The Higher Exarchate Clergy and the Creation of a Draft for Organic Statute of the Principality of Bulgaria in 1878

Even before 1870, when the Bulgarian Exarchate was established by a Sultan’s firman, a significant group of higher Bulgarian clergy began to form, whose social and political role in the Bulgarian society gradually grew and reached its peak in the troubling years of the Eastern Crisis (1875–1879) and the liberation of the country from Ottoman rule (1878). This study examines the answers given by five Bulgarian hierarchs to the questions in the survey organized by Prince Alexander M. Dondukov-Korsakov and Sergei Iv. Lukyanov in October-December of 1878 in relation to the preparation of the Organic Statute of the Principality of Bulgaria. The analysis of the available documents and facts shows that the views of the higher Exarchate clergy were in line with the expectations, orientation and general level of political culture of the Bulgarian society. Their answers clearly show their sincere patriotism and their pain caused by the Motherland’s fate. On the whole, however, they assume a more significant than the actual role of the Orthodox Church and in particular of the higher clergy in the future social and political life of the Principality of Bulgaria.