Christianization of Bulgaria
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Date | 864 AD |
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Location | First Bulgarian Empire |
Outcome | Bulgaria converts to Christianity |
The Christianization of Bulgaria was the process by which 9th-century medieval
Because of Bulgaria's strategic position, the churches of both Rome and Constantinople each wanted Bulgaria in their sphere of influence. They regarded Christianization as a means of integrating Slavs into their region. After some overtures to each side, the Khan adopted Christianity from Constantinople in 870. As a result, he achieved his goal of gaining an independent Bulgarian national church and having an archbishop appointed to head it.
Background
When Khan Boris began his reign in 852, the international situation in
On a larger scale, the tensions between
Initial setbacks
Part of a series on the |
Eastern Orthodox Church |
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Overview |
Some time later, Khan Boris concluded an alliance with
In 861 Khan Boris concluded an alliance with East Frankish King
Khan Boris was more interested in the first Slavonic alphabet Cyril and Methodius had created. Bulgaria wanted to implement the Slavonic alphabet as well as a means to stop the cultural influence of the Byzantine Empire.
In the last months of 863 the Byzantines attacked Bulgaria again, probably after having been informed by their Moravian allies that Boris told the German king he was willing to accept Christianity and Byzantium had to forestall him from taking up Christianity from Rome. A Rome-dependent Bulgaria in the hinterland of Constantinople was a threat to the Byzantine Empire's immediate interests.
Aligning with the East
Before any actual military engagements took place, Khan Boris was forced to sue for peace due to being unprepared for war because of Bulgaria being badly affected by crop failure and earthquakes that year, which Boris may have taken for a sign to convert according to the eastern rite. Negotiations were set up and Boris promised to convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity along with his people, requesting missionaries to come to Bulgaria and begin the process.
The two sides concluded a "deep peace" for a 30-year period. In exchange for Bulgaria's conversion, the Byzantines returned previously conquered lands. In the late autumn of 864, a mission from the
Reasons for Christianization
Following the conquests of Khan
After the conversion of the Saxons, most of Europe became Christian. The preservation of paganism among the Bulgars and the Slavs, the ethnic groups that formed, along with the local, Romanized (later called Vlachs) or Hellenized Christian Thracian population, the Bulgarian people and nation brought another disadvantage — the pagan and Christian ethnic groups' unification was hampered by their different religious beliefs. Christianity had its roots in the Bulgarian lands prior to the formation of the Bulgarian state through the native populations mentioned above.
Reaction
Louis the German was not satisfied with Boris' plan, but he did not carry his fears on to open conflict.
As Byzantine missions converted the Bulgarians, their forces encouraged the people to destroy the Pagan holy places. Conservative Bulgarian aristocratic circles opposed such destruction, as they had led the spiritual rituals. In 865, malcontents from all ten administrative regions (komitats) revolted against Knyaz Boris, accusing him of giving them "a bad law". The rebels moved toward the capital, intending to capture and kill the Knyaz and to restore the old religion.
All that is known is that Knyaz Boris gathered people loyal to him and suppressed the revolt. It's noted that God's miracle helped Boris to win the battle, and the armor that he was wearing during battle was asked from the Pope as a gift. He ordered the execution of the leaders of the revolt – boyars and all of their sons – 52 rebels.[2] The common folk who "wished to do penance" were allowed to go without harm.
Until the end of his life, Knyaz Boris was haunted by guilt about the harshness of killing the sons of the revolt's leaders and the moral price of his decision in 865. In his later correspondence with Pope Nicholas I, the Knyaz asked whether his actions had crossed the borders of Christian humility. The Pope answered:
... You have sinned rather because of zeal and lack of knowledge, than because of other vice. You receive forgiveness and grace and the benevolence of Christ, since penance has followed on your behalf.
Different interpretations of the historical records have led some historians to believe the Knyaz executed almost half the Bulgarian aristocracy to end the religious and political conflict. His aristocratic opponents had feared that the Byzantine Empire would spread its influence through Christianity and destroy Bulgaria. At this time during the Middle Ages, Bulgarians considered "Christians" as equivalent to their traditional competitors the "Byzantines", or "Greeks", as they were most often called. Many Bulgarians thought that along with Christianity, they would be forced to accept the Byzantine way of life and morals.
Choice between Rome and Constantinople
Knyaz Boris realized that the Christianization of his subjects would result in greater Byzantine influence. The liturgy was performed in the Greek language, and the newly established Bulgarian Church was subordinate to the Church of Constantinople. The revolt against the new religion prompted the Knyaz to ask Constantinople to allow the Bulgarian Church independent status.
When Constantinople refused to grant the Bulgarian Church independence, Knyaz Boris turned to the Pope. At the end of August 866, a Bulgarian mission led by the
When the Roman clerical mission arrived, Boris was sufficiently satisfied with Rome's response that he ordered the Byzantine mission to leave Bulgaria. This was viewed as an official change of Bulgarian orientation from Constantinople to Rome. Seeing Rome's emissaries there, the German mission also left Bulgaria, satisfied that Bulgaria will be in the Roman diocese.
Emperor Michael III was displeased by Bulgaria's banishment of Byzantium's clergy. In a letter to Knyaz Boris, the Byzantine emperor expressed his disapproval of Bulgaria's religious reorientation by using offensive language against the Roman Church. This sparked the old rivalry between the two branches of Christianity. In less than two years, Bulgaria's name became widely known in Western Europe.
In Constantinople, people nervously watched the events taking place in Bulgaria. They believed a pro-Roman Bulgaria threatened Constantinople's immediate interests. A religious council was held in the summer of 867 in the Byzantine capital, during which clerics criticized the Roman Church's actions of recruiting Bulgaria. Pope Nicholas I was anathematized.
Without losing time, Knyaz Boris asked the Pope to appoint Formosus of Portus, who years later became Pope Formosus, as Bulgarian archbishop. The Pope refused, with the official response being that Formosa already had an eparchy.
The Pope ordered new leaders, Dominic of Trivena and Grimwald of Polimarthia, of a mission to be sent to Bulgaria. Soon after, Nicolas died. His successor, Pope Adrian II (867-872), also failed to respond to Knyaz Boris' request for appointment of a Bulgarian archbishop.
Knyaz Boris proposed another candidate for Bulgarian archbishop, Marinus. Deacon Marinus at this time was a papal legate in Constantinople and did not have an eparchy, but the Pope refused. Instead, he received a cleric named Silvester, a man so low in the hierarchy that was not authorized to carry out liturgy by himself. After he had a three-day stay in Pliska, the Bulgarians sent him back to Rome accompanied by emissaries carrying a letter of complaint by Knyaz Boris. Boris perceived Rome's refusals of his request and delays as an insult and a sign of the Pope's unwillingness to coordinate selection with him of a Bulgarian archbishop. Marinus became Pope just a few years later with the name Pope Marinus I.
As a result, Boris began negotiations again with Constantinople, with whom he expected more cooperation than shown in the past. But, on 23 September 867, Emperor Michael III was killed by his close acquaintance
Result
As a result of the leaders' agreements, a
Few people suspected the real purpose of these emissaries. On 4 March Emperor Basil I closed the council with a celebration at the Emperor's palace. In attendance was the Bulgarian Kavkan (roughly a vicekhan or viceknyaz) Peter. After he greeted the representatives of the Roman and Byzantine Churches (the Roman being first), Kavkan Peter asked under whose jurisdiction the Bulgarian Church should fall. The Roman representatives were not prepared to discuss this matter.
There appeared to have been a secret agreement between the Byzantine Patriarch, the Emperor and the Bulgarian emissaries. The Orthodox fathers immediately asked the Bulgarians whose clergy they had found when they came to the lands which they now ruled. They answered "Greek". The Orthodox fathers declared that the right to oversee the Bulgarian Church belonged only to the Constantinople Mother Church, which had held jurisdiction on these lands in the past.
The protests of the Pope's emissaries were not taken into account. With the approval of the Knyaz and the Fathers of the council, the Bulgarian Church was declared an
Just six years after his conversion, the Orthodox Church granted Knyaz Boris a national independent church and a high-ranking supreme representative (the archbishop). Over the next 10 years, Pope Adrian II and his successors made desperate attempts to regain their influence in Bulgaria and to persuade Knyaz Boris to leave Constantinople's sphere.
The conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity and the establishment of the Bulgarian national Church coincided with the unprecedented cultural prosperity in Bulgaria which had begun in 855 AD with the adopting of the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius' alphabet, who under the patronage of Knyaz Boris implemented for the first time, the Cyrillic alphabet and established literary schools in Pliska and
See also
- Timeline of Christian missions
- List of oldest church buildings
- Christianization of the Slavs
- Saints Cyril and Methodius
- Old Bulgarian(also called Old Church Slavonic)
- Early Cyrillic alphabet
- Cyrillic script
- Boris I of Bulgaria
- Glagolitic alphabet
- Ballshi inscription
Notes
- ^ Gjuzelev, p. 130
- ^ "Култура :: Изборът на".
References
- Gjuzelev, V., (1988) Medieval Bulgaria, Byzantine Empire, Black Sea, Venice, Genoa (Centre culturel du monde byzantin). Verlag Baier.
Bibliography
- Sullivan, R.E., (1994) Christian Missionary Activity in the Early Middle Ages (Variorum Collected Studies Series). Ashgate Publishing Limited, ISBN 0-86078-402-9.
- Vlasto, A.P., (1970) The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom: an Introduction to the Medieval History of the Slavs. Cambridge University Press.