19:
574:. The Adventist movement began in the Dobruja region of Bulgaria at the turn of the century and then spread to Tutrakan, Ruse, Sofia, and Plovdiv. It gained momentum in Bulgaria after 1944. During communism, mainstream Adventists maintained the right to worship. Some twenty parishes with forty pastors remained active through that era, although a breakaway reformed group was banned because of its pacifist beliefs. Some Adventists were imprisoned for refusal of military service.
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supporting the opposition parties. In 1949 thirty-one
Protestant clergymen were charged with working for American intelligence and running a spy ring in Bulgaria. All church property was confiscated, and the churches' legal status was revoked. Most of the mainstream Protestant denominations maintained the right to worship nominally guaranteed by the constitution of 1947.
607:
476:. In the census of 2011, a total of 64,476 people declared themselves to be Protestants of different denominations, up from 42,308 in the previous census in 2001 and from 21,878 in 1992. The marked rise in the number of Protestants in the last two decades is partly due to a boom in conversions among the
552:
made that denomination the largest
Protestant group. The Pentecostal movement was brought to Bulgaria in 1920 by Russian emigrants to the United States. The movement later spread to Burgas, Yambol, Sliven, Plovdiv and Varna. It gained popularity in Bulgaria after freedom of religion was declared in
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Like the practitioners of the other faiths, Protestants in
Bulgaria enjoyed greater religious freedom after the fall of the communist leadership in 1989. Due to the work of new, mostly U.S. missionaries, the number of the Protestants in the country almost doubled by 2001 and is soon to overtake the
540:
During communist rule, Protestants were subjected to even greater persecution than the
Catholics. In 1946 church funding was cut off by a law curbing foreign currency transactions. Because many ministers had been educated in the West before World War II, they were suspected automatically of
510:, which later became the Union of Evangelical Churches in Bulgaria. Besides setting up churches, the Protestants established schools, clinics, and youth clubs, and they distributed copies of the Bible and their own religious publications in Bulgarian. The
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1944, and the fall of
Zhivkov brought another surge of interest. In 1991 the Pentecostal Church had thirty-six clergy in forty-three parishes, with sufficient concentration in Ruse to petition the government to establish a Bible institute there.
518:, where many Bulgarian leaders of the post-independence era were educated. After independence in 1878, the Protestants gained influence because they used the vernacular in services and in religious literature.
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506:, divided their areas of influence. The former predominated in northern Bulgaria and the latter in the south. In 1875, the Protestant denominations united in the
529:, Methodist-Episcopalian missionary Albert Long, and Bulgarian intellectuals P.R. Slaveikov and Hristodul Sichan-Nikolov. Translation was not sponsored by the
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produced a translation of the entire Bible into contemporary
Bulgarian in 1871 and founded the nondenominational Robert College in
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480:. In 2001, the two largest ethnic group among the Bulgarian Protestants were the
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in 1857-58, amid the
National Revival period. The two main denominations, the
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church established by
American missionaries in the late 19th century.
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This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
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According to estimates in 1991, the 5,000 to 6,000 Bulgarian
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The 1871 translation of the Bible was based on the work of
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Union of
Evangelical Congregational Churches in Bulgaria
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was introduced in
Bulgaria by missionaries from the
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508:Bulgarian Evangelical Philanthropic Society
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637:Institute for Bulgarian Protestant History
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488:with some 25,000 members each.
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594:Roman Catholicism in Bulgaria
512:Union of Evangelical Churches
571:had 7,637 Bulgarian members
22:First Evangelical Church in
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418:People of Bulgarian descent
128:Public holidays in Bulgaria
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1045:Protestantism in Bulgaria
623:Federal Research Division
332:Bulgarian Orthodox Church
682:Protestantism in Europe
354:Protestant denominations
569:Advent Christian Church
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646:Helping Hands Bulgaria
284:Bessarabian Bulgarians
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34:Protestant church in
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289:Dobrujan Bulgarians
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413:List of Bulgarians
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26:(established 1864)
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976:Transnistria
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567:In 2006 the
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550:Pentecostals
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15:
1014:Isle of Man
949:recognition
923:Switzerland
858:Netherlands
527:Elias Riggs
525:missionary
893:San Marino
853:Montenegro
833:Luxembourg
813:Kazakhstan
716:Azerbaijan
600:References
500:Methodists
482:Bulgarians
194:Kazakhstan
136:By country
83:Literature
54:Bulgarians
1004:Gibraltar
828:Lithuania
395:Torlakian
370:Bulgarian
266:Subgroups
149:Australia
1039:Category
1024:Svalbard
1009:Guernsey
956:Abkhazia
908:Slovenia
903:Slovakia
878:Portugal
736:Bulgaria
578:See also
484:and the
465:Bulgaria
375:Dialects
362:Language
323:Religion
46:a series
44:Part of
933:Ukraine
883:Romania
843:Moldova
801:Ireland
796:Iceland
791:Hungary
781:Germany
776:Georgia
766:Finland
761:Estonia
756:Denmark
741:Croatia
726:Belgium
721:Belarus
711:Austria
706:Armenia
701:Andorra
696:Albania
241:Ukraine
209:Romania
199:Lebanon
184:Hungary
174:Germany
159:Croatia
144:Albania
118:Costume
108:Cuisine
74:Culture
58:Българи
36:Plovdiv
1019:Jersey
961:Kosovo
928:Turkey
918:Sweden
898:Serbia
888:Russia
873:Poland
868:Norway
848:Monaco
818:Latvia
786:Greece
771:France
746:Cyprus
614:.
486:Romani
468:after
390:Ruptsi
380:Balkan
299:Pomaks
246:Crimea
236:Turkey
229:Brazil
214:Serbia
179:Greece
169:France
154:Canada
113:Dances
98:Cinema
994:Åland
913:Spain
838:Malta
808:Italy
560:is a
523:ABCFM
474:Islam
405:Other
385:Banat
337:Islam
309:Shopi
304:Șchei
219:Spain
189:Italy
123:Sport
103:Names
88:Music
24:Sofia
556:The
502:and
472:and
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93:Art
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48:on
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
