Known as the “diplomat in a cassock” and ”the head of the Bulgarian church”, the Kalofer-born Exarch Joseph I (Lazar Yovchev, 1840-1915) was one of our most prominent writers and spiritual builders in a crucial time for Bulgaria. It coincided with the heyday and end of our Revival, the constitution of the Bulgarian Exarchate, the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation, the devastation of the Berlin Dictatorship and the forty-year efforts of our young state, buried with the Neuilly Peace Treaty of November 27, 1919.
Lazar Yovchev also participated in a large part of these significant processes, to whom fate assigned the leadership of our native church at the very beginning of the Russo-Turkish War (April 23, 1877) and which he led with wisdom and tact until his death on June 20, 1915.
Graduating from the local school in Kalofer, Lazar Yovchev became an assistant to the famous teacher Botyo Petkov. Seeing in him great ambitions for social realization, his sister Rada, who raised him after the death of their parents, took him to Constantinople. In the Turkish capital, the bright young man entered the French school of the Lazarists in the suburb of Bebek. Here he proved to be an excellent student and after the annual exam in 1863 received a full award.
Impressed by his successes, the venerable merchant and patriot Hristo Tapchileshov, his fellow citizen, persuaded the Kalofer municipality to send Yovchev to continue his education in Paris, in the hope that one day he would take over the duties of the aging public teacher Botyo Petkov, recalls the website Kalofer.bg.
Since 1864, Lazar Yovchev has been in the French capital, where he spends 6 years. Although he endures hardships, he graduates in 1867 from the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature with a "bachelor" degree, and in 1870 from the Faculty of Law. with the title of “Lisanceur”.
Having seen the glory and ruin of the Second French Empire, he arrived in Constantinople in November 1870.
He did not return to Kalofer, as he worked as an editor of the renowned magazine “Chitalishte”, in which he published a translation of Etienne de la Boissy's treatise “On Voluntary Slavery”, which caused a strong public response, and then he was also the secretary of the Mixed Exarchate Council, called upon to draft the church statute and elect the exarch of the Bulgarian church, which gained its independence on February 28, 1870.
Noticed by the newly elected exarch Antim on February 16, 1872, Lazar Yovchev accepted to receive a spiritual title. And since the needs for capable and enlightened personnel for our church are enormous, it is logical that only three months after his tonsure on September 23, 1872, he was already the exarch's protosingel.
Over the next 4 years, Archimandrite Joseph participated in the construction of our church, assisted the exarch in his meetings with foreign diplomats in Constantinople, and quite naturally in 1876. became the Metropolitan of Lovchansk, and a year later, after the coup of the Turkophile party of Dr. Stoyan Chomakov, he was also appointed Bulgarian Exarch.
Accepting the post of church leader at the most unfavorable time possible, Joseph the First did not lose heart, but patiently, with great tact and enviable diplomatic skill, tried to preserve as many of the rights fixed in the Sultan's firman as possible before the Turkish authorities, without helping the enemies of Russia, in order to preserve the exarchate intact even after the war.
For a long time, Joseph was a loner in his efforts to defend Bulgarianness.
It was especially difficult for him after learning of the decisions of the Berlin Dictate of July 1, 1878, when there was a danger that he would be extradited from Constantinople.
During the first years of its existence, the Principality of Bulgaria was shaken from a permanent political crisis. The exarch himself also intervened clumsily, tarnishing his reputation by supporting the conservative coup of Alexander Battenberg on April 27, 1881.
Burned by his short-sighted action, he preferred to distance himself from the turbulent political turmoil in the country and to follow the rapidly changing events from the distance of the Ottoman capital, carefully recording all his impressions and reflections on the difficult Bulgarian fate in his famous diary, which he kept from 1864 until his death.
The evolution he experienced in relation to the Istanbul government is instructive. Even if he did not approve of the strong anti-Russian course of the all-powerful prime minister, the exarch supported his patriotic initiatives regarding the church and Turkish-Bulgarian rapprochement, which bore fruit with the berats for Ohrid and Skopje and the publication of the exarchical organ "News" (July 6, 1890), followed by the bishop's berats for Veles and Nevrokop (April 12, 1894), which culminated in the berats for Bitola, Strumica and Debar, effected by the Stoilov government on October 26, 1897 as gratitude for not supporting Greece during the crisis related to the Cretan uprising.
Joseph I experienced several stellar moments in his administrative activities (he never deluded himself that he was only the spiritual leader of the Bulgarians, knowing full well that his position was primarily politically motivated). In addition to the joy of the achieved berats, there was the baptism of the Crown Prince Boris Tarnovski into the Orthodox faith on February 2, 1896, the solemn celebration of his 25 years of public service on April 23, 1902 in Constantinople, the enormous successes in educational work – At the beginning of the 20th century, the Exarchate had 920 schools, 1488 teachers, 48,133 students and the support of 1,051,936 people in Macedonia and the Ohrid region out of a total of 1,459,792 Christians.
The Exarch skillfully maneuvered between the Western great powers and Russia, between Constantinople and Sofia, without forgetting that he was the head of a schismatic (since September 16, 1872) church, between the evolutionists and the revolutionaries of the IMRO, constantly keeping an eye on the claims of Serbs, Vlachs and Greeks reaching out to the ancestral Bulgarian lands.
His pessimistic conclusions were fully confirmed by the national tragedy of 1913.
After the euphoria experienced from the glorious victories in 1912, the hopes associated with the armistice of November 21, 1912, the fall of Edirne on March 13, 1913 and the signing of the Peace of London on May 17, 1913, came the “criminal madness” of June 16, 1913, the Inter-Allied War and its collapse, the bitter fruits of which were the Bucharest and Constantinople peace treaties of July 28 and September 16, 1913, by which Bulgaria lost half of Thrace with Edirne, Southern Dobrudja and most of Macedonia, occupied by all its neighbors.
The catastrophe put an end to the activities of Exarch Joseph in Constantinople. He returned to Sofia sick, old, tormented by remorse and heartbroken by the fatal outcome of the people's struggles. The atmosphere in the Bulgarian capital disgusts him with its provincial upstartness and partisanship, although he places great hopes on our intelligentsia, which must fulfill its duty to strengthen the Bulgarian spirit. His insights have the character of a political testament:
Special attention should be paid to home education and primary school, where the law of God and civic education should occupy one of the prominent places.
The death of the exarch on June 20, 1915 is accepted as a national tragedy on the eve of Bulgaria's fateful choice to intervene in the First World War on the side of the Central Powers.
From the diary of Exarch Joseph I
March 24, 1915, Sunday.
1) Bulgaria's goal is to unite nationally by taking Macedonia, Adrianople and Dobrudja from Serbia, Greece, Turkey and Romania. Defeated and humiliated by four enemies allied against her, she cannot [do anything on her own], except with the help of one of the two groups of powers that has an interest in a united Bulgaria, by giving her its assistance, achieve at least partially her goal. These groups are: Germany and Austria, one, and Russia, England and France, the other.
2) The first group strives to expand to the east - Drang nach Osten and considers Slavism to be its original enemy, considers it as dung with which to fertilize its fields, strives for Salonika and Constantinople, [in order to] expand into Asia Minor; it is for Turkey, Greece and Romania, [who are] enemies of Slavism and would like us to shake off Serbia and us in order to open the way for her to Salonika and Constantinople.
3) Russia [needs] the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and to stop Germany and Austria from conquering the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor. If he wants to conquer us, he will encounter resistance from England and [from] France, so as not to upset the European balance, as well as Germany and Austria - [i.e.] the whole of Europe. Russia would not be against St. Stephen's Bulgaria and if we are frank and sincere with her, she would help us to vomit up a part of what was lost. Who quarreled with Russia? Stambolov and the Tsar for fear that Russia would swallow us. But from Germany and Austria the same and [it] greater danger. With Russia we will preserve our faith and Slavism..., so that from Germanism and from Russianism, Germanism is more dangerous and the danger from Russia is too distant.
4) It is only necessary, by taking part in the war, not to exhaust our strength and to [be] firmly guaranteed that what they will recognize us we will be able to conquer and keep. It remains to be seen which side will emerge victorious, because Bulgaria cannot wage war, and [must] take what has been lost with few casualties. Since we want Russia to emerge victorious, it is desirable even on the principle of nationality that an alliance be formed between Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece [Balkan Union] and Romania. If the two sides tire out and make peace, we must remain on the side of Russia, as Orthodox and Slavic for the future.
5) Bulgarian politics is led by Prince Ferdinand, a German and Catholic, brought in by Stambolov and his party to protect Bulgaria from subordination to Russia, imposed on Russia, and who in his soul is for Catholicism and Germanism, against Orthodoxy and Russia.
6) Despite the fact that Bulgaria has a Constitution, the Bulgarian people [are] both nationally and politically unformed, with no ruling class, no aristocracy, no bourgeoisie, no public opinion; a people [of] 90% peasants, with an intelligentsia divided by the Tsar into many parties, so that they can fight each other, while he rules and reigns. He distributes power to this godless and hungry intelligentsia, one by one, to come, to protect themselves and to steal, and which, as insolvent, puts its personal interest first, and patriotism as a mask for all enterprises, from which the gesheft will emerge. Therefore, when they come to power, they are lackeys before the Tsar and have no opinion, and if [by chance] they do, they do not dare to say it. He despises them as characterless and imposes his will on them, and he does not resign (the minister) until [the Tsar] sweeps them away with a broom. In Bulgaria, personal rule reigns. The Tsar internally divides in order to reign, and externally he tricks between the powers and falls between two chairs. He is insatiable, grandiose, cunning, is not satisfied with what is within his power and thinks he is more cunning than our great masters, which is why he ruined both Bulgaria and himself. Excessively proud, he considers all Bulgarians to be cattle herders and has killed the initiative in them. He leans on the government, on the administration, which every government changes, on the army, which he has divided, and thus the opposition intelligentsia dominates; the press is partisan or bribed and writes for money, the people are always in power; even the opposition can be bribed and is bribed by the power; and the deputies, now given 30 leva a day, are ready to sit as deputies and vote for the power. Out of 220 deputies, 40 are socialists – wide or narrow, 60 landowners, who are not elements to rule, but to decompose, the Turks are always for power. The Geshev, Danev and Malinov parties [are] supposedly conservative, [but] they do not agree with each other. The Radoslav, Tonchev and Gennadiyev [parties are] supposedly liberal, [but] they do not agree either to agree that both of them should ask the tsar to rule constitutionally, and he will be forced to obey; to define a political, national, independent of the will of the tsar [party] and to lead the whole people after them, as the parties of all the countries that entered the war did. Now the Gesho and Danev parties, which collapsed while in power due to incompetence, and the Chalin party, which the Tsar promised to bring to power, are looking to swallow up Radoslav's [party], supposedly for the common good, in order to take its place.
The parties, incited by the Tsar, are chasing each other in order to seize power, in order to protect themselves, they put personal interest above the fatherland. And from this the Tsar's personal regime draws its strength, which also puts his personal interest above the fatherland, and everything - the Tsar and the parties agree to maintain this regime.
The Church is weak, the clergy is simple, without awareness [of] the need for discipline to protect their interests, without their own policy. My task is not to get involved in any party, to be legal with the crown and the power and to try to prepare a clergy, educated and paid by the state, and to lift the schism, to find something, material support in Russia, and here to arrange the monasteries, so that we can support ourselves, because one day the government will stop what it is giving now.”
Bulgarian Exarch Joseph I, Dnevnik, S., 1992, pp. 822-823.