Bulgarian Exarchate
The foundation of the Exarchate was the direct result of the actions of the most extreme Bulgarian nationalists under leadership of Dragan Tsankov, himself a Catholic, against the authority of the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople in the 1850s and 1860s.
Nevertheless, Bulgarian religious leaders continued to extend the borders of the Exarchate in the Ottoman Empire by conducting plebiscites in areas contested by both Churches.
[2] In 1762, Saint Paisius of Hilendar (1722–1773), a monk from the south-western Bulgarian town of Bansko, wrote Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya ("History of the Slav-Bulgarians"), a short historical work which was also the first ardent call for a national awakening.
A meeting of the Bulgarian leaders in Constantinople chaired by Gavril Krastevich is convened on March 13, 1870 to elect ten civil members of the Temporary church council.
The role of newly found council have been to create draft for the Exarchate's Statute, which prescribes the inner administrative order of the Bulgarian autocephalous church.
The ″liberal-democratic″ camp included Petko Slaveykov, Todor Ikonomov and Stoyan Chomakov which argued about priority of democratic and representative functions of the Exarchate.
From their point of view, civil members of the Exarchate's institutions should lead conduction of administrative functions, outside of strictly religious practices.
[8] Exarch Antim I was discharged by the Ottoman government immediately after the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) on April 24, 1877, and was sent into exile in Ankara.
Under the guidance of his successor, Joseph I, the Exarchate managed to develop and considerably extend its church and school network in the Bulgarian Principality, Eastern Rumelia, Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet.
[9] The immediate effect of the partition of the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan Wars was the anti-Bulgarian campaign in areas under Serbian and Greek rule.
[10] The Ottomans managed to keep the Adrianople region, where the whole Thracian Bulgarian population was put to total ethnic cleansing by the Young Turks' army.
[11] In 1913, Exarch Joseph I transferred his offices from Istanbul to Sofia; he died in 1915, a few months before Bulgaria fatefully opted to participate in World War I alongside the Central Powers.
[13] Until the Balkan Wars 1912/1913, the Bulgarian Exarchate disposed of a total of 23 bishoprics in Bulgaria, most of the Torlak-populated area (in 1878 partly ceded by the Ottoman Empire to Serbia) and the region of Macedonia: Vidin, Vratsa, Nish (till 1878), Lovech, Veliko Tarnovo, Rousse, Silistra, Varna, Preslav, Sliven, Stara Zagora, Pirot (till 1878), Plovdiv, Sofia, Samokov, Kyustendil, Skopje, Debar, Bitola, Ohrid, Veles, Strumitsa and Nevrokop; also it was represented by acting chairmen in charge in eight other bishoprics in the region of Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet (Lerin, Edessa, Kostur, Solun, Kukush, Syar, Odrin and Carevo).
