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The Hardships of the Greek-Catholic Church in Bulgaria After the Second World War

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The Hardships of the Greek-Catholic Church in Bulgaria After the Second World War THE HARDSHIPS OF THE GREEK-CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BULGARIA AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR A BRIEF HISTORICAL OUTLINE ON THE OCCASION OF THE BEATIFICATION OF THREE BULGARIAN ASSUMPTIONISTS ON 26 MAY 2002 BERT GROEN* 1. INTRODUCTION On 23 April 2002 at the Vatican, three Bulgarian Catholic priests who had been murdered by the communist regime in 1952 were declared martyrs of the Church and witnesses of the faith.1 One of them, Kamen Vicev, was born * Bert Groen is professor of liturgiology and sacramental theology at the Karl-Franzens- Universität in Graz. Until September 2002 he was lecturer at the Institute of Eastern Chris- tian Studies in Nijmegen. He is editor-in-chief of JEastCS. 1 Updated and revised version of a lecture originally given at the congress Le Chiese ori- entali cattoliche d’Europa nella loro storia di fede e di sofferenza dall’inizio del secolo fino ad oggi, organized by the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, Rome, 22-24 October 1998. On the martyrdom of the three priests and their beatification, see Beatificationis seu De- clarationis martyrii servorum Dei Petri Vitchev et Pauli Djidjov necnon Josaphat Chichkov sacerdotum professorum congregationis Augustinianorum ab Assumptione in odium fidei, uti fer- tur, interfectorum († 1952): Positio super martyrio, Congregatio de Causis Sanctorum, Prot. N. 2044 (Sofia and Rome, 2002); L’ Osservatore Romano, 24 April 2002, pp. 1, 4. See also W. Dufault, ‘1952: Nos frères de Bulgarie’, in Mémoire Assomptionniste: Écrits au fil des ans 1850-2000 (Le Bourget-du-Lac, 2000), pp. 131-133; P. Gallay, Het martelaarschap van drie Bulgaarse Assumptionisten (Paris, 2002); Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 94 (2002), pp. 567- 571; Katholikê, 11 June 2002, p. 8. On the papal visit to Bulgaria, see L’ Osservatore Romano: Speciale, 20-21 May 2002, pp. 8-32; L’ Osservatore Romano, 25 May 2002, pp. 1, 4-7; 26 May 2002, pp. 1, 4-7, 14; 27- 28 May 2002, pp. 1, 7-13; 29 May 2002, pp. 1, 5, 10; 30 May 2002, pp. 1, 4; Katho- likê, 25 June 2002, p. 4; Service Orthodoxe de Presse, No. 270, July-August 2002, pp. 25- 27; F. Hoppenbrouwers, ‘Paus Johannes Paulus II bezoekt EU-kandidaat Bulgarije’, Een-Twee-Een, 30 (2002), 9, pp. 27-28. See also J. Pumberger, ‘Orthodoxe, Katholiken, Muslime: Bulgarien vor dem Besuch Johannes Pauls II.’, Herder Korrespondenz, 56 (2002), 5, pp. 237-242. 246 BERT GROEN in an Orthodox family and belonged to the Byzantine rite. He was provin- cial vice-superior, professor and rector of the seminary of the congregation of the Assumptionists in Plovdiv. The other two, also Assumptionists, adhered to the Latin rite, viz. Josafat Siskov, parish priest in Varna, and Pavel Dzid- zov, treasurer of the seminary in Plovdiv. During his visit to Bulgaria (23-26 May 2002), Pope John Paul II beatified the three priests (Plovdiv, 26 May 2002). On the eve of the ceremony, a vigil was held in the ancient Roman theatre of Plovdiv during which the horrors of their martyrdom were recalled and thanks were given to God for their beatification. Six years earlier, viz. in 1994, a Vatican decree also declared the Latin-rite Bishop of Nikopol, Evgenij Bosilkov, a former student of the Pontifical Oriental Institute (1926-1931) and a Passionist father, who had also been murdered in 1952, a martyr.2 His beatification took place on 15 March 1998 in Rome. The annual liturgical commemoration of the four martyrs in the Roman Catholic Church was put on 13 November.3 In this article the historical context of their sufferings is sketched in broad outlines. I will concentrate on the Byzantine-rite Catholic Church although because of the close links and intertwining ties between the Byzantine and Latin rite within the Roman Catholic Church of Bulgaria, the Latin rite can- not be disregarded. Further, in order to show that not only the Roman Catholic Church was targeted, the hardships of the other denominations will also be briefly described. Firstly, the take-over of the Bulgarian state by the communists and their atti- tude towards religion will be described. Then, the consequences for the reli- gious communities in Bulgaria, in particular the Roman Catholic Church, 2 Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 91 (1999), pp. 158-160; I. Sofranov, Mons. Eugenio Bossilkov c.p., Vescovo di Nicopoli (Bulgaria), Martire per la fede Cattolica (1900-1952): In occasione del XXX anniversario del martirio (1952-1983) ([Pessaro], 1983); I. Sofranov and S. Mercanzin, De Dienaar Gods Eugenius Bossilkov: Bulgaarse Katholieke Bisschop Martelaar (1900-1952) (Grave, 1988); Bisschop Eugenius Bossilkov, ed. Congregation of the Passionists (s.l., 1998). Bosilkov’s doctoral thesis submitted in 1931 in Rome dealt with the unity between Bul- garia and the Church of Rome. 3 The new Roman Martyrology of 2001 mentions the commemoration of Bishop Bosilkov’s passio on 11 November, the day of his death, but there is no entry of his commemoration on 13 November. See Martyrologium Romanum ex decreto sacrosancti oecumenici concilii Vaticani II instauratum auctoritate Ioannis Pauli pp. II promulgatum (Vatican City, 2001), pp. 582-588. THE HARDSHIPS OF THE GREEK-CATHOLIC CHURCH 247 will be examined. Next, the new situation that arose after 1989 and figures on the denominations in Bulgaria will be considered. Finally, some observa- tions will be made on Greek-Catholic suffering, cooperation between the Byzantine and Latin rites, and ecumenism. This article is dedicated to the Congregation of the Assumptionists, both in Bulgaria and worldwide, because of the close ties existing between this Congregation and the Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in Nijmegen that continues the work of the former Assumptionists’ Institute of Byzantine and Ecumenical Studies. 2. COMMUNIST TAKE-OVER AND BATTLE AGAINST RELIGION At their meeting in Moscow, 9 October 1944, Winston Churchill suggested to Stalin that after the war the Soviet Union would exert 75% and the other Allied Forces 25% of the political influence in Bulgaria.4 Stalin agreed. Con- sequently, the Western powers would not interfere in Bulgaria’s political devel- opments, just as the Soviet Union would not intervene in Greece.5 Actually, 75% was tantamount to a monopoly and soon only the Soviet Union defined Bulgaria’s destiny. One month before the Moscow meeting Soviet troops had occupied Bul- garia, which had taken sides with Germany and Italy during the war. On 9 September 1944, a ‘National Committee of the Patriotic Front’, which included members of the small Bulgarian Communist Party, was invested with political power. With the aid of the Soviet troops the Bulgarian com- munists, led by Georgi Dimitrov (died in 1949), soon enlarged their influ- ence, monopolized political power and eliminated any opposition to their monopoly and all threatening non-communist, so-called ‘bourgeois’ or ‘fas- cist’ elements. Even communists that had not been trained in Moscow had to disappear. Innumerable persons were sent to the 65 concentration camps throughout the country. Tens of thousands of people were murdered; 4 H.-J. Härtel and R. Schönfeld, Bulgarien: Vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Regensburg and Munich, 1998), pp. 191-220; M. Weithmann, Balkan-Chronik: 2000 Jahre zwischen Orient und Okzident (Darmstadt, 19972), pp. 424-463, 480-482, 486-488, 537-538. 5 Greece was soon torn apart by a cruel civil war between communists on the one hand and royalists and right-wing groups on the other (1946-1949). 248 BERT GROEN estimations vary between 20,000 and 200,000. In 1950, V"lko (Valko) Cer- venkov, also nicknamed ‘little Stalin’, became the leader of the Communist Party. Under his leadership the policy of elimination continued. The absolutist atheist State party waged a rigorous battle against religion and the Churches. Initially, because of the regime’s need to homogenize the political landscape and its wish to give a good impression to the Western Allied Forces before the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947, persecution of religious communities was not yet carried out on full scale. In 1945-46, at first, ‘only’ religious education and prayer in the schools and in the army were abol- ished. The Paris Peace Treaty that was itself concluded between Bulgaria and the Allied Forces in 1947 guaranteed religious freedom and other human rights. From December 1947, the new constitution, which was a close imitation of the Soviet Union's, prescribed a separate Church and State and that the State recognise only civil marriage. At the same time the constitution allowed religious freedom in Bulgaria, but only as a mere formality.6 Dating from 25 February and 1 March 1949, the Denominations Act, too, confirmed religious freedom and separation between Church and State. This law also established that the ‘Bulgarian Orthodox Church is the traditional confession of the Bulgarian people’, a weakening of the passages in the old constitution from 1879 where Orthodoxy was the ‘dominant religion’ and received financial sup- port from the State. That Church-State separation and so-called ‘religious freedom’ were just for appearance’s sake was obvious from other rules and lim- itations in this Act, such as: - All religious communities were subject to total State control, including their finances. - All their publications were to be submitted to censorship. - They were prohibited from any involvement in youth education and for- bidden to found charitable institutions. - Their existing institutions were taken over by the State. - The Director for the Denominations, a state official under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was entitled to dismiss any churchman. 6 Kirche und Staat in Bulgarien und Jugoslawien: Gesetze und Verordnungen in deutscher Übersetzung, ed. R. Stupperich (Witten, 1971), p. 5. THE HARDSHIPS OF THE GREEK-CATHOLIC CHURCH 249 - Pastors of any Church or religion had to be Bulgarians. - Contacts with foreigners and foreign institutions were strictly limited.7 The Roman Catholic Church and the American Protestant denominations in particular were hampered a great deal by the last two prescriptions.
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