Bulgarian Exarchate
SEEKING TO PROTECT Russian interests in the Balkans, Count Ignatiev, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, lobbied the High Porte from 1864 onwards to improve relations with Bulgaria, with the aim of supporting the establishment of the Bulgarian church. Ignatiev instigated the formation of a number of Bulgarian-Greek commissions to review Bulgarian demands for a proposed separate church.
Bulgarian Turkish relations dramatically improved in 1868 when the Bulgarian bourgeoisie declared its loyalty to the Ottomans during the Greek rebellion on Crete.
Following several years of campaigning, with Russian diplomatic support, a firman was issued on 28 February 1870 proclaiming the establishment of the Bulgarian church that was known as the Exarchate.
Although 1870 is widely recognised as the year that the Exarchate was established, it did not actually come into existence until May 11, 1872, following vehement opposition from the Patriarchate, which protested against the name ‘Bulgarian Exarchate’ and advocated the name ‘Exarchate of the Haemus’ (or Balkan).31
The Exarchate reclaimed control of religious and educational institutions in Bulgaria, however its jurisdiction was extended to include non-Bulgarian territories, with the Exarchate taking over the Veles Eparchy in Macedonia and the Nish and Pirot Eparchies in Serbia.
Furthermore, according to Article 10 of the Ottoman firman, any other Eparchy in Ottoman Turkey was free to come under the jurisdiction of the Exarchate if two-thirds of the population voted in favour of union. With this decree the base was laid for Greece and Bulgaria to struggle for the political and ideological contest over Macedonia.
In accordance with Article 10, voting was organised to take place at the Skopje and Ohrid dioceses. In spite of difficulties presented by the Greek clergy of the Patriarchate, notably that the Patriarchate declared all potential adherents to the Exarchate to be schismatic, the population of both dioceses voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Exarchate. The Exarchate was far preferable to remaining with the oppressive and exploitive Patriarchate whose official Greek language was incomprehensible to Macedonians.
Macedonians favoured the Exarchate principally due to the similarity of the Bulgarian language to Macedonian. However, in doing so they were exposed to the influence of the Bulgarian government, ‘which used the Exarchate to further its own political ambitions in Macedonia’.32
Bulgarian chauvinists constructed an argument based upon the successes of the Exarchate, as confirmation of the ‘Bulgarian character’ of Macedonia. It is a misleading interpretation, as Eliot states: ‘the Church of the Exarchate was really occupied in creating Bulgarians’.33
The historian T.R. Georgevitch explained that official church documentation, such as birth, marriage and death certificates, all bore Bulgarian subscriptions and seals: Persons who could not write were entered in the Osmanli papers (papers giving a person's name, surname, religion, nationality and occupation, and with which every Turkish subject must be provided) as Bulgars. Thus Macedonia began gradually to be outwardly Bulgarian.34
Table 4.1: Religious and Educational Budget of the Bulgarian Exarchate in
Macedonia, 1878–1896
Source: A. Trajanovski, Bugarskata Exarhija i Makedonskoto Nacionalno Osloboditelno Dvizhenje 1893–1908, Skopje, 1982, p. 44.
Significant inroads were made by the Exarchate in a relatively short period of time. Its expansion was a serious threat to Patriarchate domination, and the Ottomans misjudged the consequences of Article 10, soon realising that it was not in their interests to allow the Exarchate to extend its jurisdiction throughout the country. Although initially pleased to encourage Bulgarian opposition to Greek hegemony, and to divide Macedonia’s Christian subjects, the Ottomans did not intend on allowing the Exarchate to become too powerful an organisation.35
In 1873, following Exarchate victories in the Skopje, Ohrid, Bitola and Kukush36 sees, the Ottomans responded by suspending all further plebescites. The Exarchist victories of 1873 went unheeded by the authorities. Berats had not been granted for the appointment of Bishops.37
It was not until 1890 that the Porte issued berats for Skopje and Ohrid, allowing the bishops finally to proceed to their dioceses after thirteen years. Further berats were issued in 1894 in Veles and Nevrokop, and at the time of the Greek Turkish War in 1897 further dioceses were gained in Bitola, Debar and Strumica. But later the Ottomans prevented the Exarchate from spreading any further and no other bishoprics were gained, although the Exarchate did establish lower-ranked representatives in other dioceses.