The ‘People’s Court’ of 1944–1945 and the ‘Second People’s Court’ of 1948

The Repressions Against the Church and Church–State Relations Under the Communist Regime

Abstract

On 9 September 1944, Bulgaria was occupied by the Red Army, and an atheist regime, modelled on that of Soviet Russia, was imposed. State institutions were rapidly brought under full control. Within only a few months, hundreds of clergy passed through the prisons. During the so-called “First Wave” (9 September 1944 – 1 February 1945)—often described as the Bartholomew Nights of mass killings in Bulgaria—thousands of people disappeared without trial or sentence. Yet can a person truly be made to “disappear” physically? With the establishment of the People’s Court on 20 December 1944, through the Ordinance-Law for the prosecution of those deemed responsible for involving Bulgaria in the world war against the Allied nations and for the atrocities associated with it, the murders committed after 9 September 1944 were effectively given a veneer of legality. The autodafés now served a new purpose: through “legal” executions, terror, the cultivation of fear, and systematic repression, to uproot and eradicate the Christian identity of the Bulgarian people and their belonging to the Church of Christ. The God-opposing spirit of the communist authorities did not spare even the clergy of the Bulgarian Church.