The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-10-04
MACEDONIAN BULGARS
AND THE HOLY SEE
MOVEMENT TOWARDS CONVEX.
SION TO THE CHURCH OF
ROME.

The ruin of the dream of a greater
Bulgaria whose limits should be con
terminous with those of the Bull
garian race has led, says the London
Times, to movement among the Bull
gars of Macedonia, interesting, not
only in itself, but as an example of
the interplay of religion, nationality,
and politics which is especially char
acteristic of the Near East. Our cor
respondents in Sofia and ST.. Peters,
burg have reported that various
spokesmen of the Bulgars in those
parts of Macedonia which the Treaty
of Bukarest has given to Servia are
advocating secession from the Ortho-
dox Church and submission to the
Church of Rome as the best means OF
preserving their nationality. A ten.
dency to turn to Home for the further
ance of their national aspirations is
not without precedent in Bulgarian
history. Without, going back to the
ninth century and King Boris, who
after his conversion to Christianity
itself a political sexpedient-wavered
for a while between the obedience OF
Constantinople and that of Rome, OF
to Kaloyan, third of the Asen dynasty
of Tirnovo, who in the thirteenth cen
tury bowed to the supremacy of Rome
and took his crown from a Papal LIE
gate, we may recall the strong move
ment in favor of reunion with Rome
which grew up in 1860. AS the Bull
garians, from one cause or another
again became conscious of national
interests distinct from those of the
Greeks, with whom they had for cen
turies been confounded, they inevita
bly, expressed this consciousness in 6
revolt from the Jurisdiction of the
Orthodox Patriarch Of Constantinople
| for, under the Turkish system, al
those who submitted to this jurisdic
tion were officially classed al
Greeks" And revolt from the Ortho
dox Patriarch naturally suggested al
appeal to his secular rival, the Pope
of Rome. The Romeward movemen
was stopped by the influence of Russi;
and by the action of the Porte, whicl
was as little disposed as the Byzan
tine Emperors to allow any extension
of the jurisdiction OF old Rome in th,
Eastern Empire, tplWhich the Sultan
had succeeded and of which the.
largely carried on the traditions.
Abdul Hamid II was astute enough
to see the advantage, on the principle
of divide ut imperes, of a Bulgarian
schism; as Kaisar-i-Rum he was th
fountain of ecclesiastical Jurisdiction
and in 1872 he satisfied the aspiration
of Bulgarian nationalism by the bera
establishing a separate Bulgarian
Church under an "Exarch" of it's own
The situation thus created has beel
fundamentally altered by recen
events in the Balkan peninsula. 81
long as Macedonia remained part o
the Turkish Empire the Bulgarian Elk
archate was the nucleus round whicl
all the elements of Bulgarian national
ity were gathered, and the process o
gathering did not always tend to edi
| fication. The outcome of the secont
Balkan war dashed the hopes of tn
Bulgarians; the effective jurisdiction
of the Exarch, beyond the frontiers o
Bulgaria itself, has been confinet
within the narrowed limits of tn
| Turkish pale, while his scattered
Macedonian flock, which he was t,
have led triumphantly into the pas
lures of a Greater Bulgaria, has beel
rapt from him and penned into aliel
folds. Hence the recent resolution o
the Bulgarians at Kustendil. Rattle
than be fed, and fleeced, by pasto
who will seek to change their creed
they will turn to one remote enough
to be impartial in these local question
of race, and strong enough to protec
his outlying focks from alien hire
lings. So they appeal from the Metro
politan of Servia to the Pope of Rome
and call upon the Exarch himself t.
save the Bulgarian nationality of hi
Church by placing it under the juris
diction of the Holy See. The process
would involve no violent breach witt
the established usages OF the Exarch
ist Church. Bulgarian Uniates, scat
tered in small groups, have been II
existence since 1862, and their rite
a word which covers all the practicei
and customs of the Church-is indis
tinguishable from that of the Ortho
dox Bulgarians. AS for the specifcal
ly Roman doctrines-the infallibilit.
of the Pope and that old stumbling
block to reunion, the Filioque claus,
in the Nicene Creed-these nigh
prove insuperable objections in tn
case of theologians or of bigots, bu
the mass of Oriental believers ar,
more concerned with outward form
than inner meanings, and it is quit,
conceivable that, under the infuenc'
of strong excitement, they nigh
sacrifice religious scruples to theil
national aspirations.