the Serbian

Orthodox Churches 1864 – 1871, In: M. Cracium & O. Chitta (еd.), Church & Society in
Central and Eastern Europe, Cluj-Napoca, European Studies Foundation Publishing House,
1998, p. 207 – 218.
16  Ch. A. Frazee, The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece, 1821 – 1852, Cam-

bridge University Press, 1969.

17  A. Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church, London, Catholic Church Society,

1929, p 312.
18  Ibid.
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 249

heretical. Furthermore, the Mother Church of Constantinople imposed no

penalty similar to that affecting the Bulgarians, i.e. the declaration of schism,
neither on the Romanian national Church that had unilaterally declared
its independence (1864)19, nor on the Serbian Church for its autocephaly
(1879)20 – events that had taken place respectively 6 years before and 9 years
after the issuance of the firman on the foundation of the Bulgarian Exarchate.

III. The Christological interpretation of the history of the Bulgarian

National Revival
The exclusivity and traumatism, in terms of consequences, in the case of
Bulgarian ecclesiastical independence have prompted certain contemporary
authors to create a new trend in historiography, which, though not particular-
ly popular among the academia, has evoked considerable interest among the
Orthodox Bulgarians actively practicing their faith21.
An undisputed pioneer in this modern interpretation of historical
events aptly described as “Christological revision of the collective memory”22
by Nikolai Aretov under the influence of Pierre Nora, was Georgi Todorov, a
philologist and theologian, former editor of the Tsrkoven vestnik newspaper.
In a series of articles in this official media of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian
Orthodox Church and in Kultura newspaper, mainly from the first decade

19  M. Pacurariu, Romanian Christianity, In: K. Parry (еd.), The Blackwell Companion to
Eastern Christianity, Oxford, Willey-Blackwell, 2010, p. 186 – 206.
20  Р. Поповић, Кратак преглед Српске цркве кроз историjу, Београд, 2000.
21  The new interpretation of the events associated with the Bulgarian-Greek ecclesias-

tical struggle is purposefully opposed to what came to be known as the classical Bulgarian
national narrative. The creation and establishment of the latter involved the work of a large
number of authors: both contemporaries of the events and historians of later times. Due
to the objective of this study and its limited volume we will not dwell in detail on their
works, the most popular of which are the studies of N. Nachov, Т. Burmov, М. Arnaudov, P.
Nikov, Z. Markova. It is also worthwhile to allot special attention to the works of some cler-
ics of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and ecclesiastical historians, such as Patriarch Kirill,
Archimandrite Evtimii and Ivan Snegarov, who, unlike most of the scholars tackling the top-
ic attached significant attention to the ecclesiological aspect of the matter.
22  Н. Аретов, За една „христоцентрична“ ревизия на колективната национална па-

мет, Трета национална среща по балканистика „Балканистиката пред предизвикател-

ствата на паметта и употребите на миналото“, София, 14 – 15 ноември 2013.
250 Tsvetomir Todorov

of the new millennium23, Todorov accused the Bulgarian political and reli-
gious leaders of the 19th century in “unhealthy secularism”, “having grown cold
to the faith” and in “historical parochialism”, which, on a metaphysical level
have marked the detachment of the Bulgarian people from God and later
on caused the multiple historical adversities of Bulgaria in the 20th century.
According to Georgi Todorov the Bulgarian yearnings for an independent
Church was a “pseudo ecclesiastical struggle” about which he stated the follow-
ing: “The Bulgarian “ecclesiastical revolution” of 1860 – 1872 was an edifying
example of the fact that non-canonical (i. e. anti-church, i.e. ungodly) historical
behaviour, even when it is shortsightedly perceived as triumph, is inevitably di-
sastrous – not only from the genuinely divine (eschatological) perspective, but
also within the human century”24. Todorov does not deny the “fairness” of the
Bulgarian demands aimed at “the restoration of the independent Bulgarian
Church (Tarnovo Patriarchate and/or Ohrid Archbishopric) that used to exist
in ancient times”. However, he continues, the way in which this goal was pur-
sued was erroneous and this is evidenced by the dichotomy offered by him,
namely “the legitimate (canonical)” way versus “the illegitimate (revolution-
ary) one25.
Such a conclusion is scientifically deficient, as it relativizes the most
important specifics of the epoch. As stated above, the Bulgarian “national”
Orthodox Church was neither the only one nor the first one to acquire its
independence in the so-called “revolutionary” way on the border between the
pre-modern and modern era. However, as Georgi Todorov ignored this his-
torical fact, he opened the door wide for yet another hard-to-prove statement,
namely that “the struggle was not ecclesiastical but political. It was political

23  Some of Georgi Todorov’s articles related to the topic of this study have been col-
lected in his book България, православието, историята (2003). The same points are also
made by the author in his following books, which include: Левски, църквата, секуларизмът
и светостта (2013), Град Св. София (2013) and others.
24  Г. Тодоров, Подмененият Великден, Култура, 2010, N 13.
25  With his extreme view Georgi Todorov called into question the conclusions of the

entire classical Bulgarian historiography, which traditionally regarded the ecclesiastical

struggle as a veracious resistance against the nationalist aspirations of the Greek Megali Idea,
catered for by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This conviction was widely shared both by
the majority of the contemporaries of the Bulgarian ecclesiastical revolution and by authors
of later periods such as Mihail Arnaudov, Petar Nikov, Ivan Snegarov, Zina Markova and
many others, which makes it one of the most popular national narratives associated with the
Bulgarian National Revival.
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 251

struggle under ecclesiastical disguise. The struggle was ostensibly ecclesiastical, i.e.
pseudo ecclesiastical”26.
The ethnophiletic processes, including those among the Bulgarian
Christians in the 19th century were a logical consequence of the sociologiza-
tion of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment world and the politicization
of religion: phenomena that ultimately lead to the dissolution of denomina-
tional solidarity peculiar to the Middle Ages or to the pre-modern epoch, brought
about segregationist phenomena within the Eastern Churches27. It is a fact
however that out of all ecclesiastical and administrative divisions solely the
Bulgarian case was declared schismatic and only Bulgarians were qualified as
heretics in terms of ethnophiletism28.
Naturally, one should not overlook the political goals in the ecclesiastical
struggle of the Bulgarians, but claiming that they were the sole motive in the
fight for the independent Exarchate is an anachronism. On the one hand, the
role of religion during the Balkan 19th century cannot be reduced only to
its social and representative, hence political function. In the epoch the faith,
in the sense of conscious involvement in church life and sacraments, is pri-
marily a lifestyle, an identity marker and a centre via which a person reflects
on himself. Thus, even though some representatives of the Bulgarian reviv-
al intelligentsia, that Georgi Todorov accused of “short-termism and histor-
ical myopia”, displayed anticlerical sentiments, their views were closer to the
deism of the Enlightenment rather than to the present-day idea of secular-
ized consciousness. Moreover, when referring to politics and Orthodoxy in
the context of that period and in particular to the role of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, we should not forget that Fener enjoyed a number of powers in
the Ottoman society that went far beyond that what we usually describe now
26  Тодоров, Подмененият Великден…
27  Bocsan, The Hierarchical Separation…
28  A possible explanation of the unprecedented schism imposed on the Bulgarians by

Fener was provided by Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory (See: Р. Жирар, Видях сатаната как
падна от небето като светкавица, София, Изток-Запад, 2006). Through its perspective
the attitude towards the Bulgarian case can be seen as a “sacred sacrifice”, a necessary culprit,
whose punishment is required to safeguard the unity in the existing community shaken by
“scandals” for the same eschatological purpose. However the aim of this study is not to seek
justification for one or another thesis regarding the Bulgarian ecclesiastical struggle of the
19th century, due to which we will not dwell in detail on such a hypothesis borrowed from
the borderline areas of psychology and sociology, which, according to many scholars, is set
on transcendent foundations.
252 Tsvetomir Todorov

as a religious field. These powers delegated to the Ecumenical Patriarchate by

the Ottomans included some purely secular administrative functions exercis-
es by the Mother Church vis-à-vis its believers, such as its powers to collect
certain taxes and fees (and these were by far not symbolic at all), to impose
fines and penalties, to administer justice on particular issues. These quasi-state
powers of the Constantinople Church regarding the Orthodox subjects of the
Ottoman Empire within its diocese should always be taken into account by
the researchers of the period, because they have no direct counterpart in the
contemporary secular relations among Church, state and society. Therefore,
nowadays it is not always easy to assess their real significance. However, these
very non-ecclesiastical functions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, whose bur-
den became so huge for its Bulgarian adherents after the second half of the
18th century, proved to be the reason for the establishment of the summary
image of the Phanariot yoke and the radicalization of the Bulgarian popula-
tion on the Church issue.
Secondly, the ecclesiastical nationalism of the 19th century Bulgarians,
frequently qualified as belated, was provoked by events that had the power to
problematize the issue of their identity. “What has come about with the modern
age”, Charles Taylor stated, “is not the need for recognition, but the conditions
in which this can fail. In premodern times, people didn’t speak of “identity” and
“recognition,” not because people didn’t have (what we call) identities or because
these didn’t depend on recognition, but rather because these were then too un-
problematic to be thematized as such”29. An unconditional role here was played
by the Greek National Revival and, naturally, by the Panhellenic policy of the
Greek Ecumenical Patriarchate with respect to the Bulgarians30.
29 Ч. Тейлър, Безпокойството на модерността, София, Критика и хуманизъм,
1999, с. 51.
30  Panhellenism also explains the rapid surmounting of the disagreements in the re-

lations between Fener and the Greek Church after the 1833 – 1850 period summarized by
Nadya Danova as follows: “With the creation of the young Greek state a noticeable turn to-
wards conservatism occurred in the overall spiritual life of the Greek society. The circle of the
representatives of the Greek intellectual community, who remained loyal to the ideas of the
Enlightenment and of Korais, dwindled each year. This abandonment of the pre-Liberation
ideals was highly influenced by the gradual formation of the “Megali Idea” as a national doc-
trine and its consolidation in the political and spiritual life of the kingdom. The unification
of the two centres of Hellenism: Greece and the Constantinople Patriarchate, via a common
agenda on the national question entailed deepening of this spirit of conservatism and return
to the medieval values associated with Byzantium that had become a symbol of territorial
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 253

However, Georgi Todorov is right that the ecclesiastical struggle had

a powerful ontological revolutionary charge. The actions of the activists of
the Ecclesiastical Movement, as well as those of their contemporary and lat-
er chroniclers, were focused not only on gaining the independence of the
Bulgarian Church, but also on justifying this independence. To that end they
had to question the major charismatic feature of the Constantinople Church,
namely its universality, which stemmed from the universality of Orthodoxy
itself. It seems that the words of the French metaphysical philosopher Rene
Guenon, are quite applicable in this context: “Actually, religion being essen-
tially a form of tradition, the anti-traditional outlook cannot help being anti-re-
ligious; it begins by denaturing religion and, when it can, ends by suppressing it
entirely. [...] Once started, the revolt against the traditional outlook could not
be stopped halfway”31. As we have seen, however, this anti-traditional outlook
cannot be imputed to the Bulgarians, hence there is a harsh ring to the general
conclusion drawn by Georgi Todorov in another article: “We are the children
of the substituted Easter. Contaminated with the hereditary handicap of desanc-
tification. And since we are all suffering from the same disease, it has become our
second nature – we do not feel it”32.
Curiously, Georgi Todorov’s theses on the Bulgarian Schism were ac-
tually not as new as they seemed. Accidentally or not, they are quite simi-
lar to the arguments against the Bulgarian ecclesiastical independence of
Chrysanthus, former Archbishop of Athens (1938 – 1941), born in the vil-
lage of Ağricanhišar (now Gratini, Greece) near the city of Gyumyurdzhina
(Komotini/Gümülcine), as presented in 1945 in his article The Bulgarian
Schism from a Greek (Helladic) Perspective33. An interesting fact about Bishop
Chrysanthus was that before becoming Primate of the Greek Orthodox

power. The Eastern Orthodox Church, which was assigned a unifying mission, was given a
special role in the spiritual atmosphere dominated by nationalism”. (Н. Данова, А. Христа-
кудис, История на Нова Гърция, София, Абагар, 2003, с. 171)
31  R. Guenon, Crisis of the Modern World. Hillsdale NY, Sophia Perennis, 2001, p. 62.
32  Г. Тодоров, Българският Великден – повърхността и същността, Култура, 2000,

N 14.
33  The article written by А. Chrysanthus was not available to the author of this study,

due to which the text is used via Ivan Snegarov’s article of the same title (See: И. Снега-
ров, Българската схизма от гръцко (еладско) гледище, Духовна култура, 1946, N 3 – 4,
с. 27 – 49). The original article by А. Chrysanthus was published in issue N 12 of 1945 of the
Athens magazine Politiki epitheorissis (Political Review).
254 Tsvetomir Todorov

Church he was Pontiff of the Ecumenical Patriarchate – Metropolitan of

Trebizond between 1913 and 1938. The most perplexing fact about his arti-
cle that ardently defended the schism on the Bulgarians was that it was pub-
lished almost a whole year after the lifting of the schism by the Synod of the
Constantinople Church on 19 February 1945.
Similar, though by far more radical, was the spirit of the 2013 article by
Danail Dimitrov entitled “Prayer for the Prodigal Sons of Bulgaria (or degra-
dation of spirituality in the 18th – 19th century)”. There the author criticized
not only the secular leaders of the Bulgarian National Revival, but above all
the ecclesiastical leaders of the Bulgarian people. Dimitrov’s evaluation of
Paisiy Hilendarski was the following: “It is highly regrettable that he (Paisiy
Hilendarski – author’s note) disregarded his highest office of a monk, deserted it
and dashed to public squares and urban areas to preach the theses of his historical
work. He even made this the mission of his life. But even this would not be fatal
or reprehensible, if the actual foundation of his work was not his sole purpose to
restore the pride of the Bulgarians34. The pride that they were once a great people.
[...] And what kind of a miracle was that for a Holy Mountain monk to teach his
people pride and superiority over other peoples (even if it was well deserved), for
an Orthodox Christian to preach the devil’s favourate sin: pride?!”35
In support of his arguments Dimitrov used quite a strange approach: he
“supplemented” the Bible presenting the Old Testament events in the context
of the Bulgarian history: “For it was indeed because of this “pride” of its – this de-
monic passion and infernal temptation – that the Lord turned it (the Bulgarian
people – author’s note) over for the sake of humility to infidels and slaughterers,
it was because of this implacability, obstinacy and highly raised prong (compare
to Psalm 74:6) that it was placed under the domination of the Greek clergy (and
that was for the second time, too!), and because of the common, and in particular
its, intransigence vis-a-vis the other Balkan Orthodox peoples, a general national
penance was imposed on it and on all of them for a period of five centuries – with-
out a Church of their own, without a state of their own”.
Then he listed the names and specified the guilt of those, who, in his opin-
ion, had brought about the curse of the ecclesiastical schism to the Bulgarian
34 The highlights are consistent with Danail Dimitrov’s original text.
35 Д. Димитров, Молитва за блудните синове на България (или деградация на
духовността XVIII – XIX.
http://budiveren.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=782:-xiv-
xxi – 1-&catid=46:2010 – 02 – 23 – 19 – 42 – 02&Itemid=77 – 21.07.2014.
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 255

people because of their pride: “And the seed of national pride and conceit was
sown throughout Bulgaria with such passion and fervor with which only a monk
can sow. And the sprouts of that poisonous seed sprang up quickly in the fertile
Bulgarian land and only a hundred years on the full-fledged revolutionary clerics
came into the public eye: the first one was Father Neophyte Bozveli, who would
call on the Bulgarians to enroll their children in secular primary and secondary
schools, so that they would keep up with the “liberal” European education. To him
the Holy Fire – Nur coming down every Easter in Jerusalem would be simply a
“Greek scam”, while his personal disobedience during church services and his co-
operation with Catholics were regular practices. In his turn, Metropolitan Ilarion
Makariopolski, an ardent and like-minded follower of his, would be captivated
by the example of the Uniates in Kilkis, instigated by the Catholic emissaries to
abstain from mentioning their patriarch [1] and would immediately, on Easter
Day itself, declare “his ecclesiastical revolt”, and would also refuse to mention the
canonical Patriarch, to whom he was subordinated. How original! He set about
to dissuade those practicing uniatism but he became a uniat himself. This conduct
of his brought about 70 years of schism and dissent to our blessed Church”.
We take the liberty to quote this long excerpt from Danail Dimitrov’s
article because it is not the purpose of this study to comment on a text, which,
from a scientific perspective, can be referred to the genre of parahistory, even
though it is portrayed by its author as an attempt at modern Orthodox apol-
ogetics, which opposes the universality of Orthodoxy to the nationalism of
modernity.
Dimitrov’s work is interesting for yet another reason. It is indicative of the
environment in which the so-called new historiographical discourse about
Christological revision is promoted. Prayer for the Prodigal Sons of Bulgaria
has been uploaded to the Orthodox website at budiveren.bg, which is regard-
ed as one of the most conservative Bulgarian Orthodox websites, and its au-
thors, who also include a currently active priest of the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church, are often accused of zealotry. Initially Georgi Todorov’s articles were
also disseminated via an ecclesiastical media (the official publication of the
Bulgarian Church). Furthermore, Todorov’s article “The Substituted Easter”
(“Подмененият великден”), already referred to above, which can be consid-
ered a manifesto of the Bulgarian revisionist Christological reading of mod-
ern history, has been re-posted on the website of the Genuine Orthodox
Church of Greece (IPC-Ellada), intended for Bulgaria. This Church is part of
the group of the so called old-style Churches in the Orthodox world that do
256 Tsvetomir Todorov

not accept the uncanonical, in their opinion, introduction of the Gregorian

calendar in the Orthodox liturgical practice36. There is also an interesting note
under Georgi Todorov’s article on the website of IPC-Ellada, which reads:
“The author of the publication is not part of the Genuine Orthodox Church. We
publish the article because of the accuracy of the main conclusions in it and the
historical facts which are officially ignored. We dissociate ourselves from every-
thing that is inconsistent with the Orthodox profession of Faith.”
Georgi Todorov himself is hardly responsible for the publication of his
article in the historical section of the web portal of IPC-Ellada or for the note
beneath it, which qualifies his position as “accurate”. But the promotion of his
theses by and among specific Orthodox circles that can be defined as conser-
vative and fundamentalist, is reminiscent of a reflex of this group of believers
against what Habermas describes as “burden of translation”. For Habermas
this burden occurs mostly to the detriment of the religious citizens “loyal” to
the secular (democratic constitutional, as he terms it) state, who, in the name
of the neutrality of the public authorities towards competing worldviews are
forced to compromise on their faith37.
But as Kristina Stoeckl points out, in terms of religion-modernity rela-
tions, today there are greater difficulties in the dialogue between the various
groups of believers than between the religious and secular citizens: „Some
ways of religious argumentation”, she states, “will find it easier to communicate
with the secular world than others; liberal religious actors will have no problems
interacting with secular actors on issues of common concern where conservative
religious actors detect insurmountable problems. Among themselves, representa-
tives of the same religion holding different outlooks on the modern world may
experience rear-guard battles that are far more fierce and difficult than the front-
line struggles with the secular world”38.
In this struggle for dominance of discourses the use of history is often
the most convenient and safe weapon. In the case under consideration the
importance of history as a resource is also evidenced by the fierce criticism
against the revision of the Bulgarian history from the National Revival period.
36 
See the official website of IPC-Ellada: http://ipc-ellada.eu/IPC-Ellada/Glavnaa.
html – 20.07.2014
37  J. Habermas, The Rational Meaning of a Questionable Inheritance of Political

Theology, In: E. Mendieta, J. Van Antwerpen (Ed.), The Power of Religion in the Public
Sphere, New York, Columbia University Press, 2011, 15 – 33.
38  K.Stoeckl, The Theology Blind Spot.
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 257

Most explicit in this respect is Hristo Temelski, an ecclesiastical historian

and former director of the ecclesiastical history museum, who, in his arti-
cle “Внимание! Пазете се от неофити!” (Attention! Beware of Neophytes!)
maintained the following regarding Georgi Todorov’s theses: “In fairness, for
ten years now Todorov has been writing and fiercely denying everything signif-
icant in Bulgarian history. He refuses to recognize Simeon’s Golden Age, denies
the ecclesiastical and popular struggle that in his opinion led to a “comprehensive
national catastrophe”; the Bulgarian Easter:“this revolutionary act was a strate-
gic suicide for the reviving independent Bulgarian Church, which was cutting the
branch on which it stood”; “ the establishment of the Exarchate was an indisput-
able secular triumph for the Bulgarian Church, but in actual ecclesiastical terms
it was a Pyrrhic victory”; even “the April Uprising is a criminal suicidal fraud
that has lasted to this very day. Because the slave mentality still persists”. Strong
and meaningless phrases of a neophyte, who believes that he is God anointed and
that he can deny everything positive in our national history! On the occasion of
the 150th anniversary of the historic Bulgarian Easter Georgi Todorov published
the article “The Substituted Easter” in the “Kultura” newspaper (N 13 of 8 April
2010). He had written almost the same ten years earlier as well, and in the same
newspaper, too. I will not comment on what he wrote, as it is the hog-wash of a
neophyte [...]”39.
Other authors, such as Tsvetomira Antonova, an ecclesiastical historian,
have joined the debate with by far more balanced theses40. On the other hand,
a separate view is offered by the thesis advanced by Petko St. Petkov, who,
in most general terms, sees the Exarchate as a Bulgarian proto-state41. Julia
Zlatkova, a Medieval researcher, reminds us of the conservative, reactionary
aristocratic and universalistic analysis on the topic provided by Constantin
Leontiev, a contemporary of the events, for whom “Greeks are faithful to the
Orthodoxy and to the Byzantine tradition, unlike Bulgarians, who, in his opin-
ion, are atheists and demagogues, who use religion for political purposes and for
protecting their narrow national interests”42.
39  Х. Темелски, Внимание! Пазете се от неофити!, Култура, 2010 N 16.
40  Цв. Антонова, Българските екзарси. http://dveri.bg/xp6ka – 22.07.2014.
41  П. Ст. Петков, Екзархията като българска протодържава, В: Балканите –

език, история, култура, III, Велико Търново, УИ „Св. Св. Кирил и Методий“, 2013,
c. 153 – 163.
42  I express my gratitude to Julia Zlatkova for providing me with the manuscript of her

text which was still in print at the time of writing this article. (See: J. Zlatkova, Byzantism
and Slavdom: Political Ideology of Constantin Leontiev In: Proceedings of the International
258 Tsvetomir Todorov

Interestingly, in the recent decades some of the Greek authors dealing

with the topic, such as Dimitris Stamatopoulos43, Maria Litina44 and Vasilis
Maragos45 found an excuse for the Bulgarian position on the ecclesiastical is-
sue of the 19th century in the spirit of the trendy revisionism of national nar-
ratives. For instance, Stamatopoulos drew attention to the relations between
the powerful new social group of the neo-Phanariot bankers that had emerged
due to the opportunities for financial speculations created by the Crimean
War and the senior clergy of the Patriarchate. According to him, the relations,
or more precisely the struggle for supremacy between these two strata of the
Greek elite from the Late Ottoman period played the most decisive role for
the final decision to declare the Bulgarian Exarchate schismatic: “My opinion
is that in order to grasp the 1872 decision of the Patriarchate, one should also
gain understanding of the role of these groups in the internal church life in the
Patriarchate. The desire of the bankers was to use the control on the Patriarchate
as a vehicle for exercising control on the entire Rūm millet.” (...) That is, while
propelling their rivals to take a decision leading to schism, these circles did not
believe in it. This is a thought by a Greek nationalist – Vasiliadis, who stated:
“They supported the schism, but they did not believe in it”. Indeed, as soon as
they elected their own Patriarch, the Patriarchate launched a policy of opening
up to the Bulgarians. Even though it was not in a position to cancel the schism, it
wished to fix its relations with the Bulgarian Exarch. This is explained by their
pro-Russian orientation”46.

Conference Cyril and Methodius. Byzantium and the World of Slavs, Thessaloniki, 2015,
pp. 106 – 116)
43  D. Stamatopoulus, The Bulgarian Schism Revised, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook,

2008, N 24/25, p. 105 – 125; Д. Стаматопулус, Имало ли е алтернативно решение бъл-

гарския църковен въпрос през Възраждането?, Християнство и култура, 2012, N 6,
c. 57 – 83.
44  D. Stamatopoulos, The Athenian Press and the Role of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem

Cyril II (1845 – 1872) in the Bulgarian Question, In: Гърция, България, Европа. Културно-
исторически връзки с Новото време. Сборник в памет на проф. Марин Жечев, София,
УИ „Св. Климиент Охридски“, 2011, 224 – 243.
45  V. Maragos. Paisii Hilendarski: Civil and Ethnic Conceptions of “Imagined

Communities” in a Pre-Nationalistic Context, In: Michel de Doubbeler & Stijn Vervaet

(еd.), (Miss)Understanding the Balkans, Essays in Honour of Raymond Detrez. Gent, Aca-
demia Press, 2013, p. 19 – 33.
46  Стаматопулус, Имало ли е алтернативно решение.
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 259

IV. Beyond the obvious

Interestingly, it is exactly the radical narrative that has the largest potential
to become the predominant discourse among the active Orthodox Bulgarians
in the present-day lively academic debate on the 19th century Bulgarian ec-
clesiastical struggle. A part of them readily interpret today‘s problems of the
Bulgarian Church and society by applying the metaphysical interpretation
of history offered by Todorov. The interest of the laity seems natural insofar
as in the decades of socialism the discourse about the Orthodox Church in
Bulgaria was limited “to the propaganda of scientific atheism encapsulated in the
ideological clichés of “historical heritage” and “popular customs”.47 Therefore, it
is logical that today the Orthodox Bulgarians should be involved in an active
process of rediscovery and/or invention of their community identity beyond
this limited framework. This process is further catalyzed by the popular trends
of questioning the secular paradigm of enlightenment. In both respects the
resource of history has been tapped for support.
Secondly, the popularity of the Christological criticism of modern
Bulgarian history is underpinned by the chronic discursive distrust of the
Bulgarian post-socialist society in public institutions in the sense offered by
Cristiano Giordano48. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has also fallen vic-
tim to this confidence deficit, but mostly as an institution. The Church in
Bulgaria, though enjoying high rating in recent years as compared to the other
public institutions, has not been spared by the harsh public scandals of the
Transition. So one cannot rule out the possibility that the present-day deficit
of institutional prestige of the public institutions, including the Church as an
institution, would be transferred to the first modern Bulgarian institution, i.e.
the Exarchate, which Petko St. Petkov qualified as a “proto-state institution”49.
Last but not least, there is yet another factor, beyond all reasons men-
tioned so far, that also helps promote the Christological revision of history
advocated by Georgi Todorov. We refer to the comeback or rather the mod-
ern interpretation of a kind of theology, which was typical for the late 18th
century, and which was driven off the historical stage in the 19th century under

47  Г. Гончарова, Т. Карамелска, Д. Колева. Православието: нови ресурси и дина-

мика, В: Семинар_БГ, онлайн списание за културни изследвания, 2014 N 9: http://www.
seminar-bg.eu/spisanie-seminar-bg/broy9.html – 18.01.2014.
48  Джордано, Миналото в настоящето…
49  Петков, Екзархията като българска протодържава…
260 Tsvetomir Todorov

the pressure of the nationalist yearnings. This theology, often referred to as

“Orthodox Enlightenment”, is most generally associated with the Kollyvades
movement at Mount Athos, St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite and the theological
and philological school of St. Paisius Velichkovsky. The major theses devel-
oped by it have to do with the revitalization of the political and theological
idea of the Byzantine Orthodox Ecumene and, above all, about the return of
a genuine Christian society by modernizing the forgotten theological truths
that should be opposed to the zeitgeist.50
This type of ideas disseminated among some Balkan intellectual Orthodox
circles in the 18th century were no more in the focus of public debates in the
19th century suppressed by the development of the young nationalism of the
local peoples. As regards the influential Russian theology, the ideas of the
Orthodox Enlightenment were not particularly popular there in the 19th cen-
tury either. Local theology was strongly influenced by Western scholasticism
and Protestant “inner Christianity”, and later on by historicism and the phi-
losophy of German idealism51. Thus in Tsarist Russia the call for going back to
the sources, to the Eastern, Byzantine roots of Orthodoxy focused primarily
solely on the concept of counciliarity.
Interestingly, it was exactly the idea of conciliarity, though in a rath-
er strange way, that was the reason why the Russian theologians of about
mid – 20th century once again returned to the ideas of the Orthodox
Enlightenment. That was caused by the Bolshevik assumption of power, as
a result of which the concept of conciliarity was put to new, revised political
use in Russia52. The new Soviet power usurped the Christian ideal of commu-

50 See more on the Balkan Orthodox Enlightenment from the turn of the 18th century
in: К. Нихоритис, Малоизвестният светогорски иконописец на атонските новомъчени-
ци, Доситей от Печ, В: Сборник Радова Ниш и Византиjа, Симпозиум Стефан Немања
између истока и запада, IV, Ниш, 2005, 403 – 424; М. Карамузи, Делото на Никодим
Светогорец и епохата на Балканското просвещение, В: В: Н. Чернокожев, А. Личева,
Н. Александровоа, И. Добрева (съст.), Разночетенията на текста. Юбилеен сборник
в чест на 60-годишнината на проф. д-р Кирил Топалов. София, УИ „Св. Климент Ох-
ридски”, 2003, c. 278 – 287; М. Карамузи, Балканското просвещение и атонската кни-
жовна традици, В: Електронно списание LiterNet, 2004, N 4. http://liternet.bg/publish6/
mkaramuzi/balkanskoto.htm – 22.07.2014; М. Карамузи, Творчеството на Никодим
Светогорец и Атонският неоисихазъм, София, Боян Пенев, 2004
51  Г. Флоровский, Избранные богословские статьи. http://www.golden-ship.ru/

load/f/florovskij_georgij_vasilevich/izbrannbs /422-1-0-1542 – 24.07.2014.
52  K. Stoeckl, Community After the Subject: The Orthodox Intellectual Tradition and
 The Historiographical Rethinking of the Bulgarian Schism... 261

nity transforming it into collectivism. Confused by the totalitarian abuse of

the fundamental concept in the traditional Byzantine theology, in order to
protect their ideal against totalitarian interpretations, a part of the Russian
theologians in exile, including Florovski, Bulgakov, Loski and even Berdyaev,
although for the latter this is subject to considerable conditionality, returned
to patristics and the ancient mysticism of Orthodoxy. The Balkan theological
movement for Orthodox Enlightenment also turned to it more than a centu-
ry earlier, though for a short period of time. It was indeed through the works
of the great Russian theologians from the mid 20th century, and later on also
through those of their intellectual followers, most of whom were clerics either
of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad or of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,
i.e. the two Orthodox Churches with the largest diasporas in Western Europe
and North America, that the ideas of Orthodox Enlightenment, among which
a prominent position is held by the Christological interpretation of moder-
nity, different from the traditional secular discourse of Enlightenment, were
broadly disseminated, also among the laity in the post-totalitarian societies of
Eastern Europe.

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