| OCR Text |
Show LAST OF BULGARIAN EXARCHS Third and the Final.Man to Hold Office Has Recently Passed Away In Sofia. Joseph I, by birth Laiar Yovtcheff, liose death is announce from Sofia was the third and in reality the last of tne Bulgarian exarchs. The exarchate is older than the Bulgarian Bul-garian state, and played a great part n calling it into heing and extending - Us boundaries. The firman establish-lS70the establish-lS70the exal'chute ls'dated March 11, The first exarch was not chosen till two years later, and held office for only Ave days. His successor ruled for five years, and was compelled to re-si re-si n when Russia declared war. T ;elve days later Joseph was elected. His promotion was extraordinarily rapid. Born in U40, he was a Journalist. Journal-ist. The second exarch made him secretary sec-retary general to the exarchate In 1S72. He took orders that ytar on the very day when the patriarch excommunicated excommuni-cated the Bulgarian church. A month later he was an archimandrite. archiman-drite. In 1 874-75 he was sent to the bishopric of Wirtdln, and he thereafter returned to Constantinople as the right hand of the exarch. In 1876 he became metropolitan of Loftcha and a year later exarch. He was a man of great courage, cool Judgment, skilled diplomacy, untiring patience and high organizing talent. He carried the exarchate through the critical time of the war. He resisted all efforts of Turks, Greeks, and even shortsighted Bulgarians Bulga-rians to confine his authority to the territories of the new Bulgarian state, and he slowly and steadily extended the sway of the Bulgarian church In Thrrce and Macedonia and laid the foundation of the Greater Bulgaria. The story of his establishing new bishoprics and emancipating the Bulgarian Bul-garian schools from Greek control la such a chapter" In diplomacy as only. Balkan chronicles can show. The second Balkan war virtually confined the authority of the exarchate to the limits of the Bulgarian state, and its Importance as a political institution insti-tution for the making of the big Bulgaria Bul-garia apparently disappeared. Maa-chester Maa-chester Guardian. |
