site.btaApril 3, 2011: 1876 Uprising Victims in Batak, Apriltsi Officially Recognized as Saints

On April 3, 2011, the victims of the 1876 Uprising against Ottoman domination were officially recognized as saints by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church at a solemn Service of Glorification at Sofia's St Alexander Nevsky Memorial Cathedral. According to statistics 30,000 people were killed, 80 villages and towns burned, and another 200 looted by the bashi-bazouk. The worst atrocities took place in Batak, Panagyurishte, Perushtitsa and the revolutionary camps in the Central Balkan Mountains. With this story, BTA’s English Service covered the glorification ceremony:

1876 Uprising Victims in Batak, Apriltsi Officially Recognized as Saints

Sofia, April 3 (BTA) - Victims of the 1876 Uprising against Ottoman domination were officially recognized as saints by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church at a solemn Service of Glorification, held at Sofia's St Alexander Nevsky Memorial Cathedral on Sunday.

The new saints fall into two groups: over 3,000 residents of Batak (South Central Bulgaria), martyred in the St Nedelya Church on May 17, 1876, and 700 peaceful civilians massacred in and around Novo Selo (now Apriltsi, North Central Bulgaria), most of them in Novo Selo's Holy Trinity Convent on May 9, 1876.

The Service of Glorification was celebrated by Bulgarian Patriarch Maxim, assisted by the metropolitans of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. President Georgi Purvanov, Vice President Angel Marin, National Assembly Chair Tsetska Tsacheva, Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova, politicians and hundreds of lay persons attended the ceremony.

During the liturgy, the new saints were formally declared inscribed in the Calendar of Bulgarian Saints, and their icons were unveiled and blessed.
The Synaxis (Assembly) of the Batak Martyrs will be celebrated on May 17, and May 9 was assigned as a Feast Day of the Synaxis of the Neomartyrs of Novo Selo.

The Holy Synod adopted a formal decision on the glorification on March 16, 2010. Very few of the Batak and Novo Selo martyrs are known by name.
These are the first Bulgarians to be glorified as Eastern Orthodox saints in 46 years. The most recent such ceremonies were held by the then Patriarch Kiril in 1964 for St Sophronius of Vratsa and before that, in 1962, for the Venerable Paisii Hilendarski. In 2000 the so-called alternative Holy Synod led by Metropolitian Inokentiy glorified as saint Vassil Levski (Deacon Ignatii), but this procedure was not recognized by the Holy Synod led by Patriarch Maxim.

The number of Bulgarian Orthodox saints varies by source from 94 to 103. Theologians explain this by the fact that nearly 40 of these saints have not been formally glorified at a church service, but they were initially perceived as saints by the laity and were inscribed in the calendar by the church only later. The list includes patriarchs and bishops, four medieval rulers, three warriors and 87 martyrs. LN/LG