"Greek-Bulgarian Schism"

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The Greek-Bulgarian Schism (Bulgarian schism, Bulgarian church question) is the unilateral proclamation of autocephaly by the hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople of Bulgarian origin on May 11, 1872 (in fact, the schism occurred in April 1860) and the subsequent in September of the same year bans by the Kiriarchal Church - the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as well as a number of others. The autocephalous status of the Bulgarian Church was recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople only in February 1945.

Supporters of Bulgarian autocephaly considered the legal basis for the creation of an independent Bulgarian exarchate () the sultan firman of the Ottoman (Ottoman) government of Vizier Aali Pasha, proclaimed on February 28, 1870, although the latter did not provide for full canonical independence (autocephaly) of the Bulgarians and was considered by the Ottoman government as having lost force after the proclamation of the schism.

Background

Like all the Orthodox of the Ottoman Empire, the Bulgarians were part of the Greek (“Roman”) millet, the head of which was the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the “Great Church”. On January 16, 1767, Patriarch Samuel I, at the written request of Archbishop Arseny II of Ohrid, abolished the autocephalous Ohrid Archbishopric (the Ohrid Archbishops themselves were Greeks by that time), which was subordinated to the Patriarchate on the rights of the Prespan Metropolis.

Since the 1820s, in dioceses inhabited mainly by Bulgarians, against the background of the general growth of nationalism and the liberation movement, there was a church-social movement for the wider use of the Church Slavonic language in worship (instead of Greek), for the right of the people to elect people of Bulgarian origin to episcopal sees (the episcopate was Greek) and the transfer of bishops to salaries (instead of taxes and fees). Such aspirations could not but contradict the pan-Hellenism of the Phanariots, who largely controlled the patriarchy and dreamed of an evolutionary restoration of Byzantium on the site of the Ottoman Empire.

According to a direct participant in the events, Todor Burmov (later the first Prime Minister of the Bulgarian Principality), “only after the promulgation by Sultan Abdul-Mejid in 1839 of the famous Gulkhani Gatti-Sheriff, who to some extent weakened the boundless arbitrariness practiced at all levels of the Turkish government administration and set the task of at least some protection and ensuring the personal and property rights of all, without distinction of religion and tribe, and the Bulgarians dared to voice their unlimited dependence on the Greek spiritual preparation for Bulgaria.”

In the Patriarchate of Cyril VII (1855-1860), several bishops of Bulgarian origin were consecrated, including the people’s figure Hilarion (Stoyanov), who headed the Bulgarian community of Constantinople with the title of Bishop of Makariopol. In a letter dated November 8, 1858, the rector of the Russian Embassy