site.btaAppellate Court Initiates Liquidation, Deregistration of Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria

A three-judge panel of the Sofia Appellate Court (SAC) on Friday rendered a final judgment initiating liquidation and deregistration proceedings for the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria (OCOCB), the Court said on its website on Friday.

Acting on an interlocutory appeal lodged by the Sofia City Prosecution Office in July 2025, the SAC set aside a refusal by the Sofia City Court (SCC) to terminate the OCOCB's registration.

In the reasons to its judgment, the SAC argues that revisions to the Religious Denominations Act, adopted after OCOCB's registration, provide that the designation of a denomination may not breach public policy and morals and be misleading and may not contain the word "Orthodox" or similar words with the same meaning. The Transitional and Final Provisions to the amending law give registered religious denominations and applicants in pending proceedings for original registration two months to modify their designations and statutes.

Registered religious denominations, which fail to fulfil this obligation and are under no pending proceedings for entry of changes arising from its fulfilment, are dissolved. After the dissolution of the denomination, liquidation and deregistration proceedings are initiated on a motion by the Religious Denominations Directorate at the Council of Ministers or by a prosecutor.

Among other things, the prosecution office pointed out in its appeal that the OCOCB did not meet the deadline for compliance and failed to modify its statute accordingly.

The SAC states that the designation of the religious denomination "Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria" indisputably falls within the scope of this legal provision to the extent that it contains the word "Orthodox".

Decades-long legal battle

The Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria traces its beginnings to 1968, when the Bulgarian Orthodox Church decided to switch from the Julian Calendar to the Revised Julian Calendar. Some of the clergy and adherents of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church disagreed with the abandonment of the Julian Calendar. There were also divergences over other doctrinal and canonical points, as well as with respect to the degree of autonomy of the church vis-a-vis the communist regime. As a result, the "Old Calendarists", mostly centred on a convent in Knyazhevo (on the outskirts of Sofia) disaffiliated themselves from the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, which in turn disavowed them.

In 1993 the OCOCB applied for registration to the Religious Denominations Directorate. The request was left without a formal reply. By 2013 that church had 24 priests and about 2,000 adherents. In the absence of legal personality, it could not erect or own places of worship and was unable to receive donations, formally employ its clergy, or carry on business related to its religious practices.

In February 2012, the SCC refused to register the OCOCB, holding that the applicant church could not have a name identical to that of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church or use its assets, and it was beyond doubt that its name was identical.

The OCOCB appealed that refusal of registration, submitting that the Religious Denominations Act prohibited the simultaneous registration of religious denominations with truly identical names but did not bar the registration of more than one religious community from the same denomination and arguing that many Evangelical, Baptist and other churches from one and the same denomination had already been registered. The SAC upheld that refusal on April 23, 2012. In a final ruling of March 29, 2013, the Supreme Court of Cassation refused to admit the appeal for examination.

The OCOCB then applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) which, by a judgment dated April 20, 2021, held that the right of the applicant church's adherents to freedom of religion and to an effective remedy had been violated. The ECtHR awarded the applicant EUR 20,180 in pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages and costs and expenses.

In November 2022, the SCC again refused an application for registration of the OCOCB, and in February 2023 the SAC left that refusal standing.

Acting on a cassation appeal against the intermediate-appellate-review judgment, the Supreme Court of Cassation held on December 16, 2024 that the expression "Old Calendar" included in the designation is sufficiently distinctive of the newly established religious institution and also expresses the differences of the religious community with respect to the religious feasts. The Supreme Court argued in its judgment that a registration of the cassation appellant could not possibly affect any rights of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate and its adherents. "The requested registration is for a small religious community which has existed for 30 years and does not lay any claims to the internal organization and the assets of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate," the Court determined, effecting the entry of a religious institution named "Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria" into the Register of Religious Denominations with the SCC.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the executive and legislative branches of government deplored that judgment, as a result of which in January 2025 Parliament amended the Religious Denominations Act, defining the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate as "the sole exponent of Eastern Orthodox Christianity" and prohibiting the existing or future registration of any other religious denomination having the word "Orthodox" or similar words as part of its designation. The law went into force on February 4, 2025.