Roman Catholicism in Bulgaria
The Roman Catholic Church in Bulgaria is a diaspora church.
History
The Christianierung of present-day Bulgaria took place at least since the 4th century. At the Council of Nicaea, an Archbishop of Serdica (now Sofia) is attested. During the Migration Christianity has been pushed back and held only in some communities. In the 8th and 9th century was the re- Christianization, mainly from Byzantium, but also by western church missionaries such as the Fulda monk Gottschalk or Formosus of Porto. 865 could be Tsar Boris I. baptized by Byzantine missionaries. In a time of severe clashes with the Eastern church, church law issues as well as filioque controversy, Rome tried to expand its primacy on the Bulgarian Church. On the fourth Council of Constantinople in the year 870 the Opel Byzantine bishops decided in protest of the Roman delegates that the Bulgarian Church of Byzantium was assumed. Although Rome had tried repeatedly in the following centuries to expand its primacy in Bulgaria, but remained the Bulgarian Church, 976 received a patriarch, under Byzantine influence.
Of importance for the history of the Western Church was the fact that in the 12th century crusaders and merchants, came with the Bogomils, who had settled in Bulgaria in contact and their ideas brought to the West, which led to the emergence of the Cathar movement.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria was also advised politically under Byzantine rule. After numerous uprisings succeeded the Bulgarians 1185/1186 to build a new empire that his Centre in Tarnovo had. Tsar Kaloyan turned in 1202 to Pope Innocent III. with the request to crown him emperor, and to recognize the independence of the Bulgarian Church. 1203 the Pope sent his legate Leone Brancaleo with the authority to make the coronation as king and to give the Archbishop Basil of Tarnovo the title Primate of Bulgaria and Wallachia. At the same time conquered a Crusader army Byzantium and established a Latin emperor. After negotiations with the Latins had failed, Bulgaria allied itself with the Nicene exiled Emperor. This ecclesiastical union between Rome and Bulgaria lost its importance and was the recognition of the Bulgarian Patriarchate by the Greek Patriarch in 1235 on the occasion of the wedding of the Byzantine prince Theodor Laskaris and Helene, the daughter of John II of Bulgaria, fell.
1688 broke out, organized by the Bulgarian uprising of Catholics Chiprovtsi against Ottoman rule.
In the 19th century came to a union of parts of the Bulgarian Orthodoxy with Rome, as in 1861 Josif Sokolski was ordained Bishop of the Uniate Bulgarian Catholic Church.
Presence
In Bulgaria today about 65,000 Roman Catholics living in the two dioceses Sofia and Plovdiv name immediately and Nikopol, as well as 10,000 Byzantine Catholics of the Apostolic Exarchate of Sofia Bulgarian Catholic Church. These are not quite 1 % of the approximately 8 million inhabitants of the country, which mostly belong to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The Catholics who celebrate according to the Byzantine rite, subject to the Apostolic Exarchate of Sofia and are also referred to as believers of the Bulgarian Catholic Church.
Since 1991, the Holy See sent an Apostolic Nuncio to Bulgaria. Built in 2002, the Holy See, the Bulgarian Bishops' Conference, made up of both the two dioceses of the Latin Rite (Sofia and Plovdiv, Nikopol ) and the Apostolic Exarchate of Sofia.
2002 Pope John Paul II Bulgaria.