Freedoms renounced

Christian Century, March 22, 2000 by Victor Kostov

BULGARIA IS a small country with a long history. Like other Balkan countries, it has gone through turmoil, slavery, exaltation and defeat. Though Bulgaria is the quietest and most obscure nation on the troubled Balkan peninsula, its people have to wrestle with the usual social evils that plague former communist-bloc countries: slow reforms, economic difficulties and moral confusion. And Bulgaria's evangelical community of 100,000 people has its unique problems and anxieties.

Evangelical leaders are concerned about a crackdown on religious liberty proposed by pending legislation. The law would provide the legal tools to persecute those who work to spread God's word, Bulgarians and foreign missionaries alike. This is happening even though Bulgaria's new constitution mandates religious freedom. Last year four new bills for a Denominations Act were introduced into the National Assembly. Three of those bills endorse government control over all religious communities, especially "nontraditional" ones like evangelical Christians.

The first of these drafts, and the one with most weight, was proposed by the Directorate on Religions, a committee of the executive branch's Council of Ministers. The directorate, established to control Christian and other religions when the country was communist, lingers on long after its reason for existence has ended.

The second draft was proposed by two congressmen from the Socialist Party (BSP), the new name for the former communists. This bill, devoted to the continued oppression of religious believers in what is now proclaimed to be a pluralistic environment, came as no surprise, given the party's long practice of religious tyranny. During four decades of communist rule, faith in God was mocked and believers were relentlessly persecuted.

The third bill was suggested by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, a small, ultranationalist party which specializes in inflammatory rhetoric and feisty leaders. This last draft exceeds even the first two in its hostility toward religious freedom.

What has prompted this vehement legislative assault on religious liberty in general and on evangelicals in particular? A number of factors fuel this attempt. Communist propaganda and repression have for years shaped Bulgarian culture into a fortress of atheistic thought. People have been programmed to treat believers as socially and individually inadequate.

The Eastern Orthodox Church's fear of sects and proselytism is another factor. Orthodox leaders insist that theirs is the only true church. Also, many Bulgarians equate being Orthodox with being Bulgarian. Proselytism, then, is seen not only as a spiritual concern of the clerics but as an attack on national identity. The pending legislation assures both patriots and Orthodox priests that their concerns will be backed by the law. Many politicians have played the religious-national identity card to gain popular support. Backing an act which proposes to limit "foreign sects" and protect Eastern Orthodoxy is such a tactic.

Last July the Bulgarian Tolerance Foundation, a human fights organization which is an offshoot of the Helsinki Committee, held a conference in Sofia on the three draft laws. The event exposed the pending legislation as an attempt to curb religious liberty. Conference organizers reported on the weaknesses of the bills, which lacked judicial control, invited arbitrary procedures and introduced a specialized restrictive regime for people on the basis of their faith. All the draft laws propose severe penalties for those who practice their faith outside of government imposed limitations. One of the bills even suggests that a huge fine be levied against those who "publicly practice religion without registration with the government."

These reports demonstrated that during the past three years of democratic rule the problems of believers have essentially remained the same as under communism. Maurice Verfaillie, secretary general of the International Association for the Defense of Religious Liberties, a European organization, noted in his address that the bills offer freedoms in their first part and take them away in their second. They demonstrate the legislature's clumsy inability to implement religious tolerance through the nation's laws.

A fourth, very Western-style draft by the former executive director of the Bulgarian Center for Human Rights, Plamen Bogoev, was introduced in October. Bogoev's draft challenges legislators to grant parents the right to determine the religious education of their children. Whereas none of the other drafts even mentions financial issues, Bogoev's bill guarantees the right of ministries to be supported by tax-deductible donations. It proposes that every religious entity be registered at local courts, without any government intervention. Bogoev has included clear definitions of the important terms "religion" and "religious discrimination."

Bogoev's proposal, by far the most democratic and compliant with the constitution, was deemed by a parliamentary commission to be "onesided, incomplete, and inadequately representing the constitution and the religious situation in the country." The first three bills appear likely to be considered by the assembly. The only positive sign for evangelicals so far is the legislature's delay in dealing with the Denominations Act. It is still not clear when the parliament will take up the bills.