The Bulgarian Catholic Church in the World of Balkan Catholicism: Identity, Mission, and Organisation on the Eastern Frontier of the Western Church in the 17th Century

Българската католическа църква в света на балканския католицизъм: идентичност, мисия и организация на източната граница на Западната църква през XVII век

Исторически преглед, 82 (2026) No. 1, pp. 72-88 (ISSN 0323-9748)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71069/IPR1.26.AM03

Antal Molnár / Антал Молнар

Institute of History – Research Center for the Humanities / ELTE

Abstract: The Catholics were a denominationally and culturally closed, well-defined minority in early modern Bulgarian society, forming a religious-cultural universe quite distinct from the Orthodox majority. For this reason, the documents relating to them, which have survived in extraordinary abundance compared to the source material of early modern Bulgarian history, constitute a separate source group in the source material of Bulgarian history, and therefore the processing of their history and its narrative form a completely separate unit in Bulgarian historiography. The history of the Catholics in Bulgaria has been examined by earlier historians primarily in terms of their political role in the narrative of the anti-Ottoman struggles. To a much lesser extent, their literary and cultural activities, their role in the formation of the early Bulgarian national consciousness, and their almost complete absence as part of the Balkan Catholic commonwealth have been addressed. However, a combined examination of the world of Balkan Catholicism also provides much more precise answers to a number of questions about the Ottoman history of the individual particular churches. From the late 16th century onwards, the Bulgarian nation, through its Catholic minority, came into intensive contact with mainstream European cultural processes, which became part of Bulgarian culture. This is why, like the Dalmatian, Albanian and Bosnian ecclesiastical intellectuals, their Bulgarian counterparts played a significant role in the beginnings of the formation of Balkan literary languages and the formulation of early national identity. In doing so, they anticipated similar cultural and national processes in the Orthodox Church in the area by one or sometimes two centuries.

Keywords: Ottoman history, Balkan catholicism, Catholic archbishopric of Sofia, Early modern bulgarian history, Bulgarian historiogpraphy.

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