Catholic Church in Bulgaria

In 2011, most Catholics lived in the province of Plovdiv (19,502 Catholics), followed by the city of Sofia (5,572 Catholics) and the provinces of Pleven (5,164 Catholics) and Veliko Tarnovo (3,276 Catholics)

The interior of the St Paul of the Cross Catholic Church in Rousse

Although the presence of Catholicism existed during the reign of Roman Empire in Balkan Peninsula, Catholic missionaries first tried to convert the Bulgarians during the reign of Tsar Boris I in the middle of the 9th century. They were unsuccessful, and Boris I led the Bulgarians in their conversion to Eastern Christianity. In 1204 the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan (1197-1207) formed a short-lived union between the Catholic Church and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as a political tactic to balance the religious power of the Byzantine Empire. The union ended when the Bulgarian Patriarchate was reestablished in 1235 during the council of Lampsacus.

Nonetheless, Catholic missionaries renewed their interest in Bulgaria during the 16th century, after the Council of Trent, when they were aided by merchants from Dubrovnik on the Adriatic. In the next century, Catholic missionaries converted most of the Paulicians, the remainder of a once-numerous heretical Christian sect, to Catholicism. Many believed that conversion would bring aid from Western Europe in liberating Bulgaria from the Ottoman Empire.

By 1700, however, the Ottomans began persecuting Catholics and preventing their Orthodox subjects from converting.

After Bulgaria became independent, the Catholic Church again tried to increase its influence by opening schools, colleges, and hospitals throughout the country, and by offering scholarships to students who wished to study abroad. Bulgarian Knyaz Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was himself Catholic and supported the Vatican in these efforts. The papal nuncio Angelo Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII, played a leading role in establishing Catholic institutions in Bulgaria and in establishing diplomatic relations between Bulgaria and the Vatican in 1925.

The communist era was a time of great persecution for Catholics, nominally because Catholicism was considered the religion of fascism. Bulgarian communists also deemed Catholicism a foreign influence. Under communist rule, Catholic priests were charged with following Vatican orders to conduct antisocialist activities and help opposition parties. In 1949 foreign priests were forbidden to preach in Bulgaria, and the papal nuncio was forbidden to return to Bulgaria. Relations between the Vatican and Bulgaria were severed at that time. During the "Catholic trials" of 1951-52, sixty priests were convicted of working for Western intelligence agencies and collecting political, economic, and military intelligence for the West.;[4][5] Four priests were executed on the basis of these charges. In the early 1950s, the property of Catholic parishes was confiscated, all Catholic schools, colleges, and clubs were closed, and the Catholic Church was deprived of its legal status. Only nominal official toleration of Catholic worship remained.

Like the practitioners of the other faiths, Catholics in Bulgaria have enjoyed greater religious freedom after the end of communist rule in 1989. Bulgaria reestablished relations with the Vatican in 1990, and the Bulgarian government invited Pope John Paul II to visit Bulgaria. The visit was carried from 23 to 26 May 2002 and was the first visit of an acting Catholic pope in the country.

In 2022 the Church opened its own radio station. Ave Maria radio was inaugurated with the presence of cardinal Leonardo Sandri, in Sofia.[6]

Bulgaria has no ecclesiastical province for Catholics of the Latin Church (using the Roman Rite), nor suffragans of a neighbouring one, but only two exempt dioceses (i.e. directly subject to the Holy See) in Bulgaria :

• the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sofia and Plovdiv, with cathedral see in Plovdiv and co-cathedral in Sofia
• the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nicopolis, with cathedral see in Rousse.

Aside from the Latin Church, there is also the sui iuris Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church (for Bulgarian Catholics of the Byzantine Rite), which follows Bulgarian ecclesiastical traditions and uses Bulgarian language, established in 1926 and taking after several organisations created in the late 19th-century, most importantly the Macedonian Apostolic Vicariate of the Bulgarians.

It consists solely of a single eparchy, which was previously an apostolic exarchate and elevated to the rank of an eparchy in 2019. The eparchy is exempt (i.e. immediately subject to the Holy See):

• Bulgarian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Sofia, with its cathedral see in Sofia.