Christianization of Bulgaria - Result

Result

As a result of the leaders' agreements, a Church Council was held in Constantinople. After the end of the official conferences, on 28 February 870 Bulgarian emissaries arrived in Constantinople, sent by the Knyaz and led by the Ichirguboil (the first councilor of the Knyaz) Stasis, the Kan-Bogatur (high-ranking aristocrat) Sondoke, the Kan-Tarkan (high-ranking military commander) among others.

Few people suspected the real purpose of these emissaries. On 4 March Emperor Basil I closed the Council with a celebration at the Emperor's palace. In attendance was the Bulgarian Kavkan (roughly a vicekhan or viceknyaz) Peter. After he greeted the representatives of the Roman and Byzantine Churches (the Roman being first), Kavkan Peter asked under whose jurisdiction the Bulgarian Church should fall. The Roman representatives were not prepared to discuss this matter.

There appeared to have been a secret agreement between the Byzantine Patriarch, the Emperor and the Bulgarian emissaries. The Orthodox fathers immediately asked the Bulgarians whose clergy they had found when they came to the lands which they now ruled. They answered "Greek". The Orthodox fathers declared that the right to oversee the Bulgarian Church belonged only to the Constantinople Mother Church, which had held jurisdiction on these lands in the past.

The protests of the Pope's emissaries were not taken into account. With the approval of the Knyaz and the Fathers of the Council, the Bulgarian Church was declared an Archbishopric. The Archbishop was to be elected among the bishops with the approval of the Knyaz.

The creation of an independent Bulgarian Archbishopric was unprecedented in the practice of the Churches. Usually, independent churches were those founded by apostles or apostles' students. For a long period, Rome had been challenging Constantinople's claim of equality to Rome, on the grounds that the Church of Constantinople had not been founded by an apostle of Christ.

Just six years after his conversion, the Orthodox Church granted Knyaz Boris a national independent church and a high-ranking supreme representative (the Archbishop). In the next 10 years, Pope Adrian II and his successors made desperate attempts to regain their influence in Bulgaria and to persuade Knyaz Boris to leave Constantinople's sphere.

The foundations of the Bulgarian national Church had been set. The next stage was the implementation of Cyrillic and the Old Bulgarian language, as the official language of the Bulgarian Church and State in 893 AD during the Council of Preslav. Such nationalization of the church and liturgy was exceptional and not at all part of the practice of other European Christians.