page_title: Bulgarian Orthodox Church
section_title: Second restoration of the Bulgarian Patriarchate
hierarchical_section_title: Bulgarian Orthodox Church / History / Second restoration of the Bulgarian Patriarchate
caption_attribution_description: English: Bulgarian orthodox priest, going out of the church in winter. Български: Български свещеник, излизащ от църква.
context_page_description: The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, legally the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, is an autocephalous Orthodox Church. It is the oldest Slavic Orthodox Church, with some 6 million members in Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. It was recognized as autocephalous in 1945 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
context_section_description: Conditions for the restoration of the Bulgarian Patriarchate and the election of a head of the Bulgarian Church were created after World War II. In 1945 the schism was lifted and the Patriarch of Constantinople recognised the autocephaly of the Bulgarian Church. In 1950, the Holy Synod adopted a new Statute which paved the way for the restoration of the Patriarchate and in 1953, it elected the Metropolitan of Plovdiv, Cyril, Bulgarian Patriarch. After the death of Patriarch Cyril in 1971, in his place was elected  the Metropolitan of Lovech, Maxim, leading the church until his death in 2012.  On 10 November 2012 Metropolitan Cyril of Varna and Veliki Preslav was chosen was interim leader to organize the election of the new Patriarch within four months. 
  At the church council convened to elect a new Patriarch 24 February 2013, the Metropolitan of Ruse, Neophyt was elected Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church with 90 votes against 47 for Metropolitan Gabriel of Lovech.
  Under Communism (1944–89), Bulgaria's rulers worked to control rather than destroy the church.  Still, the early postwar years were unsettling to church hierarchs.   During 1944-47 the church was deprived of jurisdiction in marriage, divorce, issuance of birth and death certificates, and other passages that had been sacraments as well as state events.  Communists removed study of the catechism and church history from school curricula.  They generated anti-religious propaganda and persecuted some priests.  From 1947-49 was the height of the campaign to intimidate the church. Bishop Boris was assassinated; Egumenius Kalistrat, administrator of the Rila Monastery, was imprisoned; and various other clergy were murdered or charged with crimes against the state.  The communists soon replaced all clergy who refused to endorse the regime's policies.  They banished Exarch Stefan, who had co-authored a book in 1948 that was considered anti-Communist.
  From that time until the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of Communist rule in 1989, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Bulgarian Communist Party and State Security coexisted in a closely symbiotic partnership, in which each supported the other. 11 (out of 15)  members of Bulgarian Orthodox Church's Holy Synod worked for communist State Security. The party supported the elevation of the exarchate to the rank of patriarchate in May 1953. The 1970 commemoration served to recall that the exarchate (which retained its jurisdictional borders until after World War I) included Macedonia and Thrace in addition to present-day Bulgaria. Along with other autocephalous Orthodox churches, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church does not recognize the autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.
caption: Bulgarian Orthodox priest
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