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The current situation of freedom of religion and conscience in Bulgaria
Although the constitution provides for freedom of
religion, the law and the government restricted this right for some religious
groups not registered by the courts. An estimated 85 percent of the population
was Orthodox Christian. Muslims comprised the largest minority, estimated at 13
percent. According to the Council of Ministers Religious Confessions
Directorate, there were approximately 150,000 evangelical Protestants, up to
30,000 Armenian Christians, and 3,000 Jews. The law designates the Bulgarian
Orthodox Church as the "traditional" religion and requires other
religious groups to register with the government to operate and be recognized
as legal entities or to conduct religious activities outside of their places of
worship. By the end of the year (2009),
there were more than 100 religious groups registered. The state budget
allocated approximately 3.3 million levas ($2.5 million) for registered
religious groups, including the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Muslim
community, the Jewish community, the Armenian Apostolic Church, Protestants,
and other groups. An estimated 2.8 million levas ($2.1 million) was allocated
for the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, mostly for renovating and maintaining church
property. Human rights organizations criticized the law's preferential
treatment of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and expressed concern the
requirement that groups submit a statement of their beliefs constituted an
infringement on freedom of religion.
In 2002 the law conditions that
regulate the activities of the religious communities weren’t changed. Passed in
December 2002, the restrictive and discriminatory Law on religion continues to
operate.
On January 22, the ECHR ruled that the government violated the rights
of the Alternative Orthodox Synod when it expelled members from their parishes
in 2004. The court gave the parties three months to negotiate mutually
agreeable compensation. As of the end of the year, the parties failed to reach
an agreement on compensation. The ECHR ruling on the amount of compensation was
pending.
The ECHR condemned the dispute
between the authorities and the “Alternative Orthodox Synod”, finding an
infringement of Art. 9 of the ECHR. In that case, the Synod once again
stressed that the authorities in a democratic society cannot compel religious
communities to subject to a single
direction. The Law on religion of 2002 does not comply with the standards of the ECHR
and leaves a wide discretion to authorities to determine
what legitimate leadership of the religion is. According
to the Court that law is formulated with the false claim of neutrality. The decision of the ECHR is met with
strong resistance by large strata of the Bulgarian society and the Bulgarian authorities. The official wing of the BOC, issued a
special declaration, which rejected the decision, denouncing it as interference
in internal affairs of the church. The governments did not take any action to
meet the demands of the "Alternative Synod".
After elections in July, the public atmosphere
in which religious groups operate significantly has altered. Officials and senior
representatives of government and the supporting party “Ataka” made public proposals to
further restrict the rights of religious communities. At the end of September,
the Minister without Portfolio
Bozhidar
Dimitrov, who was responsible for the Directorate of Religious Affairs,
in response to a question in the
elected National Assembly expressed concern at how easily
a religion can be registered. In his opinion it was high time to change the system of
registration of religious communities and should not be allowed to exist
legally those
who have less than 5000 members. A few days later, the
MP for the political party "Ataka" Tsveta Georgieva said in an interview that she
"is
preparing a draft amending the Law on Religion"
and added
details
- to a complete re-registration of religious organizations in the country, to
introduce a lower limit of the least 5000 members to obtain a religious community
status of religion. On 17th October in the Monitor newspaper an interview
came out with another MP, Dr Krasimir Simeonov, from GERB. She offered a proposal that could be
described as an absurd, namely - the
minimum number of members necessary for registration of religious organizations
to become 250 000. On 23rd October 27
religious and human rights organizations issued a sharp protest daclaration. On 27 October it
became clear that the United Evangelical Churches and the Catholic Church - the
largest Non – Christian churches in Bulgaria – acceded to the document and that it had already been signed by 35 organizations. Several days later an official representative of
the Minister is authorized to state that only minor technical changes should be
made in the law to facilitate the religious communities.
Through the years there have been several cases of violated religious rights of Bulgarian citizens. A great part of them were directed against “Jehovah's Witnesses” and against
the Muslim religion. Most serious among them
are attempts to attacks on houses of prayer
and / or administrative buildings. There is no evidence these incidents have been disclosed and the criminals have been brought to
justice.
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