Religion
After the creation of the Bulgarian state the Bulgars and the Slavs continued to practice their indigenous religions. The Bulgar religion was monotheistic and they believed in Tangra, the God of the Sky. When Omurtag and Leo V the Armenian concluded a peace treaty in 815, the Byzantine Emperor had to make an oath according to the Bulgarian traditions. The Byzantine historians recorded that the "most Christian" ruler had to perform different pagan rites including cutting dogs and use them as witnesses for his oath. The Slavs worshipped numerous deities. Their supreme god was Perun. There are evidences that Christianity remained widespread in Bulgaria during the first 150 years of existence of the state.
In the mid 9th century Boris I decided to adopt Christianity in order to unite firmly the population of the country.
Read more about this topic: First Bulgarian Empire
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to children by the hands of storytellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the philosophers celebrate in vain. And nothing stands between the people and the fictions except the silly falsehood that the fictions are literal truths, and that there is nothing in religion but fiction.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“One’s religion is whatever he is most interested in, and yours is Success.”
—J.M. (James Matthew)
“There is not a greater paradox in nature,—than that so good a religion [as Christianity] should be no better recommended by its professors.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)