Eugene Bossilkov
Bulgarian Roman Catholic bishop, martyr and blessed (1900–1952)
Eugene Bossilkov, CP (born Vincent Bossilkov 16 November 1900 – 11 November 1952) was a Bulgarian Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Nicopolis from 1947 until his execution by Bulgaria's communist regime in 1952. He was a member of the Passionists.
Bossilkov studied in Rome for his doctorate at the Pontifical Oriental Institute and became a parish priest in the Danube Valley. After becoming a bishop, he was arrested in 1952 by the Communist regime, together with many other religious leaders, and executed for ostensible crimes against the state. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1998.
Life
Vincent Bossilkov was born to a family of Bulgarian Latin Rite Catholics on November 16, 1900, in Belene, Bulgaria. After studies, he entered the Passionist Congregation at the age of 14. The Passionists are an Italian religious institute founded by Saint Paul of the Cross in the eighteenth century. They have practiced in Bulgaria since 1781. Bossilkov studied in Passionist houses in the Netherlands and Belgium and took the religious name Eugene.
“Eugene Bossilkov” enters the record as bulgarian Roman Catholic bishop, martyr and blessed (1900–1952). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Eugene, Bossilkov and Bulgarian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1284685. VIAF identifies the subject as 34631586. The Library of Congress control number is no99013987. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1952, 1947 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eugene Bossilkov” 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.