Neophyte Bozveli - a rebel before the revolutionaries

The Bulgarian Renaissance differs from the European Renaissance in one essential feature. While Renaissance personalities in Europe are people outside the Church, in Bulgaria the first bearers of spiritual renewal are increasingly churchmen. The most prominent of them are Paisii Hilendarski, Sofronii Vrachanski and Neofit Bozveli.

Experts point out that after "History of Slavonic and Bulgarian" and "The Life and Suffering of Sinful Sophronius", the work of Neophyte Bozveli "Mother Bulgaria" is the third most influential, most educational and patriotic read. Paisius and Sophronius are widely spoken and written - known as personalities and destinies, while Neophyte Bozveli is more unpopular. That is why in Bulgarka magazine we will tell you more about him - this valiant sufferer with a powerful spirit.

Neophyte Bozveli was born about 1785 in Kotel. He studied with Stoiko Vladislavov (the future Sofronii Vrachanski) in his hometown, after which he made his way to the Hilendar Monastery of Sveta Gora. He was briefly deacon at the monastery and then sent to Svishtov. In the town of Svishtov he will forever associate his fate with N. Bozveli, here his patriotism is defiled. After the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1812, the city was burned and its population burned in Wallachia. Neophyte Bozveli is on a mission to bring the Bulgarians back home. "It collected us from Wallachia like sheep that had no shepherd," Fist writes in a collective message. In 1827 - 1829 he was led with the same mission in Sliven - to discourage the Bulgarian population from emigrating after another Russian-Turkish war.

Neophyte Bozveli helps with various means for the spiritual elevation of Svishtov. In this city he works as a teacher and preacher for about 25 years. Together with the Bulgarian national revival, Emanuel Vaskidovich publishes textbooks under the common name "Slavic Bulgarian Childhood". In the preface to Childhood, Neophyte declares his ardent patriotism.
"Everyone has a duty, irrevocable, and by a God-given, to love his fatherland, and to take as great care as he can for his benefit. Why the common love of the country brings universal benefits; and when we take care of the common benefits, we are not deprived of our own benefit. " "Where fatherly love is, many honest virtues flourish there," said N. Bozveli. The purpose of "Childhood" is to "heal the people from the years of blind ignorance" and to commemorate our "glorious ancient Slavic ancestors of Bulgaria".

This is how Bozveli describes the situation of popular enlightenment in the last decades of Ottoman rule. "The Bulgarians are generally open-hearted - in the science of nothing bold, and unspeakable, but strange, reverent, hardworking, calm and peaceful, kind and witty. But the doctrine makes them completely wild, ignorant and ridiculed by other European nations' scholars and scholars. " Through enlightenment this "ungodly, inhuman and poor and miserable, humiliated and abusive state" must be stopped once and for all.

In 1839, Neophyte Bozveli went to Constantinople, where he headed the struggle for the Independent Bulgarian Church, his most memorable work. In 1840, with the help of the Constantinople Bulgarians, he tried to lead the Metropolitanate of Turnovo, but was refused. Deceived by the Greeks, he was sent to Tarnovo as a protosingel (assistant) to the Greek metropolitan. His ardent patriotism is not appealing to the Greeks in any way, so he was soon slandered and sent to exile Holy Mountain in 1841. This exile is spent in very difficult conditions that damage his health. He managed to escape in 1844 and together with Hilarion Makariopolski to lead again the struggle for Bulgarian church independence.

"I am wretched, I am imprisoned,
But I still have a brave spirit. "
I have "flesh weak but spirited." - Neophyte Bozveli

There is no clearer explanation for N. Bozveli's fearlessness, his spirit of "courageous", than his absolute conviction in the correctness of Bulgarian patriotic work. Bulgarians are no worse off than the Greeks to tolerate the Greek spiritual yoke. It must be acted upon. Such is the position of Neophyte Bozveli. "Get up, slaves! I will not yoke! ”- as Benkovski would later say.

The Greeks manage to send the neo-neophyte Bozveli into captivity again. This time forever. During his last exile, Neophyte bequeathed to us the crown of his creativity - Matti Bulgaria. It denounces the harm done by Greek priests to Bulgarian. The Greek clergy are "charming murderers, turning black into white, iniquity into righteousness, lying into truth, and shame into equal."

In Mother Bulgaria, the mother (Mother Bulgaria) asks her son how the Greeks succeed in their intentions to hug the Bulgarians. To which the son replies that the reason lies in the patriarchate, which is invading the Greek rulers of the Bulgarian population. And they pursue the Bulgarian language and the Bulgarian book. The son says: "The Greeks have started burning books in Slavic-Bulgarian language - with the intention of spoiling your births ... First of all, every day, everywhere in our poor Bulgaria, in monasteries, in churches and in which are found old handwritten leathers of all kinds Bulgarian books have been burned, so far as they have been found, they have been burned, and it is not allowed to bring out new ones in the Bulgarian language. "The only way out of this" robbery "is the Bulgarian education. Mother Bulgaria: “Schools and teachers, my dear ones! The state of your eyes is open for you! ". "Try as hard as you can and educate your mother tongue books!"

Neophyte Bozveli rested on June 4, 1848. An eternally restless spirit was extinguished. The rebel - the forerunner of the revolutionaries Levski, Botev and Benkovski, died. The neophyte Bozveli will forever be remembered for his magnificent work, for his martyrdom and suffering, with the patils he wears in the name of the Bulgarian race. Rakovski will write about it: “He first started to preach clearly in Bulgaria and to excite the people to claim his historical rights. He came to Constantinople and caught himself first in the apparent fight against the Phanarites, injured many of them, and at last sacrificed his life for the people. "