140th anniversary since Bishop Antim’s election as first Exarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church

On 16 February 1872 the first head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was singled out, following the 1870 restoration of its independence from the Greek Patriarchate. The first Bulgarian Exarch of modern time, Antim, was not only a highly educated cleric, but also a prominent public figure and a great patriot. In the aftermath of Bulgaria’s liberation from Ottoman rule in 1878, he joined the efforts for the rebuilding of Bulgarian statehood.

Exarch Antim’s secular name is Atanas Mihailov Chalakov. He was born in Lozengrad, Aegean Thrace, in present-day Turkey. In his green years he became a monk with the name Antim, and his ecclesiastical career started on Mount Athos. He was at the Hilendar Monastery, the place where in mid-18 c. monk Paissii had written the ground-breaking work, History Slav-Bulgarian that laid the foundations of Bulgaria’s National Revival. Later Antim was trained at a prestigious secular school in Istanbul, graduated from the theological school on the Greek island of Halki, and from the Moscow Ecclesiastical Academy. He was back to Halki as lecturer and rector.

In mid-19 c. the Bulgarian National Revival was in full swing, and Bulgarians strongly insisted on ndependent Bulgarian Church. The Patriarchate in Constantinople, was keen to keep the status quo, however, it had to pay more attention to the young and talented Bulgarian clerics.

At first Antim was appointed Preslav Bishop, and in 1868, Vidin Bishop. In the same year he refused to obey the Patriarchate and joined actively the struggle for church independence. This struggle was a trial of the Bulgarian nation’s maturity. In 1870 the Bulgarian church regained its independence with peaceful means, as Sultan Abdul Azis signed a decree for the constitution of the Bulgarian Exarchate. After Bulgaria’s conquest by the Turks in 14 c., the Bulgarian Exarchate was the first all-national institution of the Bulgarian people that could represent it before the imperial authority, and before the international community. Uniting large territories and multitudinous population it assumed major political and international importance when the Bulgarian Question was promoted on Europe’s agenda.

We can imagine the enthusiasm of Bulgarians when they learned that they had a new spiritual leader. The newspapers of the time draw up a vivid picture of those events. At the Port of Ortakoy in Istanbul, Antim I and the Bulgarian opinion leaders that accompanied him arrived with a few boats hired by a Bulgarian merchant. The crowd that welcomed them was large. With church chants and exalted cries “Long Live” young people saw Antim to his residence as exarch.

However the potential for peaceful struggles of the Bulgarian nation was soon exhausted. In 1876 the April Uprising broke out and was crushed by the Turkish authorities with unheard of atrocities. In the bleak atmosphere after the uprising, the Bulgarian Exarchate provided spiritual support to the nation. Antim I refused to cooperate with the Sublime Porte (the Ottoman government) and protested against the biased reports about the April tragedy. Antim came at the head of a delegation to the Sublime Porte in defence of the victims and the Exarchate started busy international activity. It sent its envoys to European capitals to lobby for solutions to the Bulgarian Question. All this brought to a rift between the Bulgarian exarch and the Ottoman government. His friends had fears that he might have the fate of Greek Patriarch Gregory executed after the 1821 Greek Uprising. To this Antim replied, “What happiness! Back then Turkey hanged Gregory and Greece got liberated and resurrected!”

Fortunately, Antim I survived the storm. In 1877 the Sublime Porte removed him from his post and exiled him to Asia Minor. He was released in 1878, in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation. The culmination of his career was his election as Speaker of the Bulgarian Constitutional Assembly in Veliko Tarnovo in 1879. This first parliament in the Principality of Bulgaria hammered out the Tarnovo Constitution, one of the most democratic constitutions at that time across Europe. In the same year Antim I was appointed Speaker of the Grand National Assembly that elected the first head of state of modern Bulgaria, Prince Alexander of Battenberg.

Later on Antim I was back to church service at the Vidin Eparchy but he never abandoned patriotic work. In 1885 Bulgaria waged the first defensive war after its Liberation, the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Bulgaria was attacked by the Serbs and the city of Vidin was besieged. Antim toured the positions to encourage the city’s defenders. The military command and the municipal authority asked him to leave to Romania across the Danube for the sake of his safety. Antim however refused, saying that the shepherd ought to be with his people and troops. The spiritual leader was also known for the generous donations that he made. One of them included money for the construction of a new school in Vidin. Today it houses the High School of Natural Sciences named him. Antim I passed away in 1888 as a leader recognized for his great spiritual and patriotic work across Bulgaria.

Translated by Daniela Konstantinova

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140th anniversary since Bishop Antim’s election as first Exarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church

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