REPORT OF ARCHPRIEST MIHAILO POPOVIĆ ON THE RESTITUTION OF CHURCH PROPERTY ALIENATED UNDER THE BULGARIAN OCCUPATION IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Abstract

Under the Bulgarian military, civil and church authorities in the territory of the occupied Kingdom of Serbia in the First World War, in addition to other crimes, the various movable property of the Serbian Orthodox Church was confiscated. In this connection, the paper will analyze in more detail and present t he report of archpriest Mihailo Popović, parish priest of Belgrade, who was entrusted with the mission of returning church property from Bulgaria in 1921. This document is a valuable historical source that testifies not only to the factual consequences of the Bulgarian occupation administration and the attack on Serbian spiritual and cultural heritage, but also to Popović’s personal impressions of the situation in the Bulgarian church and the attitude of its dignitaries towards the past war and Serbian-Bulgarian relations. The document is stored in the fund of the Ministry of Religion Archives of Yugoslavia.