Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
"Are all Orthodox peoples brothers?", the "Virtues and Religions" teacher asks the children. This scene can be played out in a classroom with first-graders if the subject becomes mandatory in Bulgarian schools from the 2028/2029 school year. The most important thing is not how the students will answer, but who gives them the right answer.
Does the state determine what is good and what is right?
With the introduction of “Virtues and Religions“, proposed by the ruling “Progressive Bulgaria“, the state is appropriating the role of arbiter of what is good and what is right. Human rights activists and civil society organizations have repeatedly warned that school education is secular and religious institutions have no place in it. Their objections were not heard.
This is not a Bulgarian invention. In recent years, some political regimes have turned “traditional values” and religion into a tool for their legitimation. This policy is most easily imposed in schools.
The deposed Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán invented “Christian democracy”, imposed the mention of God in the preamble of the Hungarian Constitution and increased subsidies for schools run by the church. “Conversations about important things” (Разговоры о важном) is a mandatory propaganda lesson on patriotism in Russian schools and kindergartens, introduced by the Putin regime. Russian Patriarch Kirill publicly supported the initiative and personally leads talks with students.
But beyond the political analogies, a more practical question remains: what does compulsory religion mean for the rights of children themselves. In an article for the publication “Capital” prominent human rights activist and lawyer Snezhana Stefanova warns that the biggest risk is the mechanism that divides children and forces them to reveal their beliefs.
The danger of indoctrination at an early age is also not to be ignored. In the first grade, children have difficulty distinguishing knowledge from suggestion and authority from argument.
Patriarch Daniil got his
However, the legislative initiative is bearing dividends. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church (BOC) is getting what it has been demanding for years: a permanent presence of religious education in the compulsory school curriculum. “Progressive Bulgaria” (PB) is gaining symbolic authority and support from an institution that claims to represent tradition, national identity and moral unity. This strengthens Rumen Radev's formation as a national-conservative one, capable of attracting voters of the BSP, "Vazrazhdane", parts of GERB and in general people angry at moral decline and "Euro-gayism".
"Vazrazhdane" were the first. In practice, the PB "appropriated" their project, which also proposed a mandatory subject "Virtues and Religion" and parents to choose between programs with confessional education: "Religion-Orthodox" or "Religion-Islam", and a program focused on virtues and ethics. Three weeks ago, the deputies of "Progressive Bulgaria" refused to support it, and now they have initiated their own.
Their actions can be explained by a reluctance to have the authorship belong to “Vazrazhdane“. Thus, Radev's party takes away a topic through which the nationalists could mobilize conservative and religious voters.
GERB also tried to push through a bill on religion in schools, which even passed its first reading last fall along with other changes. But it did not move further.
Next year, the Ministry of Education and Science must have developed and approved the curricula and textbooks and trained teachers for “Virtues and Religion” - if they can find any.
The authorities claim that the subject aims to build a sustainable value system in adolescents. They also present it as part of the solution to aggression between students. The latter is an oversimplification of the problem. Aggression does not arise from the lack of a lesson in which children are told how to be good.
The "traditional values" tool
For decades, the communist regime pushed religion and the Church out of the public sphere because it did not allow any other source of authority outside the Party. Today, it is the heirs of this political model who are bringing religion back into schools. But the context is different.
In the last century, the Kremlin exported the ideology of communism, which was also helped by the tanks of the Red Army. After 2000, Moscow no longer has communism to export. Instead, it exports the “Russian world”, “Orthodox civilization”, “traditional family”, anti-liberalism - its new tools for cultural and political influence.
After the weakening of energy and some of the institutional dependencies, Orthodoxy remains one of the few sustainable transnational ties through which Moscow can exercise soft power in countries like Bulgaria.
The proof is the rescue operation of the Bulgarian authorities to remove the Russian Patriarch Kirill from the 21st package of European sanctions. Prime Minister Rumen Radev motivated the request with the contribution of Russian Orthodoxy to “liberation from five centuries of Ottoman slavery”. "I am interested in the entire Russian society, which has this church, which is Eastern Orthodox like ours, we are from one family," Radev explained his position. Patriarch Daniil also praised him for his support at a meeting in late June, after which it became clear that "Virtues and Religion" was given the green light.
That is why the debate about religion in schools cannot be just educational. It is part of the broader dispute about what value model the state will reproduce and whose civilizational guidelines it will impose through education.
Bulgaria has more urgent tasks
Bulgarian education has far more urgent tasks than introducing morality according to state standards. The system suffers from a shortage of teachers in mathematics, physics, chemistry and information technology. Thousands of children continue to study in segregated schools, and functional literacy is alarmingly low. That is where political will and public resources should be directed.
And if anyone still wants to hear the correct answer, it is simple: “No, all Orthodox peoples are not brothers”.