What place should religion hold in Bulgarian schools? Does religion belong as a school subject at all and should students be forced to study it? These were some of the questions raised in a series of public debates over the past two months. PETAR KOSTADINOV summarises opinions.

Until 1944, Orthodox Christianity was a compulsory school subject in Bulgaria as it was Bulgaria’s official religion. With the establishment of the communist regime in 1947, religion was banned as a school subject. Forty-five years later it was re-introduced, but the years of communism had exacted their toll. It was left to each school to decide whether it would have a class on religion. If parents showed interest in their children studying religion, the school should form a group, the law said. This “free will” of the parents meant that while, in 1997, there were 16 000 students studying religion, in 2008 this number had decreased to 14 000, according to Education Ministry data. This has led to the ministry developing its own concept on whether religion should be made a compulsory school subject as opposed to an optional one.
This concept triggered several debates involving all religious groups in multi-religious Bulgaria. It even made the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church hold a news conference, a sensation in itself. Everyone from Orthodox Christians through to Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims and atheists had an opinion about religion in Bulgarian schools. What was deemed by Education Minister Daniel Vulchev to be a mere debate on school programmes turned into a debate on whether – and in what form – religion belongs in the curriculum.

The concept
It all started on January 28 when the ministry presented its concept on introducing religion as a compulsory school subject. The concept was developed by a public council, chaired by prominent historian Georgi Bakalov. It comprised professors from Sofia University Kliment Ohridski. According to the concept, religion should be a compulsory school subject for pupils aged between seven and 13 (first to seventh grades). They should study religion at least an hour a week. For pupils aged between 14 and 19 (8th-12th grade) the subject could be an optional one, the concept said. The main reason for introducing religion as a school subject was that “it would build up students’ moral beliefs on the basis of universal human rights”. The subject’s main focus would not be religious beliefs themselves, but the human values preached by the respective religions. To this end the subject would be taught as a secular one, the concept said. Hence, students would be taught the history of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. By knowing about the the world’s religions, students would become more tolerant and educated, Bakalov said.

The Holy Synod
As expected, reaction to this concept was quick. The news conference organised by the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) took place about a week later. With half of the Holy Synod present, the church presented its view on the subject. “We are all in favour of making religion a compulsory school subject,” Gavrail, Metropolitan of Lovech, said. “However, we have our own concept about how it should be done,” he said. As opposed to Bakalov’s idea, Gavrail said the BOC did not want children to study religion as a secular subject (meaning subjects such as history and architecture of temples, etc) but religion and its beliefs. “There should be four school profiles: Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Catholicism and others,” he said. Each student was to decide which religion he or she wants to study, “and those who are atheists or follow some other belief can study something else”, Gavrail said. “They can study ethics for example.”

To show that it was not just the religious motive that had united them, the priests were supported by Desislava Poulieva, director of the St Kiril and Metodii centre for religious research and consultations. Poulieva is part of the team who had worked on the BOC concept of introducing religion as a core subject.

THE HOLY SYNOD: ‘Religion should be a compulsory
school subject with Orthodox Christianity as its
primary focus and Islam as an option.’

“Making religion a compulsory subject will not radicalise Bulgarian schools as some might fear. The more children know about religion, the more tolerant they will be. Furthermore, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has always had a tolerant attitude towards other religions. At present, children are deprived of learning all aspect of religion, which is not the case with the other school subjects,” she said. “We welcome the ministry’s idea about making religion a compulsory subject,” she emphasised, “but we disagree with its method of implementation.”

Nikolai, Metropolitan of Plovdiv, known for his outspokenness, said: “For more than 50 years there has been a dichotomy between the mother church and the people. Some elements may want to take advantage of that but one should never forget that Bulgarian schools are children of the Bulgarian church.”
For him the secular character of the Bulgarian school was insufficient to form a strong system of moral values in students. The problem for Nikolai was that Bulgarian students left school well taught but uneducated. “One should know that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church does not have a minister’s mandate. Its mandate is eternal.”

The Chief Mufti’s Office
The Muslim community’s official reaction to the ministry’s concept was, predictably, positive. For years, the Chief Mufti’s Office (CMO) had steered away from the debate, fearing negative reactions in society, especially after the rise of the ultra-nationalist Ataka party. Hence, the debate between the BOC and the ministry was a good opportunity for CMO to present its view. As it happened, it was a cautious and moderate one. “We are all in favour of both concepts,” Husein Karamolla, head of the education department at the CMO, told The Sofia Echo. “We firmly support the Holy Synod in their idea of having Orthodox Christianity and Islam as a compulsory school subject,” he said. “And we are ready to co-operate with the ministry as long as a student can study about his/her religion in the first place. We are also quite ready to provide assistance to teachers on this matter.” The CMO shared the BOC’s idea that the compulsory subject should focus on religion as a belief, not a secular subject. However, both the Holy Synod and the Chief Mufti’s Office left no doubt that they were in favour of making religion a compulsory school subject as long as Orthodox Christians and Muslims were left alone to study their own religion and beliefs. That’s why it was not a surprise that the joint front formed by BOC and CMO provoked a joint reaction from the country’s other religious groups.

THE CHIEF MUFTI’S OFFICE: ‘Religion should be a
compulsory school subject with students having the
freedom to choose which religion they want to study,’
Husein Karamolla, head of the education department
at the Chief Mufti’s Office.

The Jewish community
“The reason for bringing religion to schools should be a cultural one in the first place,” Robert Gerassi, chairman of the Central Israeli Spiritual Council, told Bulgarian National Television (BNT) on February 2. “When you know the people around you it will be more difficult for you to hate them without knowing why you hate them.” According to Gerassi, the BOC’s idea of having Orthodox Christianity and Islam as the two major subjects was inappropriate because “people tend to forget that both religions are based on Judaism in the first place”. He said that students should have had more freedom of choice in studying religion in school. “Otherwise we might end up in a situation where we will not send our children to schools. It’s very important what knowledge children derive from studying religion. They should be taught values.”

Roman Catholicism
Father Marius Polcin, from Sofia’s St Joseph cathedral, also had doubts about BOC’s and CMO’s idea. “Children should study their own religion first,” he told BNT. He did agree, however, that the subject should be a clerical one, not secular.

The parents
Parents had mixed reactions to the idea of their children studying religion at school. Some argued that it wasn’t the ministry’s job – or anyone else’s – to tell them what religion their children should study, let alone if it should be obligatory. Such was the opinion of Tsveta Brestnichka from the Parents’ Association. “Religion should not be taught as a compulsory subject in schools at all,” she told BNT on February 2. “Children do not need to study religion to find out about human values. They could learn about them from other sources. What would happen if, for example, I tell my child about where man has come from and then, the next day, the teacher tells him that we are all God’s creations? You cannot teach someone to be a moral person, but you can educate him to become one,” she said. She also questioned the need for religious education. “In this society what our children need is more help from psychologists, not priests, because children are confused by all that is happening around them. They don’t need new knowledge but to understand themselves better.”
Alexander Nikov, representing a group of parents from Sofia’s Lyulin neighbourhood, had a completely different stand. “Religion should be made a compulsory school subject, especially Orthodox Christianity. I was born under communism and did not have the chance to study about religion, neither did my children. However, what my mother has taught me about religion has turned into a guiding light of my life. I want my grandchildren to have the same light in their lives as well,” he said. With all the reactions prompted by the concept of his ministry it was unsurprising that Education Minister Daniel Vulchev decided to postpone his decision – at least for this year – on whether to introduce religion as a compulsory school subject.

How is it elsewhere?

Of all European Union members, France is probably the main country to adopt secularism as one of its main precepts. The state does not fund religious education and closely monitors private teaching establishments to ensure they neither force religious courses on students nor discriminate against students on the basis of religion. In 2004, the French government pledged itself to uphold secularism even more by banning all “conspicuous religious symbols” from schools and other public institutions with the intent of preventing proselytisation and fostering mutual tolerance among ethnic groups.

In Germany, the respective religious bodies oversee the training of mainline Protestant, Catholic and Jewish religious education teachers. In Germany, the federal state also trains Orthodox Christian teachers. The training is supposed to be conducted according to modern standards of the humanities, at mostly state-run colleges and universities. Those teachers give religious instruction in the public schools, paid by the state but answerable to the churches for the content of their teaching. However, they must not teach behaviour that is against the law. Children who don’t belong to a mainstream religion or wish to opt out for another reason must usually attend neutral classes in “Ethics” or “Philosophy” instead. From the age of 14, children are free to decide if they want to attend classes and which ones. For younger children it is the parents’ decision. The state also subsidises religious schools by paying up to 90 per cent of their expenses. These schools have to follow the same curricula as the public schools of their federal state, however.