political despotism, against which the movement was agitating. The sublime Porte was astute enough to take advantage of this fact. It had no compunction in throwing over its own subservient slaves if by so doing it could divide and weaken the Christian element in the empire. On the 11th of March, 1870, the Turkish government issued a firman granting the Bulgarians a right to possess their own exarchate independent of the patriarch of Constantinople. He was to have jurisdiction over fifteen dioceses, and others were to be added if two-thirds of the population desired it. The patriarch strenuously opposed this measure, and delayed the execution of it for two years. In the year 1872 the first exarch was appointed; and the patriarch immediately excommunicated him. On the 23rd of April of that year the exarch, supported by three bishops, all lying under the ban of the patriarch, celebrated the communion in the Bulgarian church at the Phanar; on the 11th of May the Bulgarian Church was declared independent; and on the 16th of September the patriarch of Constantinople formally cut off all followers of the exarchate as schismatics.[1]
The issue proved that the Turks had miscalculated their policy. The Christian cause was not weakened by the ecclesiastical severance of Bulgaria; on the contrary, it proved to be strengthened thereby. Schools spread; education advanced; the revival of Christianity, so long dormant and inoperative, but now quick and active, roused a spirit of energy and independence. The Porte was alarmed, and it showed its terror in the usual way by indulging in massacre. Then came the infamous "Bulgarian Atrocities," in which 15,000 persons were killed in the district of Philippopolis alone, while murders and outrages on men, women, and children went on in many other places. Mr. Gladstone roused the indignation of England and compelled the English government to end its shameful protection of Turkey. First Servia, next Russia invaded the Turkish Empire, the latter being completely
- ↑ von Mack, The Bulgarian Exarchate, p. 18.
