01 — Foundations
The world into which Paisiy Hilendarski was born, and the little that can be said of his origins. This section sets the eighteenth-century Bulgarian lands under Ottoman rule and under the Greek-speaking Phanariot ecclesiastical hierarchy — a people whose medieval empire had been forgotten — and then follows the boy who went from the region of Bansko to Mount Athos.
Tradition: Bulgarian Orthodox
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-bulgarian-lands-under-the-ottomans.md | The context: nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule after 1396; the millet system and the ecclesiastical dominance of the Greek Phanariot hierarchy after the abolition of the Bulgarian patriarchate; the lost memory of the medieval Bulgarian empire and the absence of Bulgarian schools and letters. |
| paisiy-of-bansko.md | The little that is known of Paisiy’s origins: born c. 1722, most likely in Bansko in the Razlog region; the disputes over his birthplace; his brother Lavrentiy, abbot of Hilandar; and his coming to Mount Athos c. 1745. |
See Also
- 02 — Athos and the Gathering of Sources — his monastic life and the sources he gathered
- 05 — Sources and Reliability — the source-critical treatment of the thin biography
- St. John of Rila — the Bulgarian saint of the earlier, medieval Bulgarian world