Patriarch Maxim of Bulgaria

Patriarch Maxim (Bulgarian: Патриарх Максим) (born Marin Minkov, October 29, 1914, Oreshak) is the current head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

He was the second of two children of Nayden Minkov Rachev, but very little is known about his parents' background. He was educated only in his native mountain village of Oreshak but from his late childhood he became a novice monk in the Troyan Monastery and then studied Orthodox Theology at Sofia University. He took Holy Orders in 1941 and became a bishop in the diocese of Branit fifteen years later. In 1960 he was elected Metropolitan of Lovech on October 30, 1960, and during this time, despite the atmosphere of persecution under Todor Zhivkov, Maxim was able to win enough favour with the Politburo to be a certainty for election as Patriarch on July 4, 1971 after Patriarch Cyril died. His long reign as Patriarch has been fraught with great trouble - even after the collapse of Communism less than 1% of Orthodox in Bulgaria attend church on a regular basis. In the early 1990s, a split in the Bulgarian Church was stimulated by the government of the Union of Democratic Forces, based on the alleged cooperation and affiliation of Maxim with the former regime. However, Maxim was able to take control of all the parishes and to prevent any schismatic threats within the Church.