site.btaRegistry Agency Refuses to Register Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, Deadline for Appeal Is Friday

Representatives of the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria (OCOCB) applied for registration at the Registry Agency on December 19 and got refused on December 27, caretaker Justice Minister Maria Pavlova said during a hearing in Parliament on Thursday. The refusal can be appealed by Friday, she specified.

The reason for the refused registration is the lack of the necessary documents. Despite being given two opportunities and instructions how to fill out the registration documents, the OCOCB refused, Pavlova explained.

According to the Justice Ministry's position and, respectively, that of the Council of Ministers of 2022, the Religious Denominations Act needs to be amended. The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, which monitors the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), recommended amendments as at 2021. That was included in the roadmap for implementation of ECtHR judgments and in the three consecutive annual reports that the Justice Minister tables in Parliament through the Council of Ministers, Pavlova explained further.

The Justice Minister and caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev were heard in Parliament about the case for the registration of the OCOCB and the measures taken by the State and the Government to protect the state and public interest before the ECtHR and the Supreme Court of Cassation.

On December 16, the Supreme Court of Cassation ruled that the OCOCB has to be entered into the Register of Religious Denominations with the Sofia City Court, in light of a ECtHR judgment of 2021 in the case of OCOCB vs Bulgaria. The judgment came after a decades-long battle for registration of the OCOCB, which traces its beginnings to 1968 when the Bulgarian Orthodox Church decided to switch from the Julian Calendar to the Revised Julian Calendar. The Supreme Court of Cassation's ruling has been criticized by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate, the Council of Ministers, and political parties as a potential threat to the unity of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

The National Assembly's agenda for Thursday includes first reading of three bills to amend the Religious Denominations Act.