The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is heading into Christmas 2011 caught up in a battle over being subjected to scrutiny by the commission in charge of identifying those who were involved with the communist-era State Security and intelligence services of the Bulgarian People’s Army.
 
On December 16, there was an extraordinary flip-flop on the part of the governing body, the Holy Synod, as it first announced that it had voted to agree to scrutiny by the Dossier Commission, and then a few hours later, reversed its position – deleting the initial announcement from its website.

Those opposed to the church’s senior clergy, meaning metropolitans, bishops and heads of monasteries and seminaries, being checked are portraying it as a constitutional issue, alleging that for the church leadership to undergo scrutiny would be a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.

There is also a semantic argument about whether the church is subject to scrutiny, given the wording of the December 2006 law that established the Dossier Commission. Those in the church who cite this argument say that the church is a religion, not a religious community as defined in the act.

Among those who have been most vocal in opposing examination of the records of senior clergy by the commission is Varna Metropolitan Kiril, recently caught up in another public controversy about the "luxury limousine" he had accepted on loan from a company based in the Black Sea city.

Bulgarian media said that, ahead of the church’s initial announcement that it would co-operate with the commission, those opposed to the move wanted to consult the Constitutional Court and President Georgi Purvanov. However, the first announcement reportedly was made after church leaders accepted legal advice that they should co-operate with the commission.

While top clerics such as Kiril argue that the controversy about the dossiers is part of a wider campaign to discredit the church, many see it as linked to the continuing manoeuvring about who will one day be elected to succeed Patriarch Maxim, the 97-year-old who has headed the church since 1971.

Ahead of any check by the Dossier Commission, the sole body authorised by law to identify former communist secret service employees, agents and collaborators, allegations already have been made.
 
‘Collaborators’ 
Metodi Andreev, former head of the commission, told Bulgaria’s TV7 that "more than half" the clergy in the Holy Synod had been State Security agents. According to the church’s website, the synod has 15 members, counting the Patriarch.

In the controversy, much has been heard from those opposing the check, and little or nothing from those who – going by the initial statement – voted in favour.

On December 16, when the first statement came out, Metropolitan Gavriil of Lovech said that while the constitution deemed government interference in church matters unacceptable, it was left up to the commission to decide whether it had the right to examine the dossiers to see if clerics had collaborated.

Daily Dnevnik quoted lawyers who had worked on the law on religious denominations as saying that the Synod’s claim that it was exempt from the law because it was a religion and not a religious community was "absurd".
 
Uncompromising
Speaking to Bulgarian National Radio, historian Momchil Metodiev, author of the book Between the Faith and Compromise, which examined relations between the communist regime and the church, said that he hoped that the check did not become part of the internal power struggle in the church.

"We all know that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has a problem with its communist past," he said. "This problem has not been discussed openly and there has been a lot of speculation in public. I hope that this check will put an end to that speculation."

He said that the big problem now was, before a check had been done, that it was being said that the whole church had collaborated with the communist authorities. This was not true, Metodiev said.

Whatever the objections of some in the Holy Synod, it seemed certain that sooner or later, the investigation by the Dossier Commission would proceed.

"Regardless of the strange twists in the position of the Holy Synod, we will investigate, because the law requires us to do so," the Dossier Commission’s Ekaterina Boncheva told Bulgarian National Television.

* Update: After this issue of The Sofia Echo went to press, Metropolitan Kiril said that the church would be sending details of the senior clergy to the Dossier Commission for checking.