Religion and science in Bulgaria

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleРелигия и наука в България
3. Language term Bulgarian
4. lemma author Nachev, Ivaylo
5. lemma category Modes of interaction
6. Publication date 10-12-2017
7. lemma work Чурешки, Стефан [Author]. Religion and science in Bulgaria
8. lemma manifestations Съвременник : списание на Съюза на българските писатели за литература, критика и публицистика
9. Keywords Bulgarian educational system - atheism
10. Lemma body

    1. The author touched upon multiple aspects of the science-religion relations in Bulgarian context. More attention was devoted to the development in the educational system since the 19^th century. The philosophy of science and philosophy of religion are depicted as two fundamental fields for current developments of society, whose relation, however, has not been a subject to serious academic study, according to the author. In addition, the philosophy of science has been dominated by atheist perceptions since the late 19^th century which has been a major obstacle for the development of religious education.

       The author noted works of Nevrokop's bishop Boris from the 1930s, where the crisis in education was attributed to the atheist worldview. Many of the crises in society from the early 20th century until present days could be explained by the lack of Eastern Orthodox teaching at schools, according to Chureshki.

       The solid philosophical argumentation of atheism has been nurtured by translations in Bulgarian of all major atheist thinkers. Furthermore, this trend escalated in the communist period through even more encompassing educational system based on purely atheist materialistic ground. At the same time there was no response from the humanities, there was no elaboration on the centuries-long struggle of Bulgarian people for keeping the true Orthodox faith and there was no philosophy of history from such perspective. According to the author, western humanitarian thought neglects Orthodox models, while Bulgarian scholars uncritically follow this pattern. Bulgarian humanitarian sciences – including philosophy, theology, history and psychology – do not rely on the Orthodox traditions.  In addition, in the literature there were just few Orthodox models in contradiction to the total domination of atheist characters. The author argued in favor of a new philosophy on science which will be based on Orthodox values.