Western researchers writing about or interested in the history of Bulgaria are few and far between. That is why the discovery of a new manuscript, entitled “The significance of Bulgaria in the separation of Eastern from Western Christianity” is an event that places its German author Hans-Dieter Döpmann right next to the names of the very few foreign authors to have written about Bulgaria - Konstantin Jireček, Steven Runciman, Francis Dvornik.

The work by Döpmann was discovered quite by accident at the library in Leipzig by Germanic scholar Radomir Cholakov in 1992, who made a photocopy of it and took it home where it remained until 2016. The story Döpmann tells unravels from 860 until 880, and involves three Popes, two Patriarchs of Constantinople and Bulgarian Prince Boris I. Döpmann traces the attempts by Pope Nicholas I (858-867) to bring Bulgaria into the fold of Catholicism and his clash with Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople, a battle the Pope loses. And so Bulgaria continues to develop as a Christian Orthodox country.

The book was translated by Radomir Cholakov and is now available on the book market in this country.