Bulgarian Orthodox Alternate Synod delegation to appeal to MEPs for support to reinstate their churches 09/02/2007
Bulgarian priests
Representatives of the Alternate Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church will be visiting Strasbourg from February 12th to the 15th. They will be calling on MEPs to put pressure on the Bulgarian government to address the state confiscation of Church property and the forcible expulsion of 160 priests from their churches and monasteries.
Bishop Kiril Kostantiiski and Father Jordan Kirilov Lesov have been forced to subsist on the charity of friends and members of their congregations since the loss of their churches in July 2004. While they supported Bulgaria’s entry into the EU, they will raise concerns that the European Union has not pushed for a just resolution to these apparent contraventions of religious freedom. Countries are required to meet European human rights standards as part of the accession process.
The priests represent the Alternate Synod – a group which does not recognise the leadership of Patriarch Maxim, who was appointed as the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church under the Communist Regime in the 1970’s. The group was forced out of their churches on 21 July 2004, after the State Prosecutor decreed that their churches and monasteries should be turned over to the segment of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Maxim. Police carried out the expulsion in a coordinated action across the country. A number of priests and laypeople were reportedly beaten in the process. Since the expulsions the priests have been forced to hold services for their congregations in the open air which, over the winter, means freezing temperatures, snow and rain.
The case is currently being considered by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. According to their lawyer, Latchezar Popov of the Rule of Law Institute, the case highlights a continuing lack of the rule of law in Bulgaria as it was the Prosecutor’s Office which gave an order to the police to carry out the seizures rather than a court decision. It is highly unusual in any legal system for a prosecutor’s office to issue such a unilateral order with no court decision to back it up.
Stuart Windsor, Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s National Director, says: “We continue to be deeply concerned for the welfare of these priests, many of whom are living in extremely precarious circumstances after having been deprived of their livelihood and vocation by the Bulgarian government. We are also, of course, extremely worried that this blatant violation of religious freedom has taken place in what is now a European Union member state. We urge members of the European Parliament to take up this issue with the European Commission and with the Bulgarian government and call upon the Bulgarian government to address this issue in a just manner, in line with their human rights obligations as a full member of the European Union.”
Notes to editors.
Legal Violations
In effect, the State Prosecutor’s Office intervened with force, in contravention to European human rights law, on behalf of one faction in an internal church dispute.
In addition, the State deprived the priests of their livelihood, without giving them any legal recourse to defend their right to maintain their vocations.
Lastly, the State violated Bulgarian property law as it pertains to the Orthodox Church as in Bulgaria Orthodox church property belongs legally to the individual communities in which it is located. Communities are empowered to elect church councils made up of local members of the congregation who then effectively govern the church and oversee the property. Church property as a whole does not legally belong to Patriarch Maxim or to any other individual church leader or corporation, therefore the State has no right to intervene and forcibly take property from a community loyal to one faction of the Church in order to give it to another faction of the Church.
The current Bulgarian Orthodox Patriarch Maxim was appointed to that position by a resolution of the Politbureau of the Bulgarian Communist Party on 4 July 1971. After the fall of communism in Bulgaria, many in the Orthodox Church expected Maxim to step aside to allow for an election, according to customary Orthodox procedures, to name a new Patriarch. However, Maxim did not step down. In response, a significant part of the Orthodox Church refused to recognize his authority and demanded that he resign so that elections might take place. They aligned themselves under the authority of Metropolitan Innokentii. The Alternate Synod, as it has been called, is at pains to point out that there is no church “schism” as there has been no disagreement over theology or church law.
Rather than seeking a just solution through the courts, the Bulgarian State Prosecutor’s Office has unilaterally chosen a course of action that many find uncomfortably similar to the “hands on” approach used by the State in regard to religious practice during the Communist era. This despite a declaration of the Supreme Administrative Court on 18th of October 2000 which stated “...there are two religious communities in the Republic of Bulgaria that are called the Bulgarian Orthodox Church”. Since there are citizens in the Republic of Bulgaria who do not wish to be in a church relationship with Patriarch Maxim, they have the sovereign right to separate themselves from the religious community led by that patriarch, and to found an independent church, as a religious community having its own bylaws and organs of leadership.