The consent of state and the blessing of church: a case study on the new Bulgarian denominations act (1).

• Author: Kalkandjieva, Daniela

Abstract:

This paper is an attempt to reveal how the law-making process confronts new problems that arise in the search for pragmatic solutions to state-church relations. The specific case study used is the Denominations Act, adopted by the Bulgarian National Assembly on December 20, 2002, (2) which serves as an example of a meeting ground for secular and religious politics in post-communist Bulgaria.

Key words: denomination act, Orthodox Church, secularism, postcommunism

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The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, combined with the adoption of the Bulgarian 1991 Constitution, created conditions for the democratization of the religious lives of Bulgarian citizens. Although the Constitutional Court's Decision No. 5 of 1992 abolished some of the most undemocratic components of the 1949 communist law on religious denominations, the latter remained in force until the end of 2002. This abnormal situation lasted so long because the majority of Bulgarian statesmen, as well as the Orthodox hierarchy, supported the old system of registering religious institutions with the Directorate of Religious Affairs, and rejected their opponents' suggestion that religious institutions and communities should be registered in court. (3) While the option of court registration introduced by the new Denominations Act of 2002 was a step forward for democracy, as will be shown below, some areas of the act are quite problematic.

The Troublesome Article

The main criticism leveled against the Denominations Act concerns Art. 10, which states:

(1) The traditional denomination in Republic of Bulgaria is Eastern Orthodoxy. It has a historical role for the Bulgarian State and is of actual importance for the state life. Its voice and representative is the autocephalous Bulgarian Orthodox Church that under the name 'Patriarchate' is the [legitimate] successor of the Bulgarian Exarchate and is a member of the United, Holy, Ecumenical and Apostolic Church. It is governed by the Holy Synod and represented by the Bulgarian Patriarch, who also is the Metropolitan of Sofia.

(2) The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is a judicial entity. Its structure and government are established by its statutes.

(3) Clauses 1 and 2 shall not serve as a ground for offering privileges or any advantages by a law.

Most Bulgarian religious institutions and communities objected to this part of the Act, and expressed serious concerns about the ex lege recognition of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. In their view, Art. 10 placed the Orthodox Church in a position different from that of other religious denominations, the latter of which were required to undergo court registration for official recognition. (4) The sharpest criticism came from the so-called Alternative Synod, who stressed that the ex lege recognition would be granted only to the Orthodox Church headed by Patriarch Maxim. (5) Within the government, the National Assembly split over the text of Art. 10. Support came from representatives of the National Movement Simeon II (NMSII) and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), while it was opposed (via boycott) by members of the Movement of Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF). As a result, 150 out of 240 deputies voted for the troublesome text. (6) As we will see below, the debates surrounding the Denominations Act revealed the specific interests of secular and religious parties had in this bill.

The Denominations Act as a Solution to the Division within the Bulgarian Orthodox Church

One of the main criticisms of Art. 10 concerned its definition of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as a religious institution governed by the Holy Synod and represented by the Patriarch, who was also the Metropolitan of Sofia. De facto, this means that only the Synod, headed by Patriarch Maxim, would receive the ex lege recognition as a judicial entity. The Alternative Synod, established in 1992 and headed by the Metropolitan of Sofia Innokentii, who had no patriarchal dignity, would not receive this same recognition. (7)

The division within the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is a purely post-communist phenomenon. In 1992 the first UDF government accused Patriarch Maxim of being elected with the aide of the Bulgarian Communist Party, and published documents proving that the Metropolitan Maxim's 1971 elevation to the rank of patriarch had been realized with Todor Zhivkov's consent. (8) The Directorate of Religious Affairs denounced Maxim's election, saying that it had not been accomplished in accordance with the procedure stipulated by the Orthodox Church's Statutes and the requirements of the 1949 law on religious denominations. Soon afterwards, several members of the Holy Synod rejected the patriarchal dignity of Maxim and established an alternative synod.

Meanwhile, the Bulgarian Communist Party's records were opened. They revealed that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church's Statutes of 1951 had been enforced hierarchically, and as such, could not serve as a legal and/or canonical ground for the above-mentioned accusations against Patriarch Maxim. As a result, the UDF distanced itself from both Synods, forbidding their metropolitans to participate in the national holidays of 1998. Because of this, the divided Church was required to find a canonic solution for restoring unity.

From September 30 to October 1, 1998, a "Pan-Orthodox council" (9) held in Sofia tried to heal the division within the Bulgarian Church. The participation of representatives of foreign Orthodox churches was considered a formal recognition that Maxim served as the canonical head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. In accordance with the council's decisions, fourteen bishops of the Alternative Synod repented and were accepted back into the canonical Church of Patriarch Maxim. However, soon afterwards it was revealed out that the repented bishops were accepted back with lower ranks, (10) which meant that the hierarchs from the Alternative Synod had to give up their rights of diocesan government, and had to return to the Church as ordinary bishops without any administrative power. (11) Such a solution met neither divisions' interests, nor did it meet those of the UDF. (12) On October 8, most of the repented bishops rejected their new appointments and returned back to the Alternative Synod, allowing Maxim's Synod to call the latter a schismatic body. (13)

At the same time, the UDF government's policy on how to deal with this problem shifted from ecclesiastical to administrative. On October 18, 2000, the Supreme Administrative Court issued decision No. 6300, which recognized the Alternative Synod as the second Bulgarian Orthodox Church. (14) On the basis of this some of the Orthodox temples and church property that originally belonged to Maxim's Synod were transferred to the alternative Synod. In addition, Maxim's synod was deprived of the rights of judicial entity, and its economic situation was badly affected. By 2000 the governing UDF returned to their support for the Alternative Synod, while the BSP backed the Patriarch Maxim. In essence, the division of the Orthodox Church followed the bipolar model of Bulgarian political life.

The entry into Bulgarian politics of the former King Simeon Saxe-Koburg-Gotha finally broke this stalemate. Although the policy of the National Movement Simeon II (NMSII) distinguished itself from that of previous Bulgarian governments, it was similar in its stance on the Orthodoxy. The NMSII assumed that the decisions of the 1998 Pan-Orthodox council were an ecclesiastical solution to the schism, and therefore assumed that the task remaining was to make this a fact of public administration through legal means. (15) According to the NMSII, the...