Confused as to why Bulgaria celebrates Easter a week after Western Europe? Mystified by the Orthodox Church? Don't know your Kozonak from your Borak? Then read on. NEIL CONNOLLY explains the historical reasons behind why Western Christians celebrate Easter at a different time from the Orthodox church. POLINA SLAVCHEVA ushers you into a Palm Sunday service in a Bulgarian Orthodox Church and LUCY COOPER gives you a guide to Bulgarian Easter traditions.

Many of the foreigners living in Bulgaria comment on how different the churches appear to be, physically, from elsewhere in Europe.  Others relate how ridiculous it is that two churches (the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox) so similar in dogma and belief are separate.  In order, therefore, to better understand the differences between the Orthodox Church in Bulgaria and the churches in the West, we should look at the actual reasons for the split historically and the resulting differences theologically. 

The Great Schism, which took place officially in 1054, is the most important historical event in Europe between the fall of Rome and the fall of Constantinople.  It was the beginning of the fractiousness that would afflict the Christian Church, which would reach its apogee with the Reformation.  One should start by saying that the medieval Christian Church had a very different feel and structure to the Catholic Church today.  Originally there was a Patriarch system, as in the Orthodox Church today, with sees at Alexandria, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, Milan and Rome.  Gradually, because of historical and cultural factors, and indeed the sheer distance involved from one end of Europe to the Levant, the church began to fray.

The actual event that separated the two churches was a change made to the Creed.  The Creed, for those of you who are not Catholic or Orthodox, is the statement of the beliefs of the church and the adherents.  It begins: "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty…"  The change was the insertion by the Pope in Rome of the filioque ("and the Son") clause in the prayer.  This affected the understanding of the Holy Trinity, the central article of faith of Christians.  It read:  "We believe in the Holy Spirit… who proceeds from the Father and the Son".  This statement effectively placed the Son, Jesus, on an equal footing with God the Father, rather than stating that the Father was the origin of both the Son and the Holy Spirit.  This reflected earlier east-west tensions over the Trinity, in particular the monophysite/multiphysite differences.  Indeed, there were other schisms both before and after the Great Schism.

In truth though, the theological differences were only the touch paper that allowed the schism to blaze up. There had been other simmering differences between the two sides of the church almost since the beginning. One obvious difference stems from the position of territories within the Roman Empire.Western Europe was thoroughly romanised; it used Latin as its lingua franca and thus shared culture relatively easily between its lands.  In the east, the lingua franca was Greek, both before and after the Roman Empire.  The differences resulting from this, such as which language the mass should be said in and interpretations of texts in differing languages, proved one reason for the split. 

Perhaps though the most important reason for the split is the grimy world of politics.  The Pope was backed by the Frankish Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe and both the Emperor and the Pontiff wished to assert their superiority over the eastern half of Christendom.  The Patriarch in Constantinople (backed by the Byzantine Empire) refused to accept their dominion.  Both the Pope and the Patriarch took the title "Universal Patriarch".  A split was inevitable under the circumstances.  The Pope and the Patriarch, unable to reconcile their positions, excommunicated one another.  Both churches considered themselves to be the inheritors of the Christian tradition and both refer to themselves as "The one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church".

Following the schism, the two churches battled over influence in contested territories.  Generally there was an east/west split along a line running from Estonia through Belarus, Ukraine and the Balkans.  The one major defector was the western Ukrainian church, which joined the Roman Catholic Church but kept the eastern rite.  Attempts have been made at reconciliation between the two churches, in particular with the Second Council of Lyons in 1274.  The Greek bishops at the council said the Creed with the filioque lines.  However, on returning they were unable to persuade the Orthodox Church to accept the reunification and thus it proved ephemeral.  Similarly, the 1439 Council of Basle adopted reunification but did not last.  At the second Vatican Council in the 1960's and a ceremony in Istanbul, a statement was read out by both sides which read that they intended to seek dialogue and exchange of ideas.  In the later 20th century, John Paul II led moves towards reconciliation, as he did indeed with other major Christian sects.  He invited the Patriarch of Constantinople, Teoctist, to visit the Vatican.  He also visited several Orthodox countries, including Bulgaria, something that no other Pope had done since the Great Schism.

All this doesn't explain why Easter falls at differing times in the two churches.  The calendars first diverged with the invention of the Gregorian calendar under Pope Gregory in 1582.  The calendar was adopted by Catholic states initially, then gradually by Protestant nations (Britain adopted it in 1752).  However, Orthodox nations remained resolute in their use of the old Julian calendar.  This is why the October Revolution is so called even though it took place in November. In 1923, Greece became the last Orthodox state to adopt the Gregorian calendar.

However, the Orthodox Church refused to adopt the new calendar.  Instead they tried to co-ordinate the two calendars. A religious calendar is made up of two main elements:  the movement of the sun and the movements of the moon.  The movement of the sun was accepted by half of the national Orthodox organisations, which is why Bulgaria shares Christmas with the West, but Russia and Serbia do not.  The lunar movements were rejected by the whole Orthodox Church.  Easter, being dependant on the moon, remained later in Bulgaria than in the Catholic Church.