Controversy over Bulgarian Orthodox Church agreement to be checked by Dossier Commission

Patriarch Maxim, head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church from July 1971 to the present, is among those who will be checked by the Dossier Commission, along with metropolitans, bishops and heads of seminaries and monasteries. Photo: Georgi Kozhouharov

16/12/2011

Controversy is continuing about a decision by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod to agree to have senior clergy checked by the Dossier Commission as to whether any were involved with communist-era State Security and Bulgarian People’s Army intelligence.

The decision was announced by the church a few weeks after Varna Metropolitan Kiril made public statements opposing such a move, saying that he did not believe that the church was liable to be subjected to such scrutiny.

However, the Holy Synod went ahead with a decision to provide the commission – the sole body legally authorised to announce the results of such investigations – with the names and identity numbers of church leaders from December 2006 to now. This decision was taken after the synod sought legal advice.

On December 16, it emerged that Bishop Nataniel Nevrokopski, who along with Kiril had opposed the Dossier Commission check, had written a dissenting opinion.

This dissenting opinion, posted on the internet and reported by local news agency Focus, was that the law requiring church leaders to be checked was unconstitutional.

“We believe that this is a severe violation of the independence of the church from the state,” the bishop wrote.

The investigation, which he termed a “public ritual action”, would serve only to discredit the institution of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, would “satisfy the media’s thirst for sensation for a few days”, confuse the souls of many Christians and ruin what the bishop called “the only hope and mainstay of the nation”.

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