The Bulgarian Church question re-commenced in 1858 and lasted until 1872, during which time the bitter strife was renewed between the two nations, inducing the Bulgarians to demand from the Porte the fulfilment of the promises made in decreed reforms to guarantee liberty of religious worship and the church reforms indicated in the Hatti-scherif of Gulhané.
These demands were just and reasonable, and at first limited to the request that the Porte would grant permission that Bulgarians, or at least men capable of speaking their language, should alone be appointed bishops; that the service in their churches, instead of being performed in the ancient Greek, a tongue unknown to the Bulgarians, should be performed in the native language, and other similar demands, which the Greek patriarch very unwisely refused to listen to. Previously to this, in 1851, the Porte had obliged the patriarch to consecrate a Bulgarian bishop.
In a church which the Bulgarians had erected by permission of the Porte at Constantinople, in 1860, during the celebration of Easter, the Bulgarian bishop, at the request of the congregation, omitted from the customary prayer the name of the patriarch. This was the first decisive step towards the accomplishment of the schism that took place subsequently. The example set by this bishop was followed in many parts of Bulgaria; occasionally the name of the Sultan was substituted for that of the patriarch. The excitement this movement caused in Bulgaria was intense, and acted upon the dormant minds of the people with a force that pushed them at least ten years in advance of what they had been, and opened their eyes to things they had failed previously to observe.
The Porte, alarmed by this sudden effervescence of public feeling in Bulgaria, despatched the Grand Vizir on a tour in that country to study the feeling of the people. At his approach the inhabitants of every town flocked to his presence and brought their grievances under his notice. The Vizir’s action was as just and impartial as circumstances would allow; he listened to the grievances of the people, righted many of their wrongs, imprisoned some officials and dismissed others; but, notwithstanding, the Bulgarians failed to obtain on this occasion any great material amelioration either of their condition or with regard to the Church question.
At this stage all true Bulgarians, including those of the rural districts, were fully aroused; and, reminded by their respective chieftains, or heads of communities, of the importance of the pending question, and the necessity of united action, they determined to fight the battle with the patriarch and overcome the opposition they continued to meet with from that quarter. Help of any description was desirable for them, and even foreign agency was prudently courted. The Porte was given to understand that it possessed no subjects more faithful and devoted than the Bulgarians, and that the rights they demanded could be only obtained from it, and if their Sultan decided in their favor he would secure their eternal gratitude and devotion. Rome began to take an interest in the matter, and the Government of Napoleon III., stimulated by the Uniate Propaganda, headed by some Polish dignitaries established in Paris, endeavored to secure a hold upon the people by means of the priests and agents sent into Bulgaria, and people were made to believe that the whole of Bulgaria was ready to adopt Roman Catholicism and place itself under the protection of France. (See the next chapter.)
Russia, alarmed by these rumors, also began to show signs of active interest in the matter, and by her promises of assistance, her efforts to counteract the Uniate movement, and the pressure she finally began to enforce upon the Porte in favor of the Bulgarian church movement, ended in gaining to her side a small but influential body of Bulgarians in the Danubian districts. There was a critical moment when the Bulgarians, thinking all was lost for them, turned their hopes and even appealed to England for help, promising that if this were granted they would become Protestants. The missionaries of the Evangelical and other Protestant societies were led to believe in the possibility of such a conversion, and became doubly zealous in their efforts to enlighten the people. In the midst of this conflicting state of affairs, when each party tried to enforce its own views and derive the most profit, the church of Constantinople remained inflexible, the Porte took to compromising, and the Bulgarians, doggedly and steadily working on, by degrees became more venturesome in their action, more pressing in their demands, and more independent in their proceedings. Greek bishops were ejected from their dioceses in Bulgaria and driven away by the people. In Nish and other places monasteries were seized, and their incomes reappropriated by the Bulgarian communities. Personal encounters and struggles of a strangely unchristian nature were frequent between the contending parties, sometimes taking place even within the precincts of the churches. The struggle for independence continued, in spite of the anathemas hurled against the Bulgarians by the Patriarchate, and was encouraged by the desertion of two Bishops to their side. The exile of these by the Porte, at the instigation of the Patriarch, and a variety of other incidents ensued, until in 1868 Fouad and Ali Pashas took up the Bulgarian cause, and the exiled Bishops were recalled (February 28th, 1870).
Through the instrumentality of the latter a Firman was issued constituting a Bulgarian Exarch, and permission was given to the Bulgarians to elect their spiritual chief, the election to be confirmed by a Berat of the Sultan.
Ali Pasha’s death, however, in 1871, caused new difficulties, and the enforcement of this measure was, under different pretexts, delayed during the ministry of his successor, Mahmoud Pasha, and ultimately only fulfilled in consequence of the proportions the question had assumed, and the active interest taken in it by Russia as shown in the policy of General Ignatieff. This policy was not approved of by the majority of thinking Bulgarians, who, with good reason, dreaded the consequences of Russian influence based on the solid assistance it had rendered to the Bulgarian church. Russia from all times has made use of the churches and monasteries in Bulgaria, largely endowing them with sacerdotal gifts, in order to consolidate her influence and gain the faith and confidence of the people.
All now is confusion, darkness, and uncertainty in Bulgaria. Their churches, inaugurated with so much hope and confidence, have been polluted with every crime and stained with the blood of innumerable victims. Centuries must pass before the wrongs and misfortunes of late years can be forgotten by this unhappy people.
There is yet another Christian Church in Turkey which must have a place in this chapter. St. Gregory the Illuminator, the patron saint of Armenia, is looked upon as the effective bearer of that heavenly light that was to extinguish the beacons of the fire-worshippers and found the Armenian Church. In the beginning of the fourth century of our era this saint preached in court of Tiridates, who, evidently little disposed at the time to accept the new faith, vented his ill-humor against it by ordering the martyrdom of its preacher. The most agonizing tortures, say the Armenian annals, inflicted upon St. Gregory failed in the desired effect. Finally, after having been made to walk on pointed nails, and having melted lead poured down his throat, he was cast into a cistern, among snakes and scorpions, where he lived fourteen years, daily fed by an angel, who brought him bread and water. At the end of this period he was allowed to issue from his dismal abode, and was called upon to baptize the penitent king and his nobles, converted through the instrumentality of the king’s sister, to whom the Christian religion was revealed in a vision. Such is the legendary origin of Christianity in Armenia. The new faith enforced by royalty was soon spread through the country. St. Gregory was appointed Patriarch of Armenia, and after creating a number of churches, bishoprics, and convents, and regulating the canons of each, he retired into the solitude of a hermitage, where he was put to death by order of the king’s son. It was the beginning of a long course of misfortunes. There is something grand in the sacrifice that the ignorant and stout-hearted Asiatics made in the cause of religion. Nowhere was persecution so long or so cruel, martyrdoms so terrible, self-denial so complete as among the people of the land where the human race is fabled to have had its origin.