Growth of Bulgarian Orthodoxy
Following the formation of St Stephen’s Church of the Bulgars, the Bulgarian Orthodoxy movement was able to gain moment. Between the establishment of the wooden structure, and the arrival of the cast-iron framework, ‘in 1860, the Bulgars determined to bear the treatment of the Phanar no longer’[1]. Rather than being content with just the existence of a Church that separated them from the Greek Orthodoxy of the Golden Horn, ;they wanted to be a people, and the only way to be a people under the Turk was to have a national Church … [and] to have nothing more to do with the Phanar’[2].
The strength of the Church in the Golden Horn area of Istanbul allowed for a united front of Bulgarians to collectively break away from the Phanar. Although there had been some work to break away from the Phanar in the mid 19th Century, the latter half of the 19th Century saw executive power being exercised by individuals in the Bulgarian Exarchate to entrench their separation. 1872 saw ‘Anthimos VI of Constantinople hold a great synod, in which he excommunicated the Bulgarian Exarch and all his followers’[3], thus formally separating the Bulgarian Exarchate from the Phanar. Following this, in 1878, the ‘Berlin Congress established the almost independent Principality of Bulgaria’[4].
The fact that St Stephen’s Church of the Bulgars remained a popular meeting place for Bulgarian worshippers at the time suggests that the Church, which had been the initial starting point of the Bulgarian Exarchate’s struggle for independence, remained a vital part of the movement. The non-event that Nora describes is characteristic here, since this entire period of time is what characterised the separation of the Exarchate from the Phanar. In this way, the site is a lieu de memoire as for so long it acted as a pinnacle for the Exarchate.