ABSTRACT
The Cold War history of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) provoked contradictory responses after the fall of communism. Studies dealing with the first years of communist rule regard the Church as a victim, while those on the later period consider it a collaborator. These different images reflect the internal transformation of the institution that took place after 1948. In the following years, the BOC was included under the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate as a part of Stalin’s plan to establish a form of ‘Orthodox Vatican’.1 This proved to be a controversial action as there were several steps to be taken in order to overcome canonical complications and the resistance of local clergy. Parallel to the election of hierarchs in the Holy Synod, the communist party’s policy was that of eradicating religion from the public sphere. During the Khrushchev détente, the Bulgarian regime did not lose its
atheistic zeal, but reconsidered its attitude towards the BOC as a tool in the country’s foreign policy. In the 1970s, the growing economic deficiency of the socialist economy began to undermine the people’s view of the bright communist future. The ideological clichés of class struggle and threats of imperialism were no longer enough to secure Todor Zhivkov’s regime which referred to national communism in order to stabilize its position. The new policy continued to suppress the BOC’s significance as a religious institution, but emphasized its social value as a body enhancing the national consolidation of Bulgarians. Secular historians were encouraged to deal with the topic of church history that emphasized conflicts with Greeks and Turks in previous centuries. This brought about an amalgam of nationalism and Orthodoxy that served the domestic needs of Zhivkov’s regime, while strengthening Bulgaria’s role as a Cold War border country.
