The Bulgarian Orthodox Church as an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church was established in 865 when Boris I. was baptised by Greek missionaries. In the centuries of Ottoman yoke the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was placed under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople. It became independent in 1870 by a decree of the sultan and thus won the international juridical recognition of the Bulgarian nation before its political one.
During the communist era the Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s property was confiscated by the state. The Bulgarian constitution of 1991 guaranteed freedom of religion and recognised Eastern Orthodoxy as “the traditional religion in Bulgaria“. Approximately 90% of the population of Bulgaria belongs to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.