Theological Education in Bulgaria during the Middle Centuries

Abstract

This text is a public lecture given by the author at the University of Tallinn (Estonia) on September 24, 2022. The author’s main thesis is that theological education in Bulgaria during the Middle Ages closely mirrored Byzantine theological education. However, there is a notable distinction between the Bulgarian and Byzantine contexts. In Byzantium, the memory and knowledge of ancient cultural, philosophical, and scientific heritage were actively preserved. This was not the case in Bulgaria, where theological education was at the center of the missionary interest of the Church of Constantinople and served as the primary source of cultural patterns based on texts. This situation significantly influenced the development of Bulgarian written culture and the evolution of the Bulgarian language over the centuries.