Traffic Jam on The Road to Recovery

by Kathryn Donev

The doctors offer you hope that your treatment is going as planned, continuously saying that you are on the road to recovery. Yet lingering in the back of your mind are doubts about the progress. If you are on the road to recovery, should you not be feeling better? In the midst of uncertainty, this query causes you to question your ability to assess your own condition and you wonder if the pain is simply imagined, and all in your head. Eventually, you come to the conclusion that indeed the pain is unbearably real. Meanwhile you begin to question why this is happening to you. So, you review your past and contemplate if you have done something to deserve such discomfort. Perhaps God is allowing you to suffer because of past actions. Then you consider whether the pain is a consequence of the sins of your father or forefathers. If this is a likely explanation, you begin to wonder how such could even be just. Justice, what is justice anyways? Is it fair to suffer for someone else’s wrongdoings? The results of your deliberations only lead to confusion that you realize will not be resolved this side of Heaven. After much pondering and searching for answers you begin to understand how pain has a way of drawing us closer to our Heavenly Creator. Discomfort causes you to long for and appreciate the promised comfort that will abide in Heaven. With this new perspective you become thankful for the traffic jam on the road to recovery. You become more hopeful of that day when there will be as the song says, “no more sorrow, no more pain” and the traffic jam will have long become a distant image in life’s rearview mirror.

Religious Freedom Report Bulgaria: International Religious Freedom Report 2005

Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, the law prohibits the public practice of religion by unregistered groups. The Constitution also designates Eastern Orthodox Christianity as the “traditional” religion.There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom during the period covered by this report. The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom; however, discrimination, harassment, and general public intolerance, particularly in the media, of some religious groups remained an intermittent problem.The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government as part of its overall policy to promote human rights.

Section I. Religious Demography
The country has an area of 42,855 square miles, and its population was approximately 7.8 million at the end of 2003, according to the National Statistical Institute. The majority of citizens, estimated at approximately 85 percent, are at least nominally Orthodox Christians. Muslims make up the largest minority, estimated at approximately 13 percent, while the remainder includes Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Gregorian-Armenian Christians, and others. Among the ethnic-Turkish and Roma minorities, Islam is the predominant religion. While not officially enumerated, academic research estimates up to 40 percent of the population are atheist or agnostic. Official registration of religious organizations is handled by the Sofia City Court; it reported that 61 denominations in addition to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) were registered at the end of January 2005, a 36 percent increase over the previous reporting period.

Some religious minorities are concentrated geographically. The Rhodope Mountains (along the country’s southern border with Greece) are home to many Muslims, including ethnic Turks, Roma, and “Pomaks” (descendents of Slavic Bulgarians who converted to Islam centuries ago under Ottoman rule). Ethnic-Turkish and Roma Muslims also live in large numbers in the northeast of the country, primarily in and around the cities of Shumen and Razgrad, as well as along the Black Sea coast. More than half of the country’s Roman Catholics are located in the region around Plovdiv. Many members of the country’s small Jewish community live in Sofia, Rousse, and along the Black Sea coast. Protestants are dispersed more widely throughout the country. While clear statistics are not available, evangelical Protestant groups have had particular success in attracting numerous converts from among the Roma minority, and areas with large Roma populations tend also to have some of the highest percentages of Protestants.

Although no exact data are available on active participation in formal religious services or rituals, most observers agree that evangelical Protestants tend to participate in religious services more frequently than other religious groups. Members of the country’s Roman Catholic community also are regarded as more likely than members of other faiths to attend religious services regularly.Foreign missionaries from several denominations, including, for example, Protestant churches, the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, are present in the country.

Section II. Status of Religious Freedom

Legal/Policy Framework
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; however, the law prohibits the public practice of religion by unregistered groups. The Constitution designates Eastern Orthodox Christianity, represented by the BOC, as the “traditional” religion; some minority religious communities are perceived as holding historic places in society, such as the Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish religions.The 2002 Denominations Act allows only legally registered denominations to perform public activities outside their places of worship. The 2002 law transferred responsibility for registering religious groups to the Sofia City Court, which is responsible for maintaining the national register of religious denominations and political parties. The Council of Ministers’ Religious Confessions Directorate, which used to be responsible for registering religious groups, provides “expert opinion” on registration matters upon request by the court; however, its overall role remains ambiguous, particularly as regards its administrative oversight and sanctioning functions. All applicants have the right to appeal negative registration decisions to the Court of Appeals. Different denominations acknowledged a general improvement in the registration process since the court took over this responsibility in 2003; however, the International Christian Church complained that its registration took more than a year before it was successfully registered in2004. Some local branches of nationally-registered denominations experienced problems with local authorities who insisted that the branches be registered locally; however, the 2002 Confessions Act does not have any requirement for local formal registration of denominations.

Representatives of some evangelical Protestant churches reported encountering problems in obtaining permission from local authorities, including the Dobrich and General Toshev municipalities, for public evangelization and proselytization. A Council of Europe review of the 2002 Denominations Act, prepared in early 2003, highlighted that the provisions dealing with the process of registration specify neither the criteria establishing the basis on which the Court should grant registration nor the grounds on which such registration can be withheld. The act also fails to specify the consequences of failure to register as a religious community or outlines any recourse if a competent court refuses to grant registration.
In October 2004, the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights reviewed draft proposals for amending the 2002 Denominations Act. The changes were introduced by two center-right opposition parties to address the Council of Europe’s criticisms of the law, including the law’s recognition of the BOC exempting it from the requirement of legal registration. The amendments also envisaged special tax exemptions for all religious groups. However, the majority of the Committee’s members effectively ignored the Council of Europe’s recommendations by rejecting the proposed amendments.

On May 11, 2005, a Sofia City Court judge issued five separate rulings in an attempt to resolve the 18-month-old leadership dispute within the Muslim community. The most important ruling was the decision to officially register Mustafa Alish Hadji as the new Chief Mufti. The dispute broke out as a result of the 2003 election of two different chief muftis by bodies which both claimed to represent the Muslim community. One of the 2003 conferences elected Fikri Sali as the new chief mufti to replace Selim Mehmed; Sali formerly held the position from 1992-94. The other conference was convened by another former chief mufti, Nedim Gendzhev, and selected Ali Hadji Saduk to replace Mehmed. Both conferences submitted documentation to the Sofia City Court listing their respective candidates as the new chief mufti. A registration controversy ensued, leaving no legally recognized successor to Mehmed.On March 8, 2004, two Sofia City Court rulings annulled the Muslim denomination’s 1997 and 2000 conferences, thereby invalidating the leadership selected by each of the conferences. On July 19, 2004, the Sofia City Court appointed Fikri Sali, Ridvan Kadiov, and Osman Osmailov as interim representatives of the Muslim community pending the settlement of some civil court cases related to the leadership dispute. On November 5, 2004, the Sofia Appellate Court overruled the appointment of the triumvirate, stating that the Muslim community’s leadership could be appointed only on its own initiative and not by the Sofia City Court. In January 2005, the Supreme Court of Cassation upheld the ruling; the Supreme Court’s ruling combined with the March ruling of the Sofia City Court effectively restored the pre-1997 Supreme Islamic Council, headed by Nedim Gendzhev, as the legal representative of the Muslims in the country.

However, following the Supreme Court’s January 2005 ruling, the Supreme Cassation Prosecution confiscated the case files, which prevented the files from being transferred to the Sofia City Court and thereby delayed Gendzhev’s registration of the new leadership. In May 2005, the Prosecution turned the case files over to the Sofia City Court for 24 hours, allowing the Sofia City Court to pass the five rulings affecting the leadership dispute. Gendzhev immediately appealed the registration of Mustafa Alish Hadji, and the appeal was pending the Prosecution’s release of the case files.

On November 5, the Pazarjik District Court passed a 3-year suspended sentence on Ahmed Ahmed Musa for preaching radical Islam and instigating societal hatred along religious lines. He was also fined for disgracing the national flag. During the trial, Musa made a full confession and pleaded guilty to the charges brought against him. Five doctors confirmed that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and as such was extremely susceptible to outside influence. Musa chose not to appeal the sentence.

The 2002 Confessions Act designates the Metropolitan of Sofia, currently Patriarch Maxim, as the Patriarch of the BOC. The law prohibits any group or person who has broken off from a registered religious group from using the same name or claiming any properties belonging to that group.After a period of virtual obscurity, the BOC’s 12-year schism recaptured attention when prosecutors and police intervened, taking the side of Patriarch Maxim and his Holy Synod. In a nationwide operation on the night of July 20-21, 2004, priests from the Alternative Synod, which opposed Patriarch Maxim’s leadership, were forcibly evicted from approximately 250 churches and other properties, which the Holy Synod claimed they were illegally occupying. The operation resulted in several clerics being temporarily detained and police closing and securing the properties before returning them to the Holy Synod, which subsequently reopened them. Some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) reported police beatings of clergy and lay people.

In the immediate aftermath of the operation, clerics from the Alternative Synod held religious services outside of the churches from which they had been evicted, and core supporters of the Alternative Synod continued to operate a make-shift church in the center of Sofia. A number of the synod’s supporters also staged protests against what they viewed as illegal state intervention in an internal church dispute. However, by the time Patriarch Maxim celebrated his ninetieth birthday in October 2004, most of the activities of the Alternative Synod had ceased, and the schism was declared over.

For most registered religious groups, there were no restrictions on attendance at religious services or on private religious instruction. Two BOC seminaries, a Jewish school, three Islamic schools, the university-level Islamic Higher Institute, a Muslim cultural center, a multi-denominational Protestant seminary, and university theological faculties operated freely. Bibles, Qur’ans, and other religious materials in the Bulgarian language were imported or printed freely, and religious publications were produced regularly.

An optional religious education course was first introduced in state-run schools in 1997. The curriculum, developed by the Ministry of Education’s Commission on Religion, initially focused on Christianity but was expanded in 1999 to cover Islam, as well. The course, taught in Bulgarian, examines the historical, philosophical, and cultural aspects of religion and introduces students to the moral values of different confessions. All officially registered religious confessions can request that their religious beliefs are included in the course’s curriculum. According to the Ministry of Education, the course was offered to 13,209 primary and secondary school students in 199 schools during the 2004-05 academic year. While the Ministry provides the course material for free to students, the existing 166 religious education teachers are funded directly from municipal budgets. The Chief Mufti’s office also supports summer Qur’anic education courses.

Restrictions on Religious Freedom
The law requires religious groups wishing to operate and be recognized as legal entities, as well as those wanting to engage in public activities outside of their places of worship, to formally register with the Sofia City Court; however, official registrations of religious denominations has continued to increase, from 36 in 2003 to 45.While the state of religious freedom has improved for some nontraditional groups, some groups continued to face limited discrimination and antipathy from some local authorities, despite successfully registering through the Sofia City Court. Article 21 of the 2002 Confessions Act states that nationally registered religions may have local branches according to their statute; however, the law does not require formal local registration of denominations, although some municipalities have claimed that it does.In January 2005, despite previous hostility in Burgas toward non-traditional groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the confession’s local branch was listed in the mayor’s list of local religious groups. Also in January 2005, the Jehovah’s Witnesses completed construction of a new place of worship in Burgas; however, the denomination reported that the building had been subjected to acts of vandalism and hooliganism.Although some municipalities, such as Rousse, Shumen, Pleven, Stara Zagora, Plovdiv, Blagoevgrad, and Kurdjali, still had local ordinances that curtailed religious practices and had not been changed to conform to the 2002 Confessions Act, it did not appear that these ordinances were strictly enforced. In March 2005, the Burgas Municipal Council adopted a new ordinance repealing previous limitations on the right of non-traditional religious groups to publicly practice their beliefs.A number of religious groups recognized that foreign missionaries and religious leaders experienced difficulties in obtaining and renewing residence visas in the country because the Law on Foreign Persons has no visa category that explicitly applies to missionaries or religious workers. The Jehovah’s Witnesses reported that the Government twice refused residence visas to two missionaries from Germany, even though the denomination had received approval for their activities and stay in the country from the Religious Confessions Directorate. Some missionaries have resorted to staying in the country as “tourists,” forcing them to limit the length of their visits to no more than 30 days every 6 months.There were no indications that the Government discriminated against members of any religious group in making restitution to previous owners of properties that were nationalized during the Communist period. However, the BOC, the Catholic Church, the Muslim community, the Jewish community, and several Protestant denominations all claimed that a number of their properties confiscated under the Communist government were not returned. For example, the Catholic Church reported that only 60 percent of its confiscated properties had been restituted; in addition to its many outstanding restitution claims, the Jewish community was still involved in a long legal battle over a high-value property in central Sofia. A central problem facing claimants is the need to demonstrate that the organization seeking restitution is the organization–or the legitimate successor of the organization–that owned the property prior to 1944. This is difficult because Communist hostility to religion led some groups to hide assets or ownership, and because documents have been destroyed or lost over the years.In 2002, Stefan Kamberov, a 66-year-old priest associated with the Alternative Synod, was killed near the St. Panteleimon Monastery near Dobrinshte. The investigation exceeded the statutory limitations by a year, after which two suspects were arrested and released on bail of approximately $1,330 each. The case was scheduled to be heard by the Blagoevgrad District Court in July 2005.The Constitution prohibits the formation of political parties along religious lines.There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees.Forced Religious Conversion The Constitution prohibits forced religious conversion. There were no reports of forced religious conversion, including of minor U.S. citizens who had been abducted or illegally removed from the United States, or of the refusal to allow such citizens to be returned to the United States.

Abuses by Terrorist Organizations
There were no reported abuses targeted at specific religions by terrorist organizations during the period covered by this report.

Improvements in Respect for Religious Freedom
Despite initial fears that the 2002 Confessions Act would hamper religious organizations’ ability to operate freely, 31 new religious groups have registered with the Sofia City Court since 2003.

Section III. Societal Attitudes
The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom; however, discrimination, harassment, and general public intolerance, particularly in the media, of some religious groups remained an intermittent problem. While human rights groups reported that societal discrimination against nontraditional religious groups has continued to gradually lessen in recent years, it was not uncommon for the media to disseminate negative and derogatory stories about nontraditional denominations. For example, the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses both reported numerous print and broadcast media stories with negative, derogatory, and sometimes slanderous information about their activities and beliefs.

Section IV. U.S. Government Policy
The U.S. Government discusses religious freedom issues with the Government as part of its overall policy to promote human rights. The U.S. Embassy regularly monitors religious freedom in ongoing contacts with government officials, Members of Parliament (MPs), clergy and lay leaders of religious communities, and NGOs. Embassy officers met with Orthodox leaders and clergy, senior Muslim leaders, religious and lay leaders of the Jewish community, senior Catholic leaders, and leaders of numerous Protestant and non-traditional denominations. During the period covered by this report, the Embassy remained closely engaged with government officials, MPs, religious organizations, and NGOs concerning the 2002 Confessions Act, government interference in the BOC schism, and reports of discrimination against religious organizations; with various religious groups and government entities regarding the restitution of properties; and with Muslim leaders regarding Islamic extremism and the Muslim leadership dispute.

Released on November 8, 2005

Cultural Diversities

by Kathryn Donev

Upon arriving in a foreign country there are many things to which one will have to adjust. The first and most obvious is the language barrier. Yet, there are many other nonverbal forms of communication as well as common customs associated with everyday living that may seem peculiar when first encountered. The shock for some may be great, but take comfort in the existence of many universal elements that transcend cultures. In many ways, people are very much the same in the midst of their differences. It is possible for such divergences to be overcome one at a time, one day at a time. The following are some of the observations that I, from an American perspective, have experienced during my first ten days of being back in Bulgaria.

1. Even though automobile speedometers appear in kilometers, you should get worried when it surpasses 200.
2. When heading to a specific location you may end up stopping at up to five others before arriving at your final destination. So be prepared to enjoy the journey.
3. It is customary to let a woman with a child cut you in line.
4. Be advised that just because there is a pedestrian crosswalk you should not expect cars to stop for you when entering or much less to slow down if you are already in the crosswalk.
5. The person that is speaking that “funny” language and who is labeled “the foreigner” is now you.
6. You will no longer get ice in your beverage without asking and asking for ice is a sure give-away of your nationality.
7. If you do not manually open the door to the elevator once reaching your designated floor, it will start going back down. The doors are not automatic.
8. When visiting a restaurant, if ketchup is not already present on your table this is a good hint that you will likely have to pay for it.
9. When a cab driver says he will take a “short cut” you probably will end up paying a bit more than if you were to go the “long way.”
10. Energy usage charges vary according to the time of day. Therefore night energy is cheaper than energy used during peak daytime hours.
11. When the expiration date on your food appears as 02/08/05 and it is already July, don’t worry; dates are written with the day first and the month second.
12. Don’t get too excited when the price for diesel reads: 1.67. The price is per liter and if you multiple this number by about 4 you will get the price per gallon. Ouch!
13. When asking for an item at the market and the salesperson nods left to right, don’t leave. They do have what you are asking for. Bulgarians nod opposite than Americans.
14. If the price on a pack of batteries is marked one lev, you should not get carried away and stock up, the price is per battery.
15. When speaking in the native language, people will laugh, but not to worry they are simply surprised and delighted that you have done so.

To Be Continued …

When Two Cultures Collide

By Kathryn Donev

In general it is believed that when any two individuals come together, in the midst there will be some sort of tension. The coming together or collision consequences in tension that is the result of differing opinions and viewpoints. One major origin of such strain or confusion is due to misinterpretation. What is said is viewed erroneously and internalized or personalized in error. Furthermore, when this phenomenon occurs with two individuals from differing cultures, there is greater opportunity for misapprehension. It has been said that whatever is perceived by an individual is the true reality for that particular person. Meaning, how ever one views an event, even if falsely done, is what actually took place in that individual’s personalized world. It is such concept that must be taken to heart in order to genuinely be culturally sensitive. When two cultures collide there must be open-mindedness and understanding of another’s world view. Yet, the straightforward part is to understand this concept and the difficult part is to place such concept into actuality.

Haunted by Totalitarianism

By Viktor Kostov

Eleven years ago, it seemed that the beast of communism, which had set its face against the church of Jesus Christ, was dead in Eastern Europe. I remember the 200,000 Bulgarians with raised hands and open souls standing in Sofia’s downtown square in 1991. They gathered not to march in honor of the ruling party but to hear an overseas evangelist preach Christ and heal the sick. I was in the crowd, a graduating law student, a former anticommunist revolutionary, and a new Christian. I drank from the invigorating hope and joy that had descended from heaven on that warm summer night. A nation haunted by darkness for years was about to receive a new heart. But things did not go quite the way I hoped.

The beast of communism may have been mortally wounded, but it was not dead. In 1992 came significant reversals regarding religious liberty—the first sign that freedom had not fully arrived. Two years after the collapse of the regime, former communists emerged as socialist capitalists. Their former connections afforded them control of the economy and, with it, the most influential newspapers.

Reading the newspapers became torturous. I fumed at the sensationalistic articles, written like communist propaganda, and aimed at the new wave of American missionaries: Baptists were eating children; American missionaries were feeding drugs to youth in church meetings; Protestant pastors were signing up members of their congregations for ritual suicide ceremonies.

Such outrageous claims fed society’s skepticism toward evangelical churches. American evangelicals have worked among Bulgarians since the mid-19th century, but the memory of these missionary contributions was lost during the reign of the Communist Party. Exploiting a historical perception that Eastern Orthodoxy was key to the Bulgarian national identity, the new socialist capitalists used anti-evangelical rhetoric to stir up passions. Unfortunately, many Orthodox voices joined hard-core atheists in decrying “Western sects.” Bulgarians seemed to want a mix of Soviet spirituality and American prosperity.

Religious Police
I took this attitude personally. I had become a Christian thanks to the witness of American evangelical missionaries. The long history of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, or its contribution to the national spirit, meant little to me—she never cared enough for my soul to let me know about salvation in Christ. I found liberty because of people who left their country, came to Bulgaria, and answered the questions that had tormented me for years. I heard the clearly articulated gospel for the first time in English. My first Bible was also in English: an NIV New Testament.

While defending the legal rights of U.S. missionaries and Bulgarian Christians, I gladly vented my frustration at the injustice done to my fellow evangelicals. I took some high-profile cases that other lawyers had dropped. I filed lawsuits on behalf of slandered and harassed evangelicals—against police departments, newspapers, individuals, and organizations. I delighted in the astonishment of police officials, used to bossing citizens around, at the subpoenas I served them. But most of the time, that was all the reward I got for seeking justice for evangelicals in the courts. I lost 90 percent of the cases.

It soon became obvious that even the Parliament would defy the constitutional freedom of conscience and faith. A law passed in 1994 indirectly required government approval for the registration of Protestant churches.

In 1995 someone broke into my office and stole my computer with the records of my court cases. I was growing tired of meeting with “religious police” operatives who, using only code names, tried to persuade me to rat on my pastor-clients. I realized I needed a break. I wondered if I should again do “purely spiritual” work (I had been in church-planting teams since my conversion) or remain engaged in the battle for religious freedom. But going to court or pointing officials to the constitution made no difference. I felt like Moses, working in the flesh to liberate God’s people. After hearing that I was being “surveyed” by the police in Sofia, my American wife and I decided it was time to get out for a while. At the end of 1995, we left for the United States, where I ended up graduating from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Now I’m back in Bulgaria, where the freedom for evangelicals to conduct services and outreach is still limited. Last year the Parliament almost adopted a law that was “most probably. … the worst in all Eastern Europe,” according to an October 2000 press release of Tolerance Foundation, a Bulgarian human-rights group. Critics called the measure more restrictive than the law of 1949, which was used by the communist regime to end religious freedom in the nation. For example, the proposed law stipulated that people could not use their homes for religious meetings, and it imposed enormous fines for preaching without registering with the state. In other words, no expression of faith was allowed under this project unless the state had approved it. The restrictive draft was tabled only after the pro-Western government heard protests from human-rights groups, church leaders, and even U.S. politicians.

But hearts and minds, not laws, need to change. “The constitution provides freedom of religion; however, the government restricts this right in practice for some non-Orthodox religious groups,” says the 2000 Annual Report on Religious Freedom in Bulgaria prepared by the U.S. State Department. “This restriction is manifested primarily in a registration process that is selective, slow, and nontransparent.” The mentality is this: If a congregation is not registered, then the state hasn’t recognized it, which makes it an illegal sect. A process that should be just a formality ends up giving the government power to approve or disapprove of religious beliefs.

The Wind of Change
The dominant sentiment is that evangelicals had the most freedom under the government of the Union of Democratic Forces. (In 1997 the same union vetoed the embarrassing anti-religion bill and convinced Parliament to approve the status of the first evangelical seminary in the country since 1948.) This first post-communist coalition of democratic anti-Communist parties lost in this summer’s election to the party of the Bulgarian King Simeon II (a.k.a. Simeon Saxcoburggotski), who is now the prime minister.

But political trends are decided by political forces. Moral trends and worldviews, which fuel political forces, are decided by the spiritual climate. In the last several years, I have become convinced that the problem of liberty in Eastern Europe originates in the church. It’s not that evangelicals should be held responsible for a culture that has bred oppression for years—but not standing up to such a culture, and letting it shape the behavior of the church herself, allows oppression to thrive in Bulgaria and other Eastern European nations.

When the Iron Curtain fell and the gospel flooded the nations of the Eastern bloc, alongside the good news came its counterfeits. One of them was the prosperity gospel. Its message found a fertile soil among young, charismatic congregations. I was embarrassed for Bulgarian pastors as they imitated their favorite U.S. prosperity preachers, sometimes even speaking with a slight American accent. Many Bulgarian Christians, tired of the years of marginalization and poverty, allowed the health-and-wealth doctrine to seduce them.

Neediness, Control, and Fear
It was not just the Western prosperity preachers’ fault. Evangelicals in Bulgaria were accustomed to seeking foreign help—an understandable reflex after years of being second-class citizens in their own country. The church did not err in accepting help from American Christians; but the neediness of many Bulgarian evangelicals had distorted their view of American wealth. A leader of a Christian training school in Sofia once told me that his school was reluctant to hire Bulgarian theologians and teachers because they had to be paid. If American teachers were invited to teach, they paid their own way, did not receive any salary, and even brought gifts to the school. This conversation made me realize how difficult it is to break loose from the ruts of poverty.

Bulgarian evangelical Christians are a brutalized people. Stuck in a wounded culture, church leaders tend to multiply hurt and deny liberty, as if they took lessons from communist leaders. Their harsh authoritarianism cripples Christian witness and repels young and educated Christians.

Milena Michailova, a manager of a Christian bookstore in Sofia, had trouble finding a home church. The leaders of various congregations were threatened by this avid reader who asked questions. “The pastors I know don’t allow anyone or anything to challenge their authority,” she told me. “They treat people as if they don’t understand anything, and with an attitude of being irreplaceable.”

When traveling with her mobile bookstore, a bus loaded with Christian titles, she finds a lot of rivalry among local pastors. “They also seem to be threatened by [Christian booksellers], and we just want to sell literature that will help the believers,” she says.

Bulgarian evangelicals’ church leadership style—a mix of control and fear—reveals the need for spiritual mentoring that would liberate leaders from their insecurities. My brother, Yavor Kostov, pastor of four small congregations in the poorest, northwestern area of the country, thinks dictatorial church leadership inhibits church growth. “Pastors don’t lead people to Jesus but to themselves,” he says. “This means that no gifts, talents, or freedom can blossom in the church.” His primary church started after a dispute regarding leadership style.

It is hard for many new-generation believers to join churches that use methodologies reminiscent of the Communist Party. When Milena Eneva was considering attending a U.S. Bible college, her pastor bluntly told her that this was not God’s will and that she would lose the presence of the Holy Spirit in her life—not exactly the blessing she wanted. She is now a graduate of a U.S. Nazarene college.

Totalitarian harshness among evangelicals is not only a Bulgarian phenomenon. Many evangelical churches in other post-communist countries (such as Ukraine, Romania, and Poland) practice a legalism that defeats the Christian message. A missionary to Eastern Europe told me he once took a nonbelieving relative to a Ukrainian Pentecostal church. The church members looked at her makeup and fancy clothes with such obvious disapproval that she vowed never to return to church again.

Why would anyone, beat up by a hard life to begin with, want to come to church to be subject to the will and strife of insecure individuals? Didn’t Jesus say, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”?

Zeal, Vision
By now you may be asking, “Is there anything right with the post-communist church?” The zeal with which Eastern European believers kept the message during the communist era is an example of the church’s strength. Persecuted pastors put in hours of work, with minimal or no pay, and traveled miles to care for their brothers and sisters. Evangelicals were harassed, fired, detained, and interrogated for owning Bibles or just talking about their faith.

Haralan Popov spent 13 years in concentration camps, accused of spying for the United States and England. He was not a spy, but a pastor of the largest Pentecostal church in Bulgaria, when the communists took over in the 1940s. He not only did not renounce his faith amid torture, but he also shared the gospel and the love of Christ with his fellow prisoners. In 1972 he founded Door of Hope International, a U.S. mission agency that spread the news of the persecuted church in the West and helped underground churches behind the Iron Curtain. This past is the great spiritual inheritance of Eastern European Christians, one empowered by the freedom found only in Christ and displayed in the Book of Acts.

A new generation with a vision for change is emerging, too. Here are some of its leaders:

[] Michailova leads a missionary campaign with her bus, selling Christian books.
[] A missionary friend told me of a humble Bulgarian couple who minister to Bulgarian
[] Turks in southern Bulgaria, with the vision of raising missionaries to go to Turkey.
[] My brother’s primary church reaches out to institutionalized orphans, and his church’s rock band seeks to win young people’s souls.

All these hope-filled glimpses show that true freedom for a servant and visionary church is not that far away.

My wife and I have returned to Bulgaria as missionaries with Door of Hope to pursue “the Bulgarian dream,” as I often joke. But the dream is not a joke. The vision from that summer night of 1991—for a whole nation, a bride of darkness and hopelessness for decades, to find a better way, a way to truth, forgiveness, and liberty in Jesus Christ—is still very much alive in me. I think the same dream made the apostles follow Christ against all odds. It made the apostle Paul travel restlessly, building up churches. And it made missionaries go to foreign nations, reminding us over and over again that “for freedom Christ has set us free.”

Postcommunist Protestant Revival in Bulgaria

For those of us who lived through the last days of Communist Bulgaria, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a modern-day miracle. On 10 November 1989, the day after the border between East and West Berlin opened, Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria’s Communist leader of over 30 years, resigned. That same year, with the church no longer suppressed, evangelistic meetings began in many Bulgarian towns and villages. Despite pressure and constant media attacks, the Protestant movement grew rapidly. In the first five years of democracy, several Pentecostal churches in Bulgaria exceeded a membership of 1,000. Many Muslim and Roma communities were reached with the gospel. The Mission for Christian Upbringing alone reported ministering to over one million people across Bulgaria. In 2001, the Bulgarian Church of God counted 32,000 members with 250 ministers in some 400 congregations nationwide. In 2003, the Bulgarian Assemblies of God reported over 50,000 members with 150 national pastors in 550 churches, plus a Bible school with 173 students. Thus, the Protestant movement, which numbered approximately 13,000 members in 1975, grew to 55,000 in the 1980s, and to over 100,000 members by 2000, in a nation of eight million.

Dr. Stephen Penov, a professor at Sofia University and a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Science, serves as a parliamentary expert on human rights and faith confessions. In a recent interview he estimated that church membership in traditional Protestant churches in Bulgaria is over 60,000, while new Protestant denominations have a membership of approximately 50,000. Bulgaria is also home to approximately 70,000 Catholics, in contrast to the majority Eastern Orthodox who number 6,000,000.

The Confessions Act of 2002
In 2001-02, the Bulgarian Parliament considered three drafts of legislation to replace the Communist Law of Religion, which had been the single guideline for church–state relations since 1949. Attorney Borislav Tzekov, from the Novoto Vreme political movement, crafted the bill that received the most attention. In an interview for Sega newspaper, he defended his draft, declaring that it was only opposed by “approximately 50 people protesting in front of the Parliament and by a small group that was liberally financed by sects most hostile to Orthodoxy.”

On 12 December 2002, the Center for Religious Freedom in Bulgaria submitted a detailed analysis of the proposed legal modifications to the Bulgarian Parliament. The reaction of the Center represented the opinion of Bulgarian Evangelicals, the Bulgarian Orthodox Alternative Synod, and a number of other denominations and religious groups, supported by a membership which greatly exceeded the number quoted by Tzekov. In the analysis, Center Director Viktor Kostov indicated that the Tzekov bill “voided the right to freedom of religion, introduced religion-based discrimination, neglected the recommendations of Council of Europe experts, and proposed a discriminatory registration system.”

On 18 December 2002, 18 religious and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) submitted a petition to the president of Bulgaria insisting on “an emergency meeting, where we can express our critique, reservations, and recommendations, and request that you exercise your right of veto over the submitted draft, as we are convinced that the draft must be submitted to the Council of Europe for further analysis.” Such meeting never took place and on 20 December 2002, the Bulgarian Parliament passed the Tzekov bill. Regardless of all warnings, the law followed the lead of the 1997 Russian Law on Religion, declaring Orthodox Christianity to be Bulgaria’s “traditional religion.” The newly accepted law had been prepared, presented, and implemented in cooperation with the Bulgarian Directorate of Religious Affairs. In the words of its director, Dr. Ivan Zhelev, “the main goal was to defend the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and convince heretics to return to it.”

Religious Freedom and Human Rights Concerns, 2003-04
The 2002 Confessions Act designates the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as a traditional religious confession. The special privileges granted to this church establishes religious inequalities that contradict the Constitution of Bulgaria, Article Nine of the European Convention, as well as other international agreements. The Act does not address the religious needs of minority ethnic groups. All denominations, with the exception of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, must register with the Sofia Municipal Court, but the legislation does not specify the requirements for granting registration. Also, the law does not make provision for appeals in cases where the court fails to, or refuses to, register a religious group. This gives the court undefined control over the existence of religious confessions. The role of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in the registration process is mentioned, but not clearly defined. Furthermore, registration is granted only to organizations with a recognized, centralized structure, which is against the traditions and bylaws of many of the confessions in Bulgaria and creates new problems on the local level.

The very fact that the law purposes to solve the schism within the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is based on the presumption that the church is not able to solve its own problems, and therefore, requires the assistance of the state. Public worship is prohibited without denominational registration. Also, no provisions are made for foreign missionaries, chaplains, or pastoral care in the army, prisons, hospitals, and elder care facilities. Regrettably, the Confessions Act fosters an atmosphere conducive to discrimination and harassment against “non-traditional” religious minorities. It neither defines procedures (delays, appeals, nature and role of the Directorate of Religions), nor substantive criteria for registration. It also fails to recognize freedom of conscience explicitly, as well as the right not to believe, and does not clarify the rights of believers within unregistered religious communities.

The Council of Europe insisted that the arguments in Article Seven for “national security” and “political goals” should be excluded from the text. It also regards the existence of a state church and the recognition of its “special role in the life of the state” as incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights. In addition, religious freedom and human rights advocates warned that attempts of the state to establish a totalitarian order in the church after 15 years of democratic transition were unacceptable tendencies that could fuel conflicts among denominations, the government, and NGOs. Unfortunately, the government ignored these warnings.

The Church in the Hands of an Angry State
On 21 July 2004, on orders of Bulgaria’s Chief Prosecutor, police stormed 250 churches affiliated with the Alternative Synod and detained its clergy. The purpose was to restore control of these sanctuaries to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church that enjoyed state recognition. Father Pissarov, priest at the Dormition of the Mother of God Orthodox Church in Sofia, locked the doors of his sanctuary to prevent police from entering. A special force’s team first scattered citizens who were protesting around the church and then pulled open the doors with the use of a vehicle. Although the priest was unarmed and did not resist arrest, five policemen held him on the ground directly under the crucifix while others kicked him in the face with their army boots. Father Pissarov was hospitalized with a serious concussion, broken teeth, and torso injuries.

The conflict followed a decade of schism within the Bulgarian Orthodox Church between the traditional Orthodox confession headed by Patriarch Maxim and an Alternative Synod headed by Metropolitan Pimen, who has accused the patriarch of having served the former Communist regime since his appointment in 1971. “This is not the way the unity of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church should be restored,” commented former president of Bulgaria Petar Stoyanov. Two Bulgarian ex-prime ministers, Phillip Dmitrov (1991-92) and Ivan Kostov (1997-2001), also stated that the actions of the state were in violation of basic human rights and religious freedoms. Kostov criticized the Confessions Act of 2002 for providing justification for such police action and called for its immediate revision.

Outside Bulgaria, United States Helsinki Commission Chairman, Representative Christopher Smith, charged that “Bulgarian authorities have abandoned neutrality and chosen sides, potentially endangering religious freedom.” He urged the Bulgarian government to “end this embarrassment, lead by example, and honor its OSCE human rights commitment toward religious freedom.” Luchezar Toshev, Director of the Confessions Commission, explained that the Confessions Act was not intended to solve the schism within the Orthodox Church and charged that the use of police in church business was incompatible with any style of European democracy.

In Summary
Unfortunately, the 2002 Confessions Act does not foster an atmosphere of religious freedom, pluralism, and tolerance. The question is: will Bulgaria be accepted into the European Union if the Confessions Act is not significantly amended? Its supporters argue that establishing a state religion has its precedents in Europe in both Catholic and Protestant states. However, none of the West European states passed through half a century of Communism where the role and function of the church were strictly regulated by the government. As a result, the church today has failed to recover and reclaim its biblical identity and is becoming simply a state institution with a predetermined interest in a strictly regulated sphere of social life. The government cannot and should not allow tradition to dictate special privileges for any denomination.

The struggles concerning the Bulgarian Confessions Act are not over. On 18 October 2004, after the unfortunate police actions of the previous July, opposition Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria presented Parliament with recommendations for changes in the law on religion. Less than a week later, perhaps in response, the government announced the formation of a new confessions commission, consisting of representatives from various government departments. This body strongly resembles the Kremlin’s Interreligious Council but, unfortunately, Bulgaria’s commission is not inclusive of all religious denominations. During the time of the development of this article, neither one of these motions had been finalized.

The time has come for the Bulgarian Church to rediscover its identity by revisiting its biblical theology. Common theological presuppositions presented within the faith of all Bulgarian Christians support religious tolerance. What is needed is a healthy environment for interdenominational partnership. The first step towards such a goal may have been a meeting of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant believers that occurred on 23 October 2004. In a roundtable discussion, Christians from various confessions explored the theme of the “Universal Character of the Christian Church.” Those present favored freedom of worship according to one’s religious convictions and freedom from fear.

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