Boris I of Bulgaria
Bulgarian ruler
Boris I (also Bogoris), venerated as Saint Boris I (Mihail) the Baptizer (Church Slavonic: Борисъ / Борисъ-Михаилъ, Bulgarian: Борис I / Борис-Михаил; died 2 May 907), was the ruler (knyaz) of the First Bulgarian Empire from 852 to 889. Despite a number of military setbacks, the reign of Boris I was marked with significant events that shaped Bulgarian and European history. With the Christianization of Bulgaria in 864, paganism was abolished. A skillful diplomat, Boris I successfully exploited the conflict between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Papacy to secure an autocephalous Bulgarian Church, thus dealing with the nobility's concerns about Byzantine interference in Bulgaria's internal affairs.
When in 885 the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius were banished from Great Moravia, Boris I gave them refuge and assistance, which saved the Glagolitic script and later promoted the development of the Cyrillic script and of Slavic literature. After he abdicated in 889, his eldest son and successor tried to restore the old pagan religion but was deposed by Boris I. During the subsequent Council of Preslav, Byzantine clergymen were replaced by native Bulgarians, and the Greek language was replaced with what is now known as Old Church Slavonic as the church language.
He is regarded as a saint in the Orthodox Church, as the Prince and baptizer of Bulgaria, and as Equal-to-the-Apostles, with his feast day observed on May 2 and in Synaxis of all venerable and holy Fathers of Bulgaria (movable holiday on the 2nd Sunday of Pentecost).
Name and titles
The most common theory is that the name Boris is of Bulgar origin. After his official act of conversion to Christianity, Boris adopted the Christian name Michael. He is sometimes called Boris-Michael in historical research.
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This entry incorporates text from “Boris I of Bulgaria” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.