page_title: Religion in Bulgaria
section_title: Eastern Orthodox Christianity
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in Bulgaria / Religious groups and life stances / Christianity / Eastern Orthodox Christianity
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Успенский собор (Варна)
context_page_description: Religion in Bulgaria has been dominated by Christianity since its adoption as the state religion in 865. The dominant form of the religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity within the fold of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. During the Ottoman rule of the Balkans, Sunni Islam spread in the territories of Bulgaria, and it remains a significant minority today. The Catholic Church has roots in the country since the Middle Ages, and Protestantism arrived in the 19th century.
  In the latest years, there has been a decline of both the historic religions of Bulgaria—Orthodox Christianity and Islam—, which shrank respectively from 86% in 1992 to 84% in 2001 to 61% in 2011 and from 13% in 1992 to 12% in 2001 to 8% in 2011. In the 2011 census, the question about the religious affiliation became optional, and thus 21.8% of the total population didn't answer. Until the census of 1992, Bulgarians were obliged to declare the historic religious belonging of their parents and/or ancestors, while since 2001 people were allowed to declare personal belief in a religion or unbelief in any religion.
context_section_description: By far the dominant religion in Bulgaria is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, professed by the prevalent ethnic group, the Bulgarians, who are adherents of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Approximately 60% of the Bulgarians belonged to the church as of 2011. Other Orthodox churches represented in the country by minorities are the Russian Orthodox Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Romanian Orthodox Church and Greek Orthodox Church.
  Christianity was established in the First Bulgarian Empire under Boris I in the middle of the 9th century, although it has had its roots in the Balkans since the 1st century and the mission of Apostle Paul. The rise of the Bulgarian Empire made the Bulgarian Orthodox Church autocephalous in 919, becoming the first new Patriarchate to join the initial Pentarchy. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is the oldest among the Slavic Orthodox churches and has considerably influenced the rest of the Slavic Orthodox world by means of its rich literary and cultural activity in the Middle Ages, as well as by the invention of the Cyrillic script in Bulgaria.
caption: Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Varna.
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