The Bulgarian Exarchate as a Bulgarian Proto-state

Authors:

Pages: 153-163

Abstract:

In this paper the author analyzes and additionally backs with arguments a thesis that has been partially launched in historiography already in the beginning of the 20th century. To the hitherto existing arguments for the hypothesis that the Exarchate was the actual beginning of the modern Bulgarian state system new ones have been added. Though it existed for quite a short time to develop its entire proto-state potential, from its establishment until the war of 1877–1878 the Exarchate displayed too heterogeneous activity and only part of it was strictly religious: it levied taxes (financial) and supported the schools of the Bulgarians (educational); under the firman of 27th of February 1870 and the tradition in the Empire, but according to its statute as well, it represented its flock to the authorities and was responsible for it (political); it had legal authority and activities; it even manifested international activity (diplomatic) as far as the foreign representatives in the Empire accepted the Exarch as the principal spokesman for the Bulgarian interests, moods, desires and contacted him in this capacity of his too. The Exarchate was a result of a nation-wide movement – religious in form and political in character. Its Constituent Assembly (the Council of Church and People) and the Exarchate Constitution adopted by it (A Statute for the Management of the Exarchate from 1871) were events and acts characterizing not so specific religious difference and solidarity as national unity and political commitment to common Bulgarian national and state future. The Exarchate historically made preparations for the new Bulgarian state system, it was a specific Bulgarian proto-state and with modern structure and government at that, in spite of its religious form. But thus it could and managed to function only for a short period of time and only in the conditions in which it had been established, i.e. in the Ottoman Empire (1870–1878). The functioning of the Exarchate as a national proto-state was at the expense of its main spiritual and religious functions and responsibilities. This was the price – the refusal of most of the Bulgarians up to 1878 even to think about the Exarchate as only about a spiritual and soul-saving institution was only a prevailing tendency in the Bulgarian society which from 1879 onwards, because of a number of reasons became a leading state policy in the Bulgarian Principality. Submitted to the spirit of nationalism that dominated in the 19th century most of the representatives of the Bulgarian elite (as well as some prelates) were convinced in the priority of the national guarding functions of the Exarchate and accepted it mainly as a “tool” of the national policy. For the same reason in the Constitution of the Bulgarian Principality of 1879 the “still-born” and impracticable article 39 was put through which not only was never enforced in the future but also hindered the normal and effective selfmanagement of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the Principality as far as according to that 154 article it should be managed by “the supreme spiritual authority” – a general Synod which however was never convened. Again because of national-political reasons and circumstances after 1878–1879 the Exarchate was a super-state institution as far as it dealt with tasks and exercised functions characteristic of a state over territories recognized as its diocesis and inhabited by Bulgarians but included not only within the boundaries of the Bulgarian state of that time. After 1878 and especially after 1908–1909, the Exarchate was even a peculiar subject of the international law. In fact the Bulgarian Exarchate was not only a result of the decades-long efforts of the Bulgarians for a national emancipation in the conditions of the Ottoman Empire. It was a supreme achievement of the Bulgarian proto-state modernity which alas could not survive in its initial form in the changing political conditions after 1878. As a historical construction the Exarchate continued to exist even after 1878 and kept on functioning predominantly as a Bulgarian nation-guarding institution in the Ottoman Empire until the wars of 1912-1913 and this is an undeniable fact and a political contribution of a large number of spiritual and secular leaders from the “century of nationalism”. But its functioning as an Orthodox Church of the Bulgarians with specific and predominantly spiritual tasks even after 1879 was placed in front of obstacles and hindrances that was difficult to overcome. Part of those were connected with the irreversible political results of the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–1878, and others ensued from the mere character of the prolonged Bulgarian-Greek church and national struggles (that ended without a winner from the Church point of view.

Keywords:

the Bulgarian Exarchate, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Ottoman Empire, the Bulgarian Principality/Kingdom, state, proto-state

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