The Primates of the Bulgarian Church until the Achievement of the Bulgarian Church Autocephality

Authors:

Pages: 155-185
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/OOJO6372

Abstract:

This study examines the issue of the heads of the Bulgarian Church from its establishment after the Christianization of Bulgaria, carried out by Khan/Prince Boris-Michael (852–889), until the moment when it officially acquired the status of an autocephalous church. Chronologically, the first among these primates was Isaiah who headed the Bulgarian Church until 866 and bore the title of Bishop of Bulgaria – an indication that, in the first few years after the Bulgarian state’s conversion to Christianity, its territory was considered to be a separate episcopal diocese. In 866, Boris I came into contact with Pope Nicholas I (858–867) and in practice, until 870, the Church in Bulgaria recognized the supremacy of Rome over it. During this period, however, the Bulgarian Church did not have its own titular head, and only in 869–870, in less than a year, it had a temporarily appointed primate, namely Bishop Grimoald of Polymartia who had been appointed interim leader of the Bulgarian ecclesiastical diocese by Pope Hadrian II (867–872). Despite Rome’s principal agreement for a future archbishopric of Bulgaria, the Bulgarian ruler and the Roman Curia failed to reach a consensus on the question of the future Bulgarian archbishop’s personality, which pushed Prince Boris I to negotiate with Byzantium. Constantinople was not prone at all to allow the Roman Curia to establish its influence so close to its borders in the Balkan Peninsula. As a result of these negotiations, Boris I received the consent of Constantinople to establish an independent Bulgarian archbishopric with internal autonomy, which was officially done with the decision of the Fourth Council of Constantinople (adopted by Rome as the Eighth Ecumenical Council) on 4 March 870. This decision gave the Bulgarian Church the rank of archbishopric and placed it under the supremacy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. From 870 onwards, only two archbishops certainly headed the Bulgarian archbishopric until the moment it became an autocephalous church (the author refers to the period 877–879): Joseph and George. The latter took over the Church as early as the autumn of 877. Later, he was inaugurated as the first head of the already autocephalous Bulgarian Church. For only 15 years, the ecclesiastical organization in Bulgaria made truly remarkable progress: institutionalization of the Church through the formation of a completely separate ecclesiastical diocese, covering the entire territory of the Bulgarian state, ransformation into an independent Church with the status of a separate autonomous archbishopric, and finally an autocephalous archbishopric. Thus, after three centuries, the Bulgarian Church became the first newly established autocephalous church in Pax Christiana.

Keywords:

Bulgaria; Bulgarian Church; autocephalous archbishopric of Bulgaria; Rome; Prince Boris-Michael; Pope Nicholas I; Pope Adrian II; Bishop Isaiah; Archbishop Joseph (Stephen); Archbishop George; Bishop Paul of Populonia; Bishop Grimoald of Polymartia; Bishop Formosus of Portus; Fourth Council of Constantinoplе.

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