Problems of the Status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in the Contemporary Bulgarian Politics of Historical Memory

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyse the perception of the problems of the history of the status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in the politics of memory of modern Bulgaria. The author analyses the role and place of Macedonian church narratives in historical politics and the development of Bulgarian memorial culture. The novelty of the study lies in the analysis of the features of the religious level of the politics of memory in modern Bulgarian society as a secular state. The article analyses the perception of church issues in contemporary Bulgarian memorial culture. The article also shows that the politics of memory promoting the perception of the history of the Church in the Bulgarian ethnic coordinate system develop as a part of Bulgarian nationalism based on the denial of the Macedonian identity as different from the Bulgarian one. It is assumed that the mass media and the political elites of modern Bulgaria, as the main agents of historical politics, actively use the problems of the history of the Church on the territory of Macedonia to consolidate national identity and conduct a policy of memory. The results of the study suggest that the memorial culture of modern Bulgarian society in contexts of the perception of the history of the Church on the territory of Macedonia is distinguished by a nationalistic character, and the perception of church history in the collective memory of Bulgaria develops as a part of memorial wars with Macedonia, which promotes its own memorial canon and the culture of historical memory, denied in Bulgaria.