ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the nature of the migrant flow through Bulgaria and the challenges it has posed to its society. It focuses on the response of the Bulgarian Synod to the migration challenge from the perspective of Christian teaching and moral ethos as well as from that of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) historical experience. The chapter examines some new church-related developments highlighted by the refugee crisis. The church’s hierarchs tend to treat state authorities as ‘the government of an Orthodox state’. The Synodal Address signifies the potential of the BOC’s leadership to act as a body of power that can impose certain views on Orthodox Bulgarians and exert influence over the state authorities and their domestic policies. Statistical data collected by the Bulgarian State Agency for Refugees, established in 1992, did not give grounds for optimism among the local population.
