Editing Bulgarians (section)

===Religion===
{{main|Eastern Orthodox Church|Bulgarian Orthodox Church}}
[[File:Bulgarian-Exarchate-1870-1913.jpg|right|250px|thumb|Map of the [[Bulgarian Exarchate]] (1870–1913). The Ottomans required a threshold of two thirds of positive votes of the Orthodox population to include a region into this jurisdiction.<ref>Hupchick, D.''The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Eastern Europe'', p. 67. Springer, 2016, {{ISBN|9781137048172}}</ref>]]

Most Bulgarians are at least nominally members of the [[Bulgarian Orthodox Church]] founded in 870 AD ([[autocephalous]] since 927 AD). The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is the independent national church of Bulgaria like the other national branches of the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox communion]] and is considered a dominating element of Bulgarian national consciousness. The church was abolished once, during the period of Ottoman rule (1396—1878), in 1873 it was revived as [[Bulgarian Exarchate]] and soon after raised again to Bulgarian [[Patriarchate]]. In 2021, the Orthodox Church at least nominally had a total of 4,219,270 members in Bulgaria (71.5% of the population),<ref name=Census>{{cite web|url=https://nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/pressreleases/Census2021_ethnos.pdf|title=Преброяване 2021: Етнокултурна характеристика на населението|trans-title=2021 Census: Ethnocultural characteristics of the population|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221124195716/https://nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/pressreleases/Census2021_ethnos.pdf|archive-date=24 November 2022|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=staff |first=The Sofia Globe |date=2022-11-24 |title=Census 2021: Close to 72% of Bulgarians say they are Christians |url=https://sofiaglobe.com/2022/11/24/census-2021-close-to-72-of-bulgarians-say-they-are-christians/ |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=The Sofia Globe |language=en-US}}</ref> down from 6,552,000 (83%) at the 2001 census. 3,980,131 of these pointed out the Bulgarian ethnic group (79% of the total Bulgarian ethnic group).<ref>{{Cite web |title=71.5% are the Christians in Bulgaria - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency|url=https://www.novinite.com/articles/217761/71.5+are+the+Christians+in+Bulgaria |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=www.novinite.com}}</ref><ref name=Census/> The Orthodox Bulgarian minorities in [[Romania]], Serbia, [[Greece]], Albania, [[Ukraine]] and [[Moldova]] nowadays hold allegiance to the respective national Orthodox churches.

Despite the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as a unifying symbol for all Bulgarians, small groups of Bulgarians have converted to other faiths through the course of time. During Ottoman rule, a substantial number of Bulgarians converted to Islam, forming the community of the [[Pomaks]] or [[Muslim Bulgarians]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ecmi.de/fileadmin/downloads/publications/JEMIE/2007/2-2007-Eminov.pdf |title=Social Construction of Identities: Pomaks in Bulgaria, Ali Eminov, JEMIE 6 (2007) 2 © 2007 by European Centre for Minority Issues |access-date=2015-02-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170326094257/http://www.ecmi.de/fileadmin/downloads/publications/JEMIE/2007/2-2007-Eminov.pdf |archive-date=26 March 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In the 16th and the 17th centuries Roman Catholic missionaries converted a small number of Bulgarian [[Paulicians]] in the districts of [[Plovdiv]] and [[Svishtov]] to [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholicism]]. Nowadays there are some 40,000 Roman Catholic Bulgarians in Bulgaria, additional 10,000 in the [[Banat]] in Romania and up to 100,000 people of Bulgarian ancestry in South America. The Roman Catholic Bulgarians of the Banat are also descendants of Paulicians who fled there at the end of the 17th century after an unsuccessful uprising against the Ottomans. Protestantism was introduced in Bulgaria by missionaries from the United States in 1857. Missionary work continued throughout the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Nowadays there are some 25,000 Protestant Bulgarians in Bulgaria.