Byzantine, Texas: How Bulgaria got a Patriarchate

Autocephaly is messy business. Gaining it is often a raucous game of King of the Hill, with as much loud outrage and overblown cries of triumph as the children's recess favorite occasions. A patriarchate is usually made contrary to the canons and only gains legitimacy much later. This is also not a growth pain relegated to the history books. The OCU is a glaring example of how badly such a process can go and is only four years old.

But you don't have to go across the ocean to see this conflict-laden process in action. See how authority and recognition differ from the Ecumenical Patriarchate's assumed authority through the view of most of the earth being their "diaspora." Look at how the Orthodox Church in America announced autocephaly some fifty-odd years ago to continued mixed reception. See how yet another body of Russian origin (ROCOR) coexists - however imperfectly - in the same territory of not only the OCA, but also the Moscow Patriarchate parishes here.

So it is with the Bulgarian people. A long and winding road to today's current situation that is well worth reading for context on the repose of the primate this week and the process of elevating his successor in the coming weeks.

(Orthodox History) - In 1767, the Ottoman Empire had suppressed the Patriarchate of Ohrid and subordinated its Bulgarian Orthodox people to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Beginning in the early 1830s, the Bulgarian Orthodox subjects of the Empire began agitating for the restoration of their own church. In 1838, Sultan Mahmud II visited the Bulgarian provinces of the Empire and the people petitioned him for Bulgarian-speaking bishops. The same year, the Greek speaking Metropolitan of Tarnovo (a small city in north central Bulgaria) died, and the people pushed for one of their own, Fr Neofit Bozveli, to succeed him. The Ecumenical Patriarchate rejected this and imposed another Greek speaker ; Bozveli responded by moving to Constantinople and giving speeches to the Bulgarians in the city, calling for the creation of a Bulgarian parish in the capital city itself.
In 1841, Bozveli was arrested in Constantinople and exiled to Mount Athos. The reason for this punishment was Bozveli’s refusal to accept the appointment of an ethnically Greek bishop to the see of Tarnovo – a see to which Bozveli himself had been nominated by the local Bulgarians, only to be rejected by Constantinople.
In 1848, the Ecumenical Patriarchate finally agreed to the construction of a Bulgarian church and school in Constantinople. It was consecrated the following year, and, for the time being, remained subordinate to the Ecumenical Patriarch.
In 1851, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, facing a growing call from the Bulgarian people for bishops of their own nationality, decided instead to appoint a Serb, Stefan Kovacevic, as a bishop for the Bulgarians. This satisfied neither the Bulgarians nor the Greeks, and Stefan was ultimately removed from his see.
Two years later, the Crimean War broke out. Thousands of Bulgarians, along with Greeks, Serbs, and Romanians living in the Ottoman Empire, volunteered to fight on the side of Russia, forming their own Orthodox legion. As the conflict raged Russia pulled its embassy out of Constantinople, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate came under the increasing influence of the British Empire. When the war ended and the Russians resumed diplomatic relations with the Ottomans, their relationship with the Ecumenical Patriarchate had cooled. From now on, Russia would no longer support the Greek hierarchy, instead spending its diplomatic capital to benefit the laity of the Patriarchate. This would come to include a sympathy toward the Bulgarians’ desire for their own church. In 1857, the Russian Church appointed St Theophan the Recluse – then a hieromonk and not yet a recluse – to serve as the Russian church’s representative in Constantinople. Theophan sympathized with the Bulgarian cause, taking the position that they should be allowed to have their own hierarchy and clergy and worship in Slavonic rather than Greek...