According to the census of 1893, and there has been very little change since, the population of Bulgaria is 3,310,713, and is composed of 2,505,326 Bulgarians, 569,728 Turks, 58,518 Greeks, 13,260 gypsies, 27,531 Spanish-speaking Jews, 16,298 Tartars and representatives of nearly every other race on earth. The national faith is that of the Orthodox Greek Church, although in 1870 the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated the entire Bulgarian people in consequence of their persistent demands for religious independence and autonomy. Since then the church has been governed by a synod of twelve bishops, and is under the care of the minister of education, the clergy being paid by the government. In 1893 the members of the Orthodox Greek Church numbered 2,606,786, the Mohammedans 643,258, the Roman Catholics 22,617, and the Protestants about 3,500.
Protestant missionaries from the United States have been at work in Bulgaria ever since the establishment of an independent government, the field being divided between the Methodists, who have the territory north of the Balkan Mountains, and the American Board of Foreign Missions, who are engaged in the southern part and in Eastern Rumelia.
The Bulgarians generally commend the missionaries and tell of the great good that they have done. The newspapers speak well of them, and the government officials have nothing but commendation for their educational and charitable work, although their evangelical labors are not encouraged. The government is willing that they should educate the people, take care of them when they are sick, feed them when they are hungry and clothe them when they are naked, but naturally does not approve of the efforts to convert them from the Greek to the Protestant faith. The Greek clergy are generally bitter and at times fanatical in their opposition, except in the large cities, where there is a cosmopolitan spirit. The Turks have very little to say in Bulgaria, but treat Protestants much more amiably than they treat the Greeks, and are particularly friendly with the missionaries. The American colony very seldom has any difficulties with the Turks. The Russians, whose influence in Bulgaria is greater than that of any other foreign people, and who control the policy of the government, are even more opposed to the evangelical work of the missionaries than the natives, because of their connection with the Greek Church and their hereditary disapproval of the education of the common people. Personally, however, missionaries are often friendly with the Russian residents. That depends, however, largely upon their individuality. Miss Stone, for example, is a great favorite among them, as she is everywhere, and the greatest degree of anxiety was shown by the Russian colony for her rescue.
The Methodists in northern Bulgaria have eight houses of worship, valued at $31,500. Most of them have parsonages attached. There are eleven American and native missionaries, four hundred and thirty-four communicants, forty-three probationers, thirteen schools and three hundred and twenty-eight pupils.
The American Board of Foreign Missions has been at work in that country since 1858, when the first mission station was established at Adrianople. It has three stations in Bulgaria. At Philippopolis there is a church of two hundred and fifty native members under the care of Rev. George L. Marsh, a veteran who has just completed the finest Protestant house of worship in the East, and dedicated it in November, 1901. At Sofia there is a self-supporting church of three hundred members under the care of Rev. Marko Popoff, and a large school at Samakov, under the direction of Messrs. Haskell, Clark and Baird. The work in Rumelia is under the direction of Rev. John Henry House, who resides at Salonika, where there is a flourishing church. There is another station at Monastir. Altogether the American Board has nine missionaries in Bulgaria and East Rumelia, seven American lady teachers, three established schools for the higher education of both men and women, and one kindergarten. Its last reports show fifteen organized churches with regular preaching, fifty places with irregular preaching, twelve houses of worship, about fifteen hundred communicants, and an annual average attendance in 1901 of nine hundred and fifty-six at worship and eight hundred and forty-two at the Sunday-school. There is a large church at Bansko, the place Miss Stone started to visit on the morning of her capture, which has one hundred and fifty members and a house of worship which cost $6,000.
American mission work in Bulgaria and Macedonia is divided into three departments—publication, education and evangelical. There is a Bulgarian publication society for both secular and religious literature which maintains a printing office, a bookstore and a well-patronized free public reading-room at Sofia. It has circulated thousands of copies of the best American literature translated into the Bulgarian language, and formerly published a weekly newspaper, which has been revived in Philippopolis recently with a native Bulgarian editor. The Bible was translated into Bulgarian in 1872 by the late Dr. Riggs and Dr. Long, and thousands of copies are sold annually. The Methodists are also circulating both religious and secular literature with great energy, and find that it awakens an interest among the natives to learn more, stimulates their ambition, broadens their ideas, and encourages them to improve their own schools and extend the facilities for the education of the coming generation. If the missionaries in Bulgaria had done nothing else than create this public sentiment their labors in Bulgaria would have been well repaid. They have been the pioneers of a general-education system, in which the government has recently shown a decided interest; they have inspired a temperance movement, they have broken the bonds that restrained the women of the country, and wherever their influence extends may be found a radical change from the social, educational and moral conditions which existed when independence was established twenty-four years ago.
The schools at Samakov for the education of teachers and preachers have compelled the government to establish similar institutions to satisfy the demands of the public; and a model kindergarten, maintained by Miss Clark at Sofia, is being imitated under the direction of the minister of education. Miss Clark is a great favorite in Sofia. She is a daughter of Rev. Mr. Clark, one of the missionaries in charge of the schools at Samakov, and she is assisted by two graduates of those institutions. We visited her kindergarten one morning and found twenty-eight black-eyed urchins engaged in making baskets and building barns with blocks. They are the children of the best families in Sofia—bankers, merchants, professional men and government officials, who patronize the missionary kindergarten from self-interest and not because they belong to the Protestant Church. The popularity and success of Miss Clark’s kindergarten has been recognized throughout the entire kingdom, and before long kindergarten work will be recognized as a necessary part of the system of public education.
The Protestants in Bulgaria are trying to raise money to endow the schools at Samakov and want help from America. They recognize that the influence of those schools is wider and more permanent than that of any other branch of work in which they are engaged, because the chief object is to train teachers for the native schools. There is a great demand for teachers, which, with the rapid development of the educational system, far exceeds the supply, and the graduates of the missionary schools at Samakov command the highest positions and do the greatest amount of good. It is not necessary that they should profess the Protestant faith. That is a matter of minor importance, and the missionaries feel that if they can thoroughly educate the people their object will be attained.
The government has recently passed a law providing for compulsory education and requiring the attendance at school of all children between the ages of eight and twelve years. The schools are free to the peasants, but those who can afford to pay are taxed $4 a year for the elementary branches and a corresponding amount for the higher schools. Two-thirds of the cost of the free schools is paid by the general government, the remainder by the municipalities and village authorities. The appropriation in 1901 for education was about $1,500,000, which supported 4,589 primary schools with 7,998 teachers and 336,000 pupils, one hundred and seventy high schools with 1,477 teachers and 33,700 pupils, forty-five technical schools with 255 teachers and 4,640 pupils, and seventeen preparatory schools with 569 teachers and 13,892 pupils.
There is a university at Sofia with three faculties—law, medicine and science—forty-two professors and lecturers and four hundred and nine students. At present it is occupying a temporary building, but is doing good work and promises increased influence.