US STATE DEPARTMENT: BULGARIA INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT 2008
Sofia News Agency
23 September 2008, Tuesday
Bulgaria
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion; it prohibits
religious discrimination but designates Eastern Orthodox Christianity
as the "traditional" religion. Laws executing these provisions are
ambiguous, giving scope to arbitrary decisions with respect to public
practice of religion by unregistered groups.
The Government generally respected religious freedom in practice. There
was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by
the central Government during the period covered by this report,
but there were increased reports of intolerance from local authorities.
There were some reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on
religious affiliation, belief, or practice. 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 a population of
7.6 million. The majority of the population, estimated at 85 percent,
identifies itself as Orthodox Christian. Muslims comprise the largest
minority, estimated at 13 percent; other minorities include Catholics,
Protestants, Jews, Gregorian-Armenian Christians, and others. Among the
ethnic Turkish minority, Islam is the predominant religion. Official
registration of religious organizations is handled by the Sofia City
Court which as of February 2008 has registered 96 religious groups
in addition to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC), compared to 85
in February 2007.
Some religious minorities were concentrated geographically. The
Rhodope Mountains (along the country’s southern border with Greece)
are home to many Muslims, including ethnic Turks, Roma, and "Pomaks"
(descendants of Slavic Bulgarians who converted to Islam 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. Evangelical Protestant
groups have had success in attracting converts from among the Roma
minority, and areas with large Roma populations tend also to have
some of the highest percentages of Protestants.
According to a 2005 report of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,
only 50 percent of the six million persons who identify themselves
as Orthodox Christians participate in formal religious services. The
same survey found that 90 percent of the country’s estimated 70,000
Catholics regularly engage in public worship. Approximately 30
percent of Catholics belong to the Byzantine Rite Catholic Church. The
majority of Muslims, estimated to number 750,000, are Sunni; 50,000
are classified as Shi’a. The Jewish community is estimated at 3,500
and evangelical Protestants at 50,000. The report also noted that more
than 100,000 citizens practice "nontraditional" beliefs. (Orthodox
Christianity, Hanafi Sunni Islam, Judaism, and Catholicism are
generally understood to be "traditional" faiths.) Forty percent of
these "nontraditional" practitioners are estimated to be Roma.
Statistics reported by the Council of Ministers Religious Confessions
Directorate reported slightly different figures, listing nearly
1 million Muslims and 150,000 evangelical Protestants, as well as
20,000 to 30,000 Armenian Christians and approximately 3,000 Jews.
Section II. Status of Religious Freedom
Legal/Policy Framework
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion. Article 5 of
the 2002 Denominations Act allows religious beliefs to be practiced
privately when carried out by a member of the religious community
in the presence only of persons belonging to it, and in public when
it is open also to persons not belonging to the respective religious
community. Ambiguous wording gives scope to arbitrary decisions with
respect to public practice of religion by unregistered groups. Article
36 of the act punishes "any person carrying out religious activity in
the name of a religion without representational authority." Article
8 of the act allows the courts to punish registered religious
organizations for a variety of offenses by banning their activities
for up to 6 months, banning the publication or distribution of
publications, or canceling an organization’s registration. Some
concerns remain that the 2002 Denominations Act does not specify the
consequences of failure to register.
The Constitution designates Eastern Orthodox Christianity, represented
by the BOC, as the "traditional" religion, and the Government provided
financial support to it, as well as to several other religious
communities perceived as holding historic places in society, such as
the Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Jewish religious groups.
The 2002 Denominations Act requires all religious groups other than the
Orthodox Church to register in the Sofia City Court and designates the
Metropolitan of Sofia 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. Religious observers argued that this provision effectively
outlawed the Bulgarian Orthodox "Alternative Synod." The case of the
"Alternative Synod," filed after the 2004 forceful eviction of the
movement’s priests from churches, was pending before the European
Court of Human Rights (ECHR) at the end of the reporting period.
The Council of Ministers’ Religious Confessions Directorate, formerly
responsible for registration of religious groups, provides "expert
opinions" on registration matters upon request of the Court. The
Directorate also ensures that national and local authorities comply
with national religious freedom legislation. The Directorate was
generally responsive to denominations’ concerns.
Denominations reported a general improvement in the registration
process since the Court took over this responsibility in 2003. All
applicants have the right to appeal negative registration decisions
to the Court of Appeals.
A Muslim conference held on April 19, 2008, re-elected Mustafa Alish
Hadji as Chief Mufti. The conference followed a December 2007 Supreme
Court of Appeals decision to uphold the annulment of the conference
that previously elected him as illegitimate. This ruling effectively
reinforced the denomination’s statutes from 1996 and reinstated
rival Islamic leader Nedim Gendzhev, who initially contested Hadji’s
election. Referring to a provision in the 1996 statutes, the Sofia
City court granted the request of more than 1,000 members of the
denomination’s local branches to convene a national conference. On
April 21, 2008, the court registered Hadji as Chief Mufti despite the
rival group’s allegation of judicial corruption and document forgery.
Some local branches of nationally registered denominations continued
to experience problems with local authorities who insisted that
the branches be registered locally, despite the fact that the 2002
Denominations Act does not require local formal registration of
denominations.
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
multidenominational Protestant seminary, and two 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.
The Government observes Orthodox Christmas and Easter as national
holidays. In addition, the Government respects the holidays of
non-Orthodox religious groups, such as Muslim, Catholic, Jewish,
Evangelicals, and Baha’i, and grants their members non-working days.
Schools offer an optional religious education course that covers
Christianity and Islam. The course examines the historical,
philosophical, and cultural aspects of religion and introduces
students to the moral values of different religious groups. All
officially registered religious groups can request that their
religious beliefs be included in the course’s curriculum. While the
Ministry provides the course material for free to students, religious
education teachers participating in the program are funded directly
from municipal budgets.
The Office of the Chief Mufti also supports summer Qur’anic education
courses.
Restrictions on Religious Freedom
Some "nontraditional" groups faced increased discrimination and
prejudice from local authorities in certain localities, despite
successfully registering through the Sofia City Court. Article 19 of
the 2002 Denominations Act states that nationally registered religious
groups may have local branches. The law requires notification,
although some municipalities claimed that it requires formal local
registration. Hence some municipal regulations, although softened,
prohibited distribution of religious literature by groups that were not
locally registered. There were renewed reports of actual enforcement
of these rules in Pleven and Plovdiv.
In April 2008, the Blagoevgrad District court revoked the Ahmadi
Muslim Organization’s registration as a nongovernmental organization
(NGO). The group resorted to registering as an NGO after it was denied
national registration as a religious group in 2005. The prosecution
challenged the group’s NGO status, claiming that the Ahmadis went
beyond NGO boundaries by proselytizing and holding religious meetings.
On November 21, 2007, the Sofia appellate court upheld the city
court’s decision rejecting the Ahmadi community’s re-application for
national registration under the name "Ahmadiyya Muslim Community." In
rendering its decision, the Sofia City Court requested the opinion
of the Religious Confessions Directorate, which consulted with the
Chief Mufti’s office. The Muftiship seemingly would not consent to
any outside group registering as Muslims. The Directorate’s expert
statement held that registration of the Ahmadis would "lead to the
rise and institutionalization of a very serious dissent in the Muslim
community," and to the spread of an interpretation of Islam that
is not traditional in the country. The appellate court’s decision
precluded further recourse in domestic courts and the group planned
to file a complaint with the ECHR.
On April 9, 2008, the City of Burgas sent a letter to all Burgas
schools instructing them to warn students to be alert to the mobilizing
of nontraditional religious groups such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and Evangelical
Pentecostal Churches, which the city described as the most prominent
and dangerous sects. In the letter, authorities claimed that these
groups attracted followers through manipulation, offers of money,
clothing and food, as well as free movie screenings. They further
maintained that the activity of these groups threatened the unity of
the Bulgarian nation and exposed it to religious confrontation. The
Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall in Burgas was vandalized on two
occasions during the same week. The Mormons also reported facing
hostility, including public insults and stones thrown at their place
of worship, following the distribution of the letter.
Some local governments restricted certain forms of proselytizing. On
March 17, 2008, the Mormons complained to the Ombudsman of reoccurring
hostility from the local authorities in Pleven and Plovdiv. The Mormons
reported a number of incidents where the missionaries were banned
from engaging in conversations about their religion and distributing
materials in public places.
On August 29, 2007, Blagoevgrad police detained five Jehovah’s
Witnesses for questioning. Police issued the five written warnings
not to preach from house to house, which was considered a disturbance
of public order.
In 2007 Jehovah’s Witnesses faced limitations on their proselytizing
activity in Plovdiv, where regulations forbid public preaching, and
Veliko Turnovo, where police required two missionaries to present proof
of registration before they could preach publicly. The police officers
issued a written citation and warned the two to discontinue their
public preaching or face serious consequences. In May 2007, police
stopped and questioned a 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness preaching
with an adult companion in Gorna Oryahovitsa. Representatives of
some evangelical Protestant churches reported obstruction to holding
public meetings from the local authorities in the Dobrich and Varna
municipalities. No missionaries reported being arrested or fined
for proselytizing.
In July 2007 the Sofia City Council published its unanimous decision to
support the residents of the Mladost area in opposing the construction
of a meeting hall for the Jehovah’s Witnesses and urging the government
to legislate stricter control of nontraditional religious groups.
Jehovah’s Witnesses reported that local authorities obstructed
the construction of a meeting house in Varna; after a long battle,
they gained permission to begin construction in June 2007. After
construction began, city officials issued three citations halting all
work. The Jehovah’s Witnesses claimed compliance with the requirements,
but the city refused to allow work to resume and levied an additional
fine. In November 2007 the Varna Administrative Court ruled that the
work stoppage by the City of Varna was legal because the foreman,
a Jehovah’s Witness, lacked a legitimate labor contract. All charges
against the foreman were ultimately dropped, after a series of police
interrogations and reported police harassment. The Jehovah’s Witnesses
appealed the Varna Administrative Court decision to the Supreme Court
and are waiting for communication of the Court’s ruling from April
22, 2008.
The country’s entry into the European Union on January 1, 2007,
lifted visa restrictions for EU citizens, making it significantly
easier for EU-member missionaries to work in the country. There were
no reports of foreign missionaries being denied visas.
At a press conference on June 5, 2008, an Orthodox priest from Burgas
called for the expulsion of two Mormon missionaries, whom he labeled
"intruders" interrupting the service and distributing religious
literature in the church. The missionaries claimed they were invited
to observe the service and left when they understood they were not
welcome. Although no steps were taken to expel the missionaries,
the reported incident sparked a series of negative press reports.
On February 15, 2008, two Mormon missionaries were attacked in Sofia
reportedly by the relatives of a boy who was invited to attend the
Sunday Mormon church service. One missionary suffered injuries to his
head and a broken hand. Police identified one of the perpetrators
and the investigation against him was ongoing at the end of the
reporting period.
In February 2008 the Commission for Protection against Discrimination
rejected the discrimination complaint filed by three Muslim students
from Devin alleging that the school principal had discouraged them from
wearing headscarves in classes even though the school had no uniform
requirements. The Commission found insufficient evidence to confirm
the principal’s reported warnings. The case follows an August 2006
decision by the Commission to uphold the ban on headscarves imposed
by a school in Smolyan that did require school uniforms.
There were no indications that the Government discriminated against
members of any religious group in restitution of properties that were
nationalized during the communist period. However, the BOC, Catholic
Church, Muslim community, Jewish community, and several Protestant
denominations complained that a number of their confiscated properties
had not been returned.
The Jewish community reported difficulties in recovering some
restituted buildings, including a hospital in central Sofia and a
former rabbi’s house in Varna. After the Government formed a special
commission in 2006 to review seven outstanding claims of the Jewish
community, the commission’s report, presented to the Prime Minister
in October 2006, found that the community had valid claims and
recommended that alternate property be identified to turn over to
Shalom, the organization representing the country’s Jewish community,
to replace a synagogue and rabbi’s residence in Varna. With respect to
a Sofia hospital restituted to Shalom in 1997 and leased to a state
hospital, the Commission suggested speeding the process of finding
suitable quarters for the hospital and transferring six rooms of the
existing hospital to Shalom.
Despite the Government’s recommendation, the hospital’s management,
which ceased rental payment in 2002, has neither transferred the rooms
to Shalom nor has agreed to a date for vacating the premises in the
future. The commission chose not to review the controversial 2005
court decision on the Rila Hotel, which held that the expropriation
procedure was properly executed by the Communist government and that
the community was not legally entitled to any further compensation.
The Constitution prohibits the formation of political parties along
religious lines.
Military law does not allow religious groups to conduct any activity
on military premises and prohibits ministering at any level within
the armed forces; however, military personnel can attend religious
events outside the barracks.
Minority religious groups complained they had no access to television
to broadcast religious services or programs. There were no reports
of 2007 incidents of religious-based discrimination against media
broadcasts. A number of religious groups broadcast radio programs:
the Orthodox Radio Sion and the Christian Radio Svetlina are
aired via Internet; the Seventh- Day Adventists broadcast daily a
one-hour program in Bulgarian on its world radio "Voice of Hope;"
the Evangelical trans-world radio also broadcasts a daily program
in Bulgarian.
There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees in the
country.
Abuses of Religious Freedom
The Alternative Orthodox Synod continued to await a decision from
the ECHR on the case related to the 2004 forceful expulsion of its
members from their parishes.
Protestants said that heavily Muslim areas with a majority ethnic
Turkish population sometimes place restrictions on their worship. A
Protestant church in Djebel, which failed to apply for a tax
declaration in time, was closed in 2007 by the local court reportedly
in an excessive action by the local authorities against the church.
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.
Improvements and Positive Developments in Respect for Religious Freedom
Despite initial fears that the 2002 Denominations Act would hamper
religious organizations’ ability to operate freely, the number of
groups registered with the Government increased from 36 in 2003,
when the Sofia City Court took over this responsibility, to 96 in 2008.
A Protestant group, the Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association, gained legal
status on February 23, 2007. The association represents approximately
120 Protestant pastors and individuals mainly affiliated with the
Church of God and Assemblies of God but also includes Baptists and
Lutherans.
Section III. Societal Abuses and Discrimination
There were some reports of societal abuses or discrimination based
on religious affiliation, belief, or practice.
Relations between different religious groups generally remained
civil and tolerant; however, discrimination, harassment, and public
intolerance of some religious groups remained an intermittent
problem. There were renewed reports of societal discrimination
against "nontraditional" religious groups as well as negative and
derogatory media stories about such groups. The Mormons and the
Jehovah’s Witnesses continued to report numerous print and broadcast
media stories with negative, derogatory, and sometimes slanderous
information about their activities and beliefs.
The Chief Mufti’s Office continued to report cases of mosque
desecrations. On March 11, 2008, a mosque in Dobrich was temporarily
closed because of a bomb threat. Police officers searched the premises
and reported that no explosive device was found. On February 16, 2008,
graffiti saying "Turks, die" was found at the entry to the Office of
the Chief Mufti. During the year the mosque in Pleven was vandalized
with swastika graffiti at least ten times. In December 2007 the windows
of the mosque in Kazanluk were broken after it was torched in 2006. In
May 2007 pigs’ heads were hung on two mosques in Silistra. There were
no reports of prosecutions in that incident or in a number of 2006
incidents, including the breaking of a window of the Banyabasi Mosqui
in Sofia and the defacement of a mosque in Aytos with paint. The Chief
Mufti’s Office expressed concern that, while the vandals were usually
apprehended, they rarely received legal penalties or punishments.
VMRO, a fringe political party, attempted unsuccessfully to disrupt
a large gathering of Jehovah’s Witnesses on April 28 and 29, 2007,
in the city of Dobrich, and the municipality allowed the organization
to go on with the event. A few weeks prior, on April 2, 2007, the VMRO
succeeded in preventing a religious gathering of Jehovah’s Witnesses
in Varna, forcing cancellation of their contract with the Palace
Cinema. Leading up to the April 28-29 gathering, local media outlets
publicized VMRO views on Jehovah’s Witnesses, citing the group’s
comments about the antisocial practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses, their
demands that the municipality stop the gathering, and threats to gather
"members and sympathizers" as a sign of protest. After intervention
from the Religious Confessions Directorate, the municipality of
Dobrich provided Jehovah’s Witnesses with enough police protection
to assure that the event was not disrupted.
The extreme nationalist political party Ataka continued to publish
anti-Semitic material in its newspaper, on its Web site, and on its
cable television mouthpiece Skat. In January 2007 Ataka’s deputy chair
and Member of the European Parliament Dimitar Stoyanov stated that
he opposed the "Jewish establishment" and accused "powerful Jews" of
"paying the media to form the social awareness of the people."
In October 2007 the Ataka party re-launched a campaign to silence
the speakers on the Sofia Mosque, claiming that the invitation to
prayer was disturbing persons in the capital’s central area. In 2006,
at the request of the Sofia mayor, the Chief Mufti’s Office promised
to turn down the volume "if [it] exceeded the permitted limit."
In August 2007, the Commission for Protection Against Discrimination
ruled in a case regarding the cancellation of the traineeship of a
young female student, who was a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The
Commission ruled that the manager of the company had engaged in direct
discrimination on the basis of religion and warned the manager to
refrain from similar discriminatory actions in the future.
The investigation into the 2005 desecration of Turkish graves in
Haskovo by three teenagers was ongoing at the end of the reporting
period, but it appeared unlikely that the perpetrators would be
punished.
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 monitored religious freedom in 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
and local Muslim leaders, religious and lay leaders of the Jewish
community, and leaders of numerous Protestant and "nontraditional"
denominations. During the period covered by this report, the Embassy
remained closely engaged with government officials, MPs, religious
organizations, and NGOs concerning the 2002 Denominations Act. The
Embassy also remained concerned about reports of discrimination against
"nontraditional" religious organizations. Embassy representatives met
with various religious groups and government entities regarding the
restitution of Jewish properties and with Muslim leaders regarding
Islamic extremism and the Muslim leadership dispute.