Changing the Symbols: The Media and Religions in Bulgaria

Changing the Symbols: The Media and Religions in Bulgaria October 1996

Changing the Symbols: The Media and Religions in Bulgaria

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About the study Changing the symbols The media as simulacrum The characters

God and the Native Land Churches and state Characters in the media tale - East-Orthodoxy in search of stately public figures - Islam: The depersonalized neighbour - Non-traditional denominations: The unacceptable other A word about the narrator

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Media tales

Bulgaria with two Patriarchs Time for forgiveness The white-walled church - an accomplished wish An East-Orthodox temple was constructed by Muslims and Christians Together A Pomak state is not a realistic proposal The Pope calls for peace God is love "I ordered the gas attacks"

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The hidden effects Summary

About the study The study "Changing the Symbols: The Media and Religions in Bulgaria" covers the period from September 1, 1995 to September 1, 1996.

Four leading in circulation independent dailies were researched: Trud, 24 Chasa, Continent andStandard; the largest weekly - 168 Chasa, and also the Zora weekly - a publication which, before declaring itself a “National Weekly”, was frankly a mouthpiece of virulent nationalism.

The daily newspapers of the main political forces in this country were also studied: the official Duma(daily of the ruling Socialist Party), and Democratsia (daily of the Union of Democratic Forces - UDF - the main political opposition formation) which still attracts the public interest.

Some local newspapers appearing in Shumen, Razgrad, Varna, and Plovdiv which are the main towns in regions with ethnically mixed population, or are known as regions where different religions coexist, were also researched.

Two types of texts are subject of the analysis: texts in which the religious theme is not central, but which in one way or another relate to it on the level of covering current events, or in which the religious theme is present as one of the topics of comment (1,976 such items were found); and texts which directly deal with the religious subject, and in which the religious topic is declared in the headline

(1,201 such items were found).

With the use of diverse professional and contents criteria this study tried to establish the essential characteristics of the present-day media approach to the religious theme, of the social and political environment in which this phenomenon exists in Bulgaria, and to disclose the typical components used in the construction of the public image of each religious denomination.

The employed method of content analysis gives us the possibility to detachedly reflect on the substance of the texts, and to place them in their specific social and religious context.

Changing the symbols When scrutinizing the public spectrum of a post-Communist country one inevitably draws contradictory conclusions. The diversification of the press and the electronic media was accepted as something natural. People also soon became used to the idea that the media can acquire a detached critical view of the government. Every now and then people find how inconsequential the emancipation of the media vis-a-vis the authorities, and how monotonous in all their diversity these media can be.

This is not an expression of gloominess, naturally brought about by the crisis in which Bulgarian society finds itself submerged today. With all due respect to the real advances achieved by the media in Bulgaria, still it should be pointed that every single day they inundate the public with unsubstantiated writings and subject it to verbal aggression. Their messages are pitifully unable to look into the future. Something more: the media are stridently trying to preserve the status-quo of witlessness; they construct schematic presentations of reality and ideological stereotypes; they amplify the dominating views; and by doing so they do not contribute in any way to the transformation of the masses into citizens. They remain as hostile as ever to unconventionality, even as society has ostensibly become a bit more tolerant.

The conditions of communicating in present day Bulgaria are displaying a number of peculiarities, that are a reflection of the general socio-political environment in this country. The press was the first to be emancipated from the monopoly of the state, thus generating the milieu conducive to media pluralism.

There is still no nationwide private alternative to the state-owned radio and television. This is why newspapers continue to preserve their standing as the basic independent information carriers. Their editorializing is of substantial, but not of basic importance for attracting the attention of the public. The general technological underdevelopment cannot but reflect negatively on the electronic media, and keeps them mainly on the level of news-reporting. This particularity, together with the fact that in-depth reporting is not always enough newsworthy as to attract the attention of the electronic media, turns the press into a field worthwhile exploring.

Exploration of any topic provides an opening for comprehending the basic processes going on in the Bulgarian media today. The subject that provoked this particular research is the manner in which the Bulgarian press treats matters relating to religion. The general impression created by the stream of writings on religion and denominations can be described succinctly by the terms “persistency, uniformity, mediocrity�. This would say: keeping the subject on the back-burner by a few, average in size articles; absence of scoops and attractive writing; moving topics on religion to the inside pages.

But this is just a first fleeting impression...

The media as simulacrum It can be said, even if with reservations, that the media approach to subjects covered in this study has not changed significantly during 1995-1996.

Bulgaria's media analysts discerned as early as 1990 one of the basic features of the new Bulgarian democratic journalism: the verbal eruption. The mass circulation independent daily 24 Chasa had

already achieved a drastic renewal of its phraseology. Its reports sounded as if written in street slang.

The other independent dailies - Trud and Standard - followed the leader. The lexical renewal in the journalistic profession was considered a typical expression of the process of democratization. In the first two years after November 10, 1989 - the start of the democratic transformation in Bulgaria - the public was craving for, and expected a change. That is why the verbal “denuding” was seen at first glance as an embodiment of change. AS IF this in itself would automatically lead to the discarding of the old myths. The new press stories, it SEEMED, were promoting in place of the former totalitarian formulas, new values such as the right to personal happiness, to freedom of choice, to private enterprise in a free market economy, and to prosperity. The mediaspeak of the influential newspapers created such an imagery. Very soon the press analysts found that the lexical revolution against the political, social and moral taboos was actually a SIMULATION of change, rather than a real change.

If we can borrow the terms formulated by Jean Baudrilard, the transpirations in the Bulgarian media were one of the significant SIMULACRUMS of a society trying to democratize itself.

The expected simultaneity of the verbal liberation of the press and the REAL liberation of the mind did not materialize, and the latter was all the time lagging behind. To a certain extent this was to be expected, because, by presumption, the decommunization as a socio-psychological process is not only a very complicated, but also, and decisively, a slowly developing phenomenon. The individual considers as an infringement upon his autonomous cultural identity every change imposed from the OUTSIDE on the paradigm in all its aspects: not only political, but also social; ideological, and psychological; not only in the sense of human values, but also as a way of life and of status. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the developments in East Europe following that most important event in the last th decade of the 20 century were, for Bulgarian society, to a large extent something that was coming from abroad! Naturally, journalism should prepare the efforts of the renovating cognizance. PostCommunist reality, it proved, was hindering in multifarious ways such trends.

During the period 1992-1993, it proved, journalism had liberated itself from the propaganda stereotypes and from the wooden dogmatic communist style ONLY superficially, ONLY in its verbiage.

Implicitly this means that the journalistic way of thinking in the post-communist media STILL is incapable of grasping a number of features, typical of the really democratic press. It proved incapable of differentiating between things civic and things governmental; of upholding consistently the inalienability of human rights; of being open to dialogue. In most cases Bulgarian journalism articulates the reflexes of both the hysterically politicized social groups, and of the primitively commercialized, encompassing narrow selfish interests and moral degradation. A logical consequence of all this in media practices is the prejudiced treatment of different cases pertaining to the individual or to society, and the frankly bigoted approach to differing from the majority ethnic and religious marginal strata.

The treatment in the media of subjects related to religion amply illustrates these complex by origin, but one-dimensional developments when considered by the results they have produced.

A background survey of the short period of seemingly liberal discursive media practices will illustrate the somewhat abstract assumptions about press coverage in the period between 1989 and 1992.

When, for the first time in Bulgaria, one could see in the streets young people dressed in colorful yellow garments, tambourine in hand, singing Hare Krishna, the public in general, and the press in particular did not consider that as anything wrong. The “Euphoria of Change” was clearing the atmosphere of public opinion. PUBLICITY was breathing freely. Society was gladly becoming aware that it can at last pull itself out of the Procrustean bed of the old ideology, and accepted the new winds blowing in the spiritual field as something vitally necessary. Quite often the cultural influx of new theological models and beliefs was accepted uncritically by Bulgarians who nominally believed themselves to be of the East-Orthodox creed. The opening of society meant, especially to the younger generations, accessibility to modern communicative models, including religious ones. Naturally, this is not the only reason for the sudden popularity in Bulgaria of Evangelist reformist movements of the Swedish type, such as “Word of Life International.” It can be said that in principle Protestantism in the Bulgarian environment has a special attraction with its emphasis on Life-on-this-Earth, with its liberal theology, with its charismatic spiritual leaders, its rock concerts during holy service, and so on. To the contrary, Eastern Orthodoxy is associated, especially in the eyes of the younger generations with archaism, with an aging and sclerotic clergy, with outlandishness of the ritual, and last but not least --

with the opportunistic collaboration of the Bulgarian East-Orthodox Church with the authorities through the entire rule of the Communist regime.

In other words, during the period between 1989 and 1992 the individual, even when personally not involved in one of the many and different religious societies, marveled at the New and the Differing.

On their part the newspapers scrupulously informed the Bulgarian public on the Eastern exotics of the Krishna mantras, and of the movement of the young Protestants against abortions. Newspapers reported the refusal of followers of Jehovah‟s Witnesses to perform military service which, by the way, provoked discussions among MPs on the need of a legislative act on alternative national service. In such circumstances the conflicts between the civic sphere and structures of the state, between mass media and the right of the individual to freedom of conscience and of belief, did not seem to be essential.

A separate problem is posed by the new, “democratic media attitude to the other traditional religion in this country - Islam. The largest ethnic minority in Bulgaria - the Turkish minority - lives in a negatively loaded political surrounding. The former totalitarian regime followed, via its educational and cultural policy, a strategy of assimilating the Turkish and the Bulgarian-Muslim population. In the 1970s the regime brought to extremity this strategy by launching the so called “Revival Process” - a forced change of the names of Bulgarian citizens with a Turkish ethnic self-consciousness, or belonging to the Muslim religion. The infringements on religious symbols, on temples, on holy services of the Muslims reached such levels of barbarity, as have never occurred up to that moment in the relationship between Bulgarians and Turks after the liberation of the country from Ottoman domination a century ago. After the downfall of the totalitarian regime in 1989 the Movement for Rights and Freedoms appeared as a guarantee that the ethnic and religious identity of the Muslims will be preserved. Study of the mother tongue - the Turkish language - advanced hand-in-hand with the restoration at last of the formerly banned religious practices of the Muslims. The reconstruction or new construction of mosques did not seem to threaten in any way the normal cultural intercourse between Islam and the existing in the region East-Orthodox and Evangelist denominations. *** At the beginning of 1993 the idyllic coexistence between media and individuals who have made their particular choice of denomination and of belief in a God, came to an end.

To understand this phenomenon we must first recognize its socio-psychological environment. On the one hand, we have the workings of the new religious formations in a socium that cannot be interpreted in one-dimensional categories. Still certain conclusions are at hand. For example, judging by fleeting sociological data, accumulated in the period after the downfall of communism, the spiritual identification of the Bulgarians seems to have qualitatively changed. The number of believers in God has increased, but this does not mean that the basic spiritual characteristic has changed. In other words, although the number of Bulgarians openly declaring themselves to be Christians has drastically grown, the secular religious-ideological paradigm continues to dominate. This paradigm is a product of communist atheism, cultivated during the last 50 years, but also of the general modern and postmodern trends. Besides, we should remember the specific Bulgarian cultural and spiritual environment. This, on the one hand.

To the multifariousness of the Bulgarian spiritual identification we should add the complicated pattern of relationships developing between members of the new denominations and their personal environment. The first eruption of negative information reaching the media came from parents whose children have made nontraditional religious choices. Because of their singularity such choices were faced with enmity. For many reasons rooted in the outlook of the older generation, such choices proved to be profoundly unacceptable. Maybe the most important objection was against the religious zealotry of their newly converted children, and includes the discovery of moral values, DIFFERENT of those of the older generation. An important element in the aggregate generational and cultural confrontation is the denial by the young of the established ways of secular conduct -- watching television, a “discotheque” stile of life. To which should be added the incomprehensible to “normals” preference by such youths of theological literature to secular or action novels. With disapproval met also: the abstention of consuming meat (based on the belief of Krishna followers that vegetarianism safeguards life); the refusal of doing military service (based on the pacifist beliefs of Jehovah‟s

Witnesses); the denial of the values of consumer societies (based on the moral rigorism of the Evangelist Word of Life, Christ Soldiers, Rema, Emmanuel). A good illustration of the conflict “traditional - new” is the categorical denial by the parents‟ generation of the choice of those of their children, who joined the Moonist structures. Real panic is provoked by titles such as Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP), or Ashoka Foundation, Logos, etc. The unification theology of Moon - one of the popular, because of its clarity, theologies of the new religious movement - usually attracts well-educated young people, which enhanced the enmity against Bulgarian University students of the Moonist persuasion. In this case the generational and cultural conflict exploded on the basis of the alien to an Eastern-Orthodox country as Bulgaria messianic ideas of the Reverend Moon.

Members of the organization selling art objects in streets and public places, thus earning money for the United Church and recruiting new followers, faced total hostility. One can only imagine what a frustrating effect on the patriarchal Bulgarian society produce the collective marriages of Moon followers whose partners are chosen by the South Korean messiah, residing in the USA... Inter parenthesis, I should point that in this case a parallel between media intolerance in the East and the West can be discerned: Moonism is one of those new religious movements that are met with the strongest hostility from both parents and media in the West too.

Media and socio-psychological attitudes towards Muslims remain, to a large extent, un-researched.

Sociological data in this field up to 1995 are practically lacking. Speculations on this topic by analogy with the already sketched attitudes of society towards the religious revival among Christian and quasiChristian creeds in this country after November 10, 1989, will be unscientific. In any case Islam becomes, when necessary, a media topic, that is usually approached in a political context. In Bulgaria the believers in Allah are usually represented as underdeveloped people. Discrimination against women by Islam is being emphasized. The negative attitude towards Islamists in Algeria and Afghanistan is definite. Media and public are competing in persuading each other of the sociopathological character of those Islamists, and of the threat to the secular State poised by theocratic states of the Iranian type. Opportunistic speculation with Islam in Bulgaria can be observed in times of political tensions caused by local or presidential elections. In such circumstances the media exploit frankly post-communist nationalistic prejudices.

And so, the intermingling different streams in the conflict zone between media and religious freedoms usually spring from the “signals” of disapproval that the traditionalist-thinking, the secularized, or the atheistically formatted strata of the population in Bulgaria send to the media. On their part, newspapers circulating signals coming from only one side of the public spectrum - the side of the disapproving and the uninformed on the new spiritual phenomena - fall in the anti-democratic trap.

Although, by presumption, the new democratic Press should bolster the principle of pluralism, religious pluralism included, this is not the case. Particularly blatant is the case with the writings of young journalists, who, supposedly, infused new blood in both newly created and old newspapers. Free of the prejudices of the aged or of the communist outlook of their older colleagues, they found themselves in the very difficult position of being torn between their personal outlooks and the expectations of their readers. It is the compliance to the preferences of the readers that sell commercialized newspapers by which these young journalists are employed. Even the daily of the democratic opposition - Democratsia - does not differ in its writings on the right of the individual to religious choice, for that same reason - the dominating outlook of readers of all political persuasions in Bulgaria is traditionally East-Orthodox, secular and atheistic. In this particular case this newspaper which is usually facing its readers, replaced the true information on the true facts about the new trends with a simulation of informing the public.

There is one more answer about the reasons for media intolerance when reporting religious affairs.

The word is about the personal intellectual interpretation of the events that should be an attribute of both key personalities in the journalistic profession and rank-and-file reporters. Such an intellectual interpretation is very scant, or is lacking altogether. Besides, there is an “interference,” additionally impeding the aptness of news-reporting: reader and journalist are mutually influencing each other, and the incognizance of the first becomes a matter of strategic importance to the latter. In other words, knowing his reader, the journalist caters to his particular desires and expectations. On his part the reader uses the journalistic reports as a basis for interpreting the events. Actually both intermediary and consumer - journalist and reader - stand on the same level of ignorance and incomprehension of the unfolding developments, with the only result of a steady self-stimulating increase of that same IGNORANCE AND INCOMPREHENSION.

The described up to this point trends represent, at least for the time being, a stable characteristic of the new democratic journalism.

The word is about the substitution of information with the semblance of information. Again, particularly typical is the media coverage of the so called sects.

In the Bulgarian press, the notion “sect” was practically unknown, with the single exception of its narrow political connotation. By the end of 1992 the newspapers were actually practicing substitution of information with imitations of the real thing. An example is the way in which the format “interview” is used. In the normal case it is apparent that the journalist intends to discuss the problem, and thus attracts the confidence of the reader. But in our case this format is used by the newspaper to provide a rostrum to a chosen spokesperson either of the “anti-sects” movement, or of a governmental body that is ideologically biased against the new religious movements. Thus a dialogue and a will to uncover the truth about the phenomenon “New Religious Movements” is simulated. The selected spokesperson recites their “evidence,” which boils down to the simple maxim: disapproves because the phenomenon is incomprehensible them, and cannot comprehend it, because they deny it in the first place. And no one confronts them with ANOTHER approach to the subject. If the interviewed believes the so called sects are socially dangerous - again there is no contradicting view. An extremely negative image of the new religious movements is being implanted in the public mind: members of the sects are hooked to narcotics; they are being hypnotized and brainwashed; they read strange books; they do not want to do military service; they are aggressive; and all this because they do not observe the East-Orthodox canon...

It is not difficult to sense the similitudes of pluralism, of veracity and of informational propriety. The problem is that the public is to a very great extent uncritical to these journalistic tricks. The public has no experience in counteracting such typically post-Communist simulacrums.

The public is uncritical also towards another obvious trait of the new journalism in dealing with religious matters: not just of the one sided use it makes of, say, opinions of activists of the Parents Committee for Defense of the Family, but also of the exploitation of police reports as its basic and only source of information. The simulation is total: the report in the newspaper SEEMS to be the end product of a personal journalistic investigation... If Standard daily announces on its first page that the forces of law and order scattered a secret gathering of Jehovah‟s Witnesses, this will fully satisfy the average reader, for that reader is DEPENDENT on the media. He ALREADY does not want to know who the Witnesses or their beliefs are, because the MEDIA has stamped on his mind once and for all a repulsive image of the “Jehovahites.” The image of THE ALIEN. That is an image of an unacceptable person, socially destructive, menacing the national interests. Media practices of the last several years have managed to make the reader feel INFORMED about the deeds of the “sects,” just as on his part the journalist feels that he is doing a good job of INFORMING on them. For the media of today the problem of diversity of sources of information is nonexistent. Under the heading “Sects” you can make WHATEVER allegations you want: that the new religious societies are criminogenic; that the sects are intent on seizing political power; that they clandestinely smuggle children out of the country; that they turn MPs into zombies; and so on, ad infinitum. The view of the average reader is that the newspaper cannot lie, that it CANNOT WRONGLY INFORM, inform that the newspaper is doing exactly the opposite. The Reader cannot see himself as being brainwashed. The fact is that the average reader does not comprehend that he or she is a puppet in the game of political and media interests. The information HAS all the apparent signs of an information. The problem is that it SIMULATES the real thing. The actual researching, the scrupulous and dispassionate search for the truth are missing. A typical example is a voluminous text in Standarddaily about the suicide of a young woman from Pleven - a town in Northern Bulgaria. The journalist supposedly investigated the case, and stated her so called findings. Her inferences are entirely in resonance with what the readers of this newspaper wanted to hear: the woman committed suicide under the influence of Krishna literature, which she read excessively. Five months later another daily -Continent - published an extensive report on its own investigations on the tragedy in the city of Pleven. The allegations of the two newspapers are diametrically opposed. The problem is that the scrupulous investigations of Continent in this case were published too late: the parents of the deceased are convinced that the “sect” murdered their daughter.

In conclusion we can summarize that in the period 1995-1996 the established practice of the media

when covering religious affairs is the substitution of events with non-events. The simulation of information on such events is not only a journalistic-professional, but also a socio-psychological phenomenon.

The characters Snejana Popova In a country where religious topics were receiving for many decades only scant public coverage, the opening of the media to religion seemingly started in a void, at that only a few years ago. Such a perfunctory observation is misleading. Writing on religion in the Bulgarian Press started not after a collective amnesia but after passing together through a dream that jumbled the links in the collective memory. The resurrection of the theme is blemished by the aftereffects of the dream, by the reconstruction of recollections, images, assumption.

God and the Native Land The return of the religious theme in the Bulgarian press assumes that it should appear involved with individual, social, and national values. The results of this study reveal, that on the pages of the researched newspapers, most voluminous is the block of texts dealing with the traditional Bulgarian creed - East-Orthodox Christianity (50 percent of all the items on religion). In these texts the traditional creed is represented above all as upholding the values of the national entity: supporting the traditions (14 percent); preserving the nationality (10 percent); advancing Bulgarian statehood (8 percent).

The image God and the native land, uniting Heaven and Earth, Soul and Body, reconstructs the links with the natural human desire for wholeness and resurrects collective memories. Seemingly this is unquestionable: God stands by the Native Land to name together a nation, upon which, in the words of Edgar Morin, the majority pours unrestrictedly its childhood feelings for the family. But no less possible is that the Native Land will stand up by God to reconquer its status, lost in the long years of paying homage to the ideological stereotype of Socialist Internationalism.

The links of East-Orthodoxy with the traditions and the national survival are the main attributes, emphasized not only by all the researched newspapers, but by all Bulgarian media.

The images of the more popular in Bulgaria denominations (the Muslim, in the first place, but also Catholicism, Protestantism, the Armenian Church) are relied to values of the national entity in only a few texts of the researched material. This fact, being of no surprise, is indicative: the media do not deny a place in the larger national community to traditional minority creeds, but assigns them that place in the periphery. As to the non-traditional creeds, the studied newspapers (with insignificant differences in the approach) are implacable: the “alien”, the “other”, the “foreign” religions are aggressors; “our national home” must be protected from them.

Churches and State The relations between religions and the state also carry the stains of the past. The total control of the state over the churches in the time before the start of democratic changes was followed by the rash political polarization, typical of the Bulgarian post-communist society. This polarization engrossed also the religions and impeded them in acquiring autonomy from the state and its institutions. Naturally, the religious theme in the media also did not gain autonomy.

On the pages of the researched newspapers both East-Orthodoxy and Islam were torn up by conflicts, which were an echo of the political conflicts. The press writes of non-traditional denominations as of transgressors coming under the sanction of the law of the state, and the latter by amending the law in 1994 practically deprived them of registration and, respectively, of the right to carry out their activities.

In the studied period the religious theme appears most often linked to politics (15 percent of all the recorded items). Although strictly religious engagements (rituals, celebrations, religious behavior, etc.)

are the occasion for a considerable number of press reports, as a whole they are by far surpassed by texts in which religion and institutions of the state go hand in hand. The traditional links of religion with culture, ethics, way of life and family form the foundation of the high attractivity rating of religious events. The non-autonomous topic "Religions" can easily be introduced in stereotype narrative blueprints, which this research clearly outlined.

Naturally, the foreign reader will find it difficult to assimilate the idea that the traditional creed in Bulgaria (East-Orthodox Christianity) can have two Patriarchs (a legitimate and a non-legitimate one), and the second in size creed (Islam) - two Muftis (also a legitimate and a non-legitimate one). And that the writings on religion can swarm with terms denoting split, multiplication, disintegration. The foreign reader will maybe find it difficult to sense the bitterness in the following press headline: “Every Bulgarian with a God of his own.”

After the period of the "dream" the religious theme in Bulgarian media found itself to be a rich heir resurrectionist of archaic generalized assumptions and active participant in the creation of new myths.

Characters in the media tale This research found ample data, providing us with possibilities to trace the motions of different religions as acts of collective characters, or of individualized religious personalities. One of these possibilities is the analysis of the intertextual links in the headlines. In general the headlines in the researched Bulgarian newspapers represent a short, synthesized narrative, an autonomous short tale that functions not only as an introduction to the following text, but also as a separate message in its own right. These headlines present in a summary the acting characters and motions through which these characters are revealed. The headlines “pile up” blueprints, characters, motions and connections linking them in a peculiar supertext - a kind of an abstract of the main tale.

- East-Orthodoxy in Search of Stately Public Figures In the voluminous grouping of nearly 460 items in which East-Orthodoxy (church, clerical institutions and their heads, flock) is the acting character, most often this character is represented by personalitiesstanding high in the hierarchy of the East-Orthodox Church: its Patriarch Maxim, Pimen pretender to be the Patriarch, a few influential bishops.

The terms, used to describe the motions of Maxim are spread over two different fields: 1. The usual motions of a high-ranking clergyman - ritual (sanctifying, serving), and (occasionally) from his personal life. 2. Battle motions described by the use of verbs as: 'boycott', 'conquer', 'capture', 'defend' (a typical headline: "Commandos of Maxim's Synod Conquered the Candle Factory"). The Head of the Bulgarian East-Orthodox Church becomes as much a clergyman as a warrior - quite incompatible occupations.

The pretender to be the Patriarch - Pimen - is represented mainly through utterly incompatible with a clergyman‟s position motions (usurping, pretending, grabbing, defying), and as a person exposed to sanction (anathematized, held by the Police). Supporters of the unofficial Synod often are stigmatized as heretics, and the general semantic mood is of war, although not as modern as the one in the Persian Gulf. The most often mentioned bishops, involved in the clerical struggles, are also presented in the same manner.

The next group of terms, showing East-Orthodoxy as the subject, are the institutionally determinatingones: the Synod (the official one), the Church (the Bulgarian East-Orthodox). The motions of the supreme institution of the Church - the Synod - are concentrated on: 1. Contacts with governmental institutions mainly in partnership (negotiates, rely on, expects, begs for money) and 2.

Relations with the pretenders for the church power (negotiates with the deviationists, debates the schism).

The generalizations of East-Orthodox Christianity (the Church, the Bulgarian East-Orthodox Church) are again used for the needs of the clerical battles. The church as a personification is “angry”, she is “mourning”, her bells “toll of death” because of the schism.

The appearance of high-ranking clergymen and institutions mainly in non-religious motions gradually deprives them of their role as symbols of the East-Orthodox creed. These fading symbols must be replaced, and the media turns to the collective cognizance in search of replacements.

The replacements can be constant (for longer usage), or transient characters - persons or personified groups.

A considerable set of press items from the researched period is linked to a non-contestable during several decades Bulgarian personality - the clairvoyant Vanga (she passed away in August 1996.) In the studied texts Vanga, paradoxically or not, is always linked to Eastern Orthodoxy and is represented as a future saint precisely in this canon. For everyday needs Vanga is represented by the media as a higher authority of the East Orthodox creed, to which she has herself declared to belong.

As a peculiar authority of East-Orthodoxy is depicted Father Boian Saraev, a self-proclaimed priest who in the last several years baptized a considerable number of Mohammedan Bulgarians (Bulgarians forcefully converted into Islam many centuries ago) in the Rhodopa Mountains. To Father Saraev the newspapers also furnish the right to make statements, and to pronounce himself on important issues of Eastern Orthodoxy. This priest is one of the personalities launched by the media.

To these two media images is added the group personality of the Bulgarian rank-and-file clergy, who, with a sense of mission, carry on their duties in different corners of the country.

Together with the personality and institutional reincarnations of the East-Orthodox church, the collective image of the flock of the East-Orthodox creed is clearly discernible in the researched newspaper publications. This summary personage is motley and is constructed by a great number of press items. In these articles only on several occasions the followers of the traditional creed are generalized as “East-Orthodox”. They are individuals - young people, women, children, grandfathers, prisoners, mayors, intellectuals, fathers, artists, even bank managers, Bulgarians, people, a nation.

They construct temples, they are being blessed, they collect money for churches, etc. Among them you can meet even Muslims and Mohammedan-Bulgarians, who turn into Christianity of the EastOrthodox canon. As can be noticed, the multifarious collective personage of the East-Orthodox Christians and the selected by the media personalities are those who reinforce and reproduce the faith in spite of the deeds of their church leaders.

- Islam: the depersonalized neighbour Judging by the images of its characters the “second” creed does not compare in any way to EastOrthodoxy. Usually the acting Islamic character is the composite personage of the believers in Islam, represented by indefinite nouns such as Muslim, Muslims, Islamists.

Muslims are being staged in actions, usually named by modality verbs, expressing wishes, intentions, pretensions (they want, they appeal, they protest). Muslims are represented as a community, which is demanding, which has pretentious (mainly towards government authorities).

When the headline states “Muslim...” the text always refers to persons, who also have other credentials besides their religious belonging. “The Muslim” is represented through actions, different from those of the“Muslims” - his health is endangered by the strict, even cruel religious rituals (died while praying, collapsed while fasting).

As to the Islamists, they “slay” (the Algerian Islamists), they “agitate” (in the Rhodopa Mountains in Bulgaria), “they gain influence in Turkey”. Added to them are the Islamic fundamentalists who “foment dissension among Muslims in our country.”

It is obvious that while actions of Muslims in general are represented mainly by “neutral” terms, actions of the Islamists are described preferentially by terms borrowed from the lexicon of social pathology.

The attentive reader will notice that the Muslims are on the inside, while the Islamists are on the outside of the country. In the Bulgarian Press Muslims and Islamists are not synonymous; to the Bulgarian Press Islamist proves to be “dangerous degree” of Muslim, “alien Muslim”, while the

term “Mohammedan” is mainly used to signify a Bulgarian converted to Islam.

That the Islamist, according to Bulgarian media, is a very dangerous person can be seen from often used qualifications as “Islamic emissaries”, or “sectarians with turbans”. They “agitate”, they “infiltrate”the Rhodopa region. The danger is emphasized by the claim that these infiltrators belong to non-traditional Islamic denominations - the provocative term “sect” used in this context, especially when linked to the adjective “Islamic”, sounds ominous.

In texts dedicated to Islam, as acting characters appear also geopolitical indicators as “Turkey” and “Ankara”. The motions of these geopolitical personages are mostly aggressive and expansionist (samples of headlines: “Turkey: Islamic Fundamentalism in Action”, or "Ankara Will Stuff Us with Islam”). As a personage in the headlines of articles on Islam the ethnic denomination “Turk”, or “Turks”appears on several occasions. In these cases the motions of this media personage are threatening (they are scheming a Muslim colony; they roam around; they want the bones of St. Nicholas).

The next set of characters portray Islamic institutions and their heads - the Chief Mufti Nedim Gendjev, the pretender for this post Fikri Sali, muftis, Mufti Headquarters. In some of the analyzed texts, the actions described are the usual functions of religious institutions and of their heads. Again we find a considerable group of modality verbs (request, oppose), which emphasize the already delineated image, and “battle” terms as “conquered”, “call to Jihad” (in Bosnia).

Although not many, there are some writings in which acting characters are Christians and Muslims together. “They live together in the so called Pomak land”, and even together they construct a church.

The image of the Muslim is to a high degree depersonalized. Usually Muslims are not particular persons, and very often are signified by their religious belonging - an established manner of emphasizing their difference from - Non-traditional denominations: the unacceptable other The characters - composite and personal - in newspaper tales about deeds of non-traditional denominations are usually labeled “sects” and “sectarians”, and this rule is observed even in texts about explicitly named creeds and their congregations.

In the researched newspapers the term “sect” is used as a signal of danger. The sects “invade”, they “hunt for souls”, they “infiltrate”, they “open breeding grounds”, they “attack”, they “recruit”. The analysis of the verbs, used to define the activities of the “sects”, discloses several basic types of deeds, by which the press characterizes them. First they are shown as expansionist, aggressive (they “advance”, they “invade”). Then, they “attack” not only with legitimate battle means, but slyly, surreptitiously, schemingly (they “swarm all over the place”, they “stretch their tentacles”, they “entangle”). Finally, they infiltrate the country with the aim of undermining the state (they “spy”, they “search”, they “smuggle outof the country”; usually such descriptions are reserved for the Mormons).

All the researched papers stick to the unwritten rule: the more faceless the characters, the easier it is to paint them in the darkest colors. Established practice of this method is associating the name of the non-traditional religion with the noun “sect”: “the sect of the Jehovah’s Witnesses”, “the sect Emmanuel”, the Moon sect”. Quite often added to this combination are qualificational adjectives - “the illegal sect”, “the prohibited sect”... etc.

The “sectarians” are slightly more personalized characters. They too are classified in categories. The first category is the “sectarian-victim”. They most often end in suicide, or attempted suicide - jump from a high building, or try a ritualistic end to their life. This character is viewed with sympathy, and their torments are recounted for edification of the others. The other type is the “sectarian-activist”, who is the incarnation of evil. They distribute books. They are conspiring. They are possessed by unrestrained aggression. The sinister connotation of the term “sectarian” is, on occasion, reinforced by attributes like“sectarian-murderer”, “rabid sectarians”, etc.

When the subject of a non-traditional denomination is a particular person, a living individual, the media usually prefers to state immediately, in the headline, their allegiance to “the aliens, the others”: “Director-sectarian”, “flier-Moonist”, “a pre-conscript devoted to Jehovah”.

The research reveals that the theme of non-traditional denominations is fueled incessantly, and very often is supplemented with stories from abroad on creeds that do not have (or is not known to have) followers in Bulgaria (Aoum, the Order of the Sun Temple). Used in this case is another unwritten rule: the farther away and the less known - the more generalized and depersonalized the image should be.

Thus the non-traditional denominations are stereotyped in the cumulative image of the sectarianmonsterthat is preparing nuclear bombs and terrorist acts, disseminates germs, and can murder even babies.

In the preceding lines can be detected the mechanism of otherwise banal syllogisms (submitted in the headlines as enthymems):  the Director/the flier/the pre-coscriptionist are sectarians;  sectarians follow a creed that seriously threatens their lives/turns them into murderers/can bring them to madness;  the sects are creeds coming from “abroad” as invaders/they act surreptitiously and against the State.

Primitive, but no less effective, as such syllogisms express old and modern stereotypes of The Other, ofThe Alien Minority.

A word about the narrator Unavoidably we get to the narrator through whom stories on religion and images of believers reach the public.

Data collected by this investigation reveal a preference for unspecified authorship: 33 percent of the reports are signed “collectively” (with the name of the newspaper); 22 percent go even further, omitting any authorship. It comes as no surprise that most often with vague authorship are writings on nontraditional creeds. Of the registered in this investigation texts 43 percent are properly signed by specific persons. Insignificant is the number of declared professional exchange between different media.

Several publications are presented with established authors on the subject (publishing at least once monthly): Democratsia daily - 4; Trud daily - 3; Duma daily, and Standard daily - 2 each. Many of the covered by this research publications do not have distinguished journalists, writing on this subject, or have only a single one. Even when newspapers work with a wide circle of freelance contributors, one cannot avoid the feeling that many of the newspapers entrust the writing on religion to a single person, or let him do as he likes. In this case “do as one likes” means “according to the established pattern”. And the established pattern is as follows: East-Orthodoxy is represented usually through the face of personalities, placed high in the clerical hierarchy. These personalities, it should be emphasized, act more like warriors, than like clerics.

When East-Orthodoxy acts through its institutions, again these acts are not exactly ecclesiastical they are acts of collaboration with governmental authorities, or acts of warfare against pretenders for high power in the church.

To fill the credibility gaps left open by the higher clergy, the media launch as pillars of the Orthodox creed the already dead clairvoyant Ms. Vanga, and popular grass-root priests.

A multifaceted collective character of East-Orthodox Christianity is added to the new heroes to prop up the image of the Orthodox creed , despite the deeds of the higher echelons of the clergy.

The personages of Islam do not correspond to those of East-Orthodoxy. The image of Islam is composed of summary impersonalized characters: Muslims, Islamists, Mohammedans.

“Muslims” is used to denominate the followers of Islam living in this country; “Islamists” - those from abroad; “Mohammedans”, according to the researched newspapers, are Bulgarians converted to Islam in historic circumstances beyond their control.

Islamists are linked to geopolitical powers (Turkey, Ankara) that have mainly expansionist designs.

The Islamist institutions and their heads are also prone to battling dispositions, just like those of the Eastern Orthodoxy.

Personages of the non-traditional denominations most often are “sects”, irrespective of whether they are well-established churches or are nameless entities.

When writing about “sects” and their deeds, the rules are: the more faceless the character - the more copious the use of dark colors; the more far away the action - the more primitively negative the image of the creed.

“Sectarians” are subdivided into several types: Sectarians-victims, sectarians-activists, sectariansmonsters.

Writings on “sects” most clearly reveal media stereotypes that have a wider usage.

Media tales Maria Deenitchina The analysis of media stories reveals characteristic narrative blueprints in the presentation of each religion. The image of the particular creed is constructed around the specific for it dominant pair of antipodes. The character of each of the antitheses pairs is defined principally by those main relationships in the light of which the said religion is depicted.

Bulgaria with two Patriarchs The image of EAST-ORTHODOXY forged by media through their various tales is based on one main pair of antipodes: construct-demolish. It correlates directly with the basic value pairs, through which this creed is portrayed. In general it is shown concurrently as attached to traditions (in 159 cases), and as inherently contradictory (197); as fostering the preservation of social unity (113), and inclined to social destructiveness (25); as bolstering Bulgarian statehood (90), and contributing to its destruction (15).

Although media tales clearly portray a positive image of East-Orthodoxy, a very important part in its depiction consists of properties related to its negative features and acts.

By applying the approximation method the following main narrative antitheses appear: Construct:

Destruct:

Restoring traditions; reconsidering values

Undermining the unity of the church

Constructing, bestowing, defending

Demolishing churches, desecrating shrines, corrupting values

The basic building material in constructing the image of East-Orthodoxy is the theme of its inherent contradictiveness, which can be found in the many publications on diverse clerical conflicts.

Resounding is the refrain: The Bulgarian East-Orthodox Church is split; she is possessed by the schism; arbitrary acts are being committed; a war for predominance and for power is being waged.

The leading semantic line is the existence of two Synods (or the Bisynodity) and the warfare between them.

The nature of the stories on this subject appearing in the different newspapers depends directly (in the case of the party dailies Duma and Democratsia), or indirectly, in a concealed form (in the case of the independent or “purely” informative national dailies 24 Chasa, Trud, Standard, Continent; the local dailiesContinent - Shumen, Ekip 7 - Razgrad, Narodno Delo - Varna, and the weeklies 168 Chasa, and Zora) on their disposition towards the clerical conflict.

To Democratsia the new Bulgarian Patriarch of the first legitimate East-Orthodox Church is Pimen, and his anathematizing is unlawful.

Duma does not create a direct negative image of Pimen, but tries, by reporting the activities of Patriarch Maxim, to suggest that the only legitimate Synod is that headed by the latter.

The basic means used by Democratsia for the demolition of the image of the opponent is to recall the links of the Synod of Maxim (the old Synod) with the Communist Party. The first implication is that these clergymen, who were connected to the Communist ex-leader Todor Zhivkov, should have been discarded together with him. The second one is that now they are bound with the Socialist Party; that the schism was provoked by Maxim and Prime Minister. Videnov; that Videnov pledged the candle factory to Maxim, etc.

Trud is the daily that most of all publishes articles on East-Orthodoxy. In these writings Maxim usually appears as the Bulgarian Patriarch. Pimen is usually mentioned only by his name or as the Reverend Pimen; the organized by him Clerical and Peoples‟ Convention, and the headed by him Synod is labeled “Pimen‟s”. On the other hand this same daily regards the structures linked to Maxim as creatures of the communist regime, which explains why, for example, it claims that “Maxim is defending himself by quoting Zhivkov”, and that the Bulgarian Communist Party and Maxim are to be blamed for the destruction of the church.

Similar is the approach of the remaining newspapers to this main theme about the East-Orthodox Church. Without directly declaring who, according to them, is the legitimate Patriarch, they usually imply in a more or less veiled form, that Maxim‟s Synod is closely connected to the authorities, and that the non-recognition of Pimen is due to a great extent to the preferences of the government. The message is that the government of the Socialist Party is supporting Maxim, or that Maxim is serving this government.

Time for forgiveness On the opposite side of the countervailing pair can be heard the refrains: the traditions are returning, the values are reconsidered.

The basic suggestion in this line of writing is in the message that the schism in the East-Orthodox Church is demoralizing the flock. The mythological stereotype of unity as the source of power is embedded in the memory of Bulgarians by the legend about Kubrat‟s bundle of sticks. (Kubrat, father of Asparukh - the founder of the Bulgarian State, bestows to his sons the admonition to stay united in order to be powerful, because the separate stick can easily be broken, while together in a bunch they are unbreakable.) Direct folkloric strains sound in the headline: “Clerics trade the white-walled monasteries”. This paraphrase of a popular Bulgarian folk song is exploited for the needs of the present-day message.

Other media allusions refer to the need of restoring and supporting the values (in every Bulgarian home there should be an icon); of preserving the spiritual origins (“Save Your Souls”); of resisting evil (Christ himself had no mercy for ill-doers).

The Democratsia daily applies a specific narrative manner to this subject. It brings to the fore the

theme of the sufferings under communism and of the victims of communism, and, together with other publications, prints a considerable number of articles on the revival of the somewhat faded associationGod-King (on the occasion of the arrival of Simeon in Bulgaria). This association has deep roots in the collective memory, by which as a rule it has been identified with strength and authority, with hope and faith.

Thus, the recount of the positive values, as opposed to the inherent contradictions of the creed, depicts East-Orthodoxy above all by its commendable traits and, in creating its image, the media bring to the fore its constructivity.

The white-walled church -- an accomplished wish Here, despite the specific differences, when dealing with religious shrines the values of the faith defy thedestructive tendency; charity defies cruelty. The role of religion as a moral corrective, and as a support of the good in the human being is emphasized. The image of the resilient and growing ever more stronger Bulgarian esprit in conjunction with the church is portrayed in the same positive context by all the media.

The multifold image of East-Orthodoxy that we tried to sketch with the aid of a few countervailing pairs, reflects the liveliness and diversity bestowed on it by media interpretations.

An East-Orthodox temple was constructed by Muslims and Christians together When presenting ISLAM the counterpoising principle can be applied on a geographic basis. Then clearly can be discerned two strains in the narrative: an “internal” (derivative of events developing inside this country) and an “external” (produced by developments outside Bulgaria). Each such image of the creed receives its specific features.

The media concentrate on the activities of Islam in Bulgaria. An exception is the Zora weekly which tends to speak of religion in general, in an internationalized context.

The prevailing negative features when portraying Islam, and the general impression of an absence of individualized images of Islam in the media, suggest that we should be looking for two independent of one another approaches to the formation of the notion about it - by Islam‟s deeds outside, and by its deeds inside Bulgaria.

In the portrayal of the internal image of Islam, on a first level emerges the counterpoise that on the one hand the Muslims are people with whom we live together, and, on the other, that they are unknown, alien, “Others”.

This opposition can be illustrated even by a single subject matter.

As an inalienable component of the religious theme, in this case too (as in the case with EastOrthodoxy) is present the feature of respect for the traditions; of feeling the need to construct, to bestow, to express homage to the religion.

But when depicting Islam, suggestions of potential dangers and harms deriving from some specific rituals of this “alien” religion can be traced. Hear are two typical headlines: “A Muslim Woman Collapses of Hunger and Thirst”; “A Child Developed Hemorrhage After a Criminal Siunet (circumcision)”.

In the meantime the media readily correlate the two religions. Quite often an innate act of one of the religions is being related to an analogous act in the other religion. The main correlation in this case goes in two directions. The first is: how few mosques have been constructed, compared to EastOrthodox temples (the proportion, according to the press, is 900:3800). The second is that between the two religions should exist, and in practice does exist, mutual understanding, which quite often is expressed in collective actions: Christians and Muslims together pray for rain; a Turk serves liturgy on St. George‟s Day; a Turk donates a bell to a Christian chapel; Muslims and Christians together erect

an East-Orthodox temple; a Christian priest and an imam together bless a repast in Kurdjali.

A Pomak state is not a realistic proposition The main feature by which Islam has been portrayed in the media - aggressiveness - is a component of a clearly outlined mythic stereotype: Islam is a menacing force. The “internal” and the “external” level of the media narrative is most clearly delineated in this stereotype.

This myth is being sustained by the acts of particular Islamic sects, with which the Muslim religion itself is in irreconcilable conflict. Such sects, for example, are the organization “Islamic Defense” and the“Muslim Brotherhood”, which recruit Turkish children for training.

In the same time innuendoes on the threatening posture and the aggressiveness of Islam can be traced in the depiction of the religion proper, in complaints that fundamentalist propaganda is being disseminated in the schools, or that Islamic schools are being opened en masse.

The stereotype of Islam as a threat to Europe is mostly based on acts by zealots of that religion in other countries, and on media reports of such acts in this country (The Algerian Islamist threat to Europe; Algerian Islamists massacre and shoot innocent people; Islamic fundamentalists sow discord among Muslims in this country).

Islam creates problems for Bulgarian Mohammedans in the Rhodopa region is the other structural component in the image of this religion. It is being suggested that the illegal movement “Islamic Defense” is planning the secession of the districts of Yakoruda, Gotse Deltchev, and Satovcha into an autonomous territory; that Islamic emissaries are roaming in the Rhodopa Mountains; that the transformation of the town of Yakoruda into a Mufti is being contemplated.

The careful examination of the different approaches in the construction of the image of Islam establishes the existence of several negative features (aggressiveness, causing social destruction, undermining the statehood, and imposing total submission), which are being ascribed to the creed mainly in foreign lands. As to this country, irrespective of the controversial character of the message, the notion usually is of a deeply rooted traditional religion, which is being approached by the media from many different angles.

The Pope calls for peace As a rule, events related to CATHOLICISM are happening outside Bulgaria. Most often reports on Catholicism deal with its institutions (primarily - the Pope), with its policies, rituals, services. Although a clearly defined image of Catholicism is lacking, most of the newspapers depict it as a tolerant, strongly attached to traditions, unified and charitable Church.

This positive and comparatively synchronized assumption of Catholicism is entered into only one of the countervailing pairs: “the different", “the Other” as opposed to “the familiar”, “Our” (the EastOrthodox).

The model is of no axiological, but of purely descriptive character. There are no suggestions by the media as to the superiority of the one denomination over the other. The relationship is only on the levelbetter known-less known.

The narrative on Catholicism delineates several main pillars. This religion is represented as closely associated to tradition (reports on various rituals and ceremonies). It categorically upholds the basic value - the preservation of human life. It protects the poor (the theme of charity), and pacifies (assists in settling conflicts at “hot points”). Its strong presence in some countries delineates it as closely linked topolitics. (Democratsia accentuates on the role of the Catholic Church in the public life of Poland.)

This denomination is shown also as self-renewing (a visit of the Pope is marked by a rock concert; the Pope appears in a TV advertisement; a Catholic priest wants to have a test-tube baby).

Several sub-themes related to this country are being advanced when depicting Catholicism. They are

based on the assumption of possible advantages to Bulgaria by an eventual support for this country on the part of the powerful Catholic Church. (Bulgaria is cleared of the blame for the attempt on the Pope. The accused Sergey Antonov is invited by the Pope to visit him. Acga asks for clemency and for a meeting with the Pope. Will the Pope visit Bulgaria? Will he meet with president Zhelev?)

The notion of Catholicism as “the other” religion is constructed with all the necessary respect for this Church and feasible objectivity in the approach. In general there are no negative suggestions, but there is also no discernible desire to understand more comprehensively the canon of this denomination. Media coverage of Catholicism leaves the impression of a certain conventionality in the approach, of trying to create a media event, when the theme is “advanced” (and, on occasions, even developed) by an external source.

God is love Media images of the SMALLER TRADITIONAL DENOMINATIONS carry diverse intonations. The main countervailing pair used in presenting them is: attachment to the traditions on the one hand, and on the other - their outlandishness, their unusualness, their being different. The images of the Protestant Churches, the Adventists of the Seventh Day, the Methodists, the Pentacostalists are usually positive.

As a whole they are depicted as tolerant and attached to the past and to their relics.

(Examples:Protestant Churches - the Bible of Martin Luther is found; Adventists of the Seventh Day celebrate their 105th anniversary.)

Clearly discernible is the absence in general of negative suggestions. The sporadic mentioning of these denominations in the press indicates the lack of interest in them, which rises only on particular occasions.

Three other creeds are usually treated on the same level of values, mainly related to traditions: the Dunovists (have a gathering in the Rila Mountain); The Society of Krishna Consciousness (celebrate a 509th anniversary; organize a festival on the 100th anniversary of the birth of the spiritual teacher Shrila Prabhupada); and Buddhism (the birthplace of Buddha is found).

"I ordered the gas attacks" With the NON-TRADITIONAL DENOMINATIONS the dichotomy model acquires valuation colorations.

To the familiar Orthodoxy, alien, dangerous, aggressive, destructive religions are opposed as a whole Analyzing media image-construction of particular denominations we can detect several basic signals.

Most often they are depicted as dangerous because: they incite to murder and suicide (the Mormons, Moon, Aoum); they suggest apocalyptic visions, they practice violence in recruiting children (Jehovah’s Witnesses); they drug adolescents (Word of Life).

They are destructive because they commit terrorist acts (the case in the Tokyo Underground), theythreaten with terrorist acts (the case of the Japanese airport), they produce chemical and biological weapons (the Aoum case).

They instigate social disintegration by spying on the state (the Mormons), they infiltrate different structures, they recruit personalities of the elite of society, by which they aim to destabilize it.

They are harmful also because: they incite to refusal of doing military service (Jehovah’s Witnesses), and to deserting from one’s duties (the case of the flier-Moonist, who deserted his post to participate at a mass marriage ceremony conducted by the Reverend Moon, for which the flier was sentenced to a prison term), they map a psycho-state on the Balkans (the Scientologists).

These creeds are also aggressive because: they actively distribute writings including prohibited

ones(Word of Life, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Moon); they expand their influence and recruit new members (Word of Life, the Mormons, Moon).

These religions also have business aspirations, they want to take part in the privatization process (New Evangelical Churches, different “sects”) and they do not shy of cheating (Emmanuel, registered in Plovdiv under the name United Churches of God).

In the case of the non-traditional creeds most distinctly is discernible the negative approach. When on a specific occasion they become a media event, they heavily occupy for a time the pages of the newspapers, to be ignored totally after that, until the next relevant event again drags them into the spotlight of media attention. *** The media image of the East-Orthodoxy is based on the counterpoise construct-destroy.

Logically greatest attention is devoted to the problems of the Bulgarian East-Orthodox Church.

Itsdisunity and the struggles for predominance and power in it turn the religious theme into a miniaturized projection of the general socio-political picture of public life in Bulgaria.

To the schism the media oppose the idea of unity as a necessary construction component -- unity based on the return to traditions and to reappraised values.

Faith versus destructiveness, charity versus cruelty form the foundation for interpreting religion as a moral corrective and as a prop of the Good in Man, of the resilient and growing ever stronger Bulgarian esprit.

Through different approaches the media-created image of East-Orthodoxy is delineated as multilayered, multidirectional and vigorous. In its portrayal by the media, the positive characteristics not only counterbalance its internal contradictions, but bring to the fore its constructivity.

Islam is rerepresented through a “local” and a “foreign” element, which considerably distorts the individual components of its media image. Uneven, but without a definite emphasis on negative characteristics are the descriptions of its functioning inside the country, while when recounting the activities of Islam abroad clearly are visible the contours of an aggressive and a destructive religion.

Catholicism is shown by the media as “the different”, “the Other”, compared to “the familiar”, “Our” creed (East-Orthodoxy). Without negative connotations, but also without depth in its presentation by the media, this religion remains on the level of the positive but less familiar values.

As alien, dangerous, aggressive, and destructive are pictured by reports in the Press the nontraditional creeds. The description of their subversive and harmful activity is represented not only in contrast to the traits of the traditional religion, but delineates also the contours of a menace, which is being articulated by the newspapers with no restraint.

The hidden effects Svetlana Bojillova Of the 3,177 publications on the theme of religion in the researched period, 1,230 are illustrated.

Some articles carry more than one photo. In some cases the prints carry independent and stronger messages and the attendant writings have only auxiliary functions. The exuberant functional existence of the illustrations on religious matters turns them into an important values-loaded source of information, hence - of influence. Quite often illustrations are the real mental keys to deciphering the messages. Their vision is as real, as it is illusory. The perceptibilities are so intertwined in the intricate cultural and social codes of knowledge, that their messages are amazingly complex and loaded with many different meanings. It is multifariousness in an accessible and seemingly simple form of perception, that, besides all else, produces a lasting emotional impression on the viewer.

Which are the typical contents and professional characteristics of the illustrations on religious subjects?

Do they have an existence of their own and clear messages, independently of the surrounding texts?

Which are the preferred functions of illustrations in the Bulgarian press: literalness, or either direct or veiled metaphor?

Bulgarian photo-reporters -- what do they prefer to photograph?

Are there obvious manipulative techniques in illustrations?

Do illustrations to publications on topics referring to religion have a real function, or is their presence due to press stereotypes?

These are some of the problems related to illustrations in the press. From such a point of view we analyzed four newspapers: two independents: Trud - the daily with the largest circulation, and 168 Chasa - the weekly with the largest circulation; and two party newspapers: Democratsia - daily of the democratic opposition, and Duma - daily of the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party. These newspapers were kept under observation for their illustrations on religious matters from January 1 to June 30, 1996.

The greatest number of prints on religious matters deals with East-Orthodoxy - the traditional Christian creed in Bulgaria. Such photos represent 65.6 percent of all the illustrations, directly related to the theme of religion. Naturally most of the illustrations cover religious celebrations, rituals, customs. In the copiously illustrated newspaper pages dedicated to religious holidays, the emphasis is mainly on the presentation of the ritual and the celebration. The coverage of religious events does not carry information on the substance of religion and is not inspired by the abundance of religious stories, themes and martyrs. Bulgarian cultural history holds treasures of visual religious symbols and signs.

Regretfully, when covering religious holidays and rituals, the illustration stays on the routine communal level. Probably this approach is a reflection of the totalitarian times, when religious rituals were represented only on the routine communal level, and were subordinate to the idea of upkeeping folklore traditions and national unity.

In the illustrations the RITUAL becomes a component of communal life, an occasion for essentially communal messages. The analysis of the illustrations reveals, that in presenting the religious holidays and rituals, the visual expression projects a social dimension on the holiday and rarely plods into the religious essence of the event. Visuality in the religious theme is communal and not essentially religious in character.

Hence, Eastern-Orthodox holidays are not used as an occasion for providing real religious knowledge with the assistance of illustrations in the Press. This type of illustration serves mainly as an instrument for national integration. For example, when covering the celebrations of St. Theodore‟s Day, the Truddaily starts the illustrated story on its first page, and continues it on a whole page in the inside of the newspaper. Printed is the icon of St. Theodore Stratilat, which seems to be “hanging” weightlessly in a sea of text and photos, as the written and visual reporting is related only to rituals on a routine communal level. The title is symptomatic: “Oh, Todor, oh Todor...” (a verse of a folk-song).

Suddenly in an inside page we stumble on six photos of Bulgarian politicians with the name of Todor.

The largest one is of the former State and Party head of Bulgaria - Todor Zhivkov, who commanded this country until the start of the democratic changes. Thus the religious holiday becomes an occasion for political extrapolations on the social establishment. A religious East-Orthodox holiday becomes an occasion for concentrating on society personalities and trends, while the essentially religious theme remains in the shadows. Religion is not the aim per se, it is just a MEANS. Such is also the fate of the important Christian holiday ANNUNCIATION in that same newspaper.

Several generations in this country grew up without a chance of getting even a rudimentary visual experience of the religious themes and subjects. Instead of making the religious holidays an occasion

for comprehending of the intrinsic religious values and acquiring knowledge on them, they become objects of trivial registering of the event. On ANNUNCIATION the Trud daily published an artictic photograph of a group of small girls masquerading as saints, their heads decorated with garlands. On the professional level the photographer aimed to express virginity, cleanliness of the soul and goodwill, while showing on the social level the beautiful future of our country. This photography has its own existence, quite removed from the religious theme. This illustration, although artistically accomplished, represents only an outside shell of the ritual and the occasion, which is submerged in a peculiar informational fog. Usually the illustrations do not assist us in grasping the essence of the religious celebration or ritual. They are just an expression of good media manners towards the traditional religious values. The same was the case with the coverage of Lazard‟s Day, Easter, Palm Sunday, etc.

Religious services are shown in press illustrations as current events, quite often in a situational registering manner. On a second level the party newspapers show government officials and politicians attending religious services. Illustrations of religious celebrations in the Duma daily are usually photo reports, with no attempt for story-telling and for a more sophisticated expression of the message. They are in the real sense of the word trivially illustrative, and have no value separate of the texts they illustrate. This newspaper publishes photos on the celebrations of almost all Christian holidays. But usually they are the product of outsiders‟ observations, of registering the holiday with no visual or stylistic impact on the page on which they are printed. Usually there is no individualization in the presentation of the experience.

The approach of the Democratsia daily is different. Illustrations of religious celebrations are also reporters‟, but usually subjects of the photographers‟ attention are ordinary participants at the ritual.

The attention is concentrated not so much on the formalities of the ritual, as on its cathartic effect on the believers. This is the only newspaper which in its cultural section dedicates considerable space on religious subjects, publishes Christian parables on the occasion of a holiday, discusses the correlationreligion-culture-art. To didactic religious texts are added illustrations of historical religious events.

Rituals form a basic component in the illustrations on current religious events. The newspapers abound with prints of HOLY MASS, of public prayers for rain, for fertility, for health. Central visual symbol in such illustrations is the CANDLE, held by a human hand. The prayer, the faith in God, the invisible dialogue“God-Man” is the main theme. This so often repeated visual symbol is a function of perceptional stereotypes or an expression of the full disregard for artistic metaphors. It is possible that this disregard is not due to artistic inability, but rather - to the incognizence of the religious messages and values, which have to be translated into the language of visuality. The illustrations emphatically express the idea of the SPIRITUAL SANCTUARY AS AN ESCAPE FROM SOCIAL REALITY. Illustrated stories on monasteries, on consecrations of new churches are very much used by the press. They attract the attention of the viewers, and emphasize the idea of the spiritual sanctuary as a place of peace, of harmony, as a way of seclusion and of escape from daily burdens. In the absence of social equilibrium, the spiritual sanctuary is a divine link with the traditional, the eternal, with that something that is independent of the political and social squabbles. Historically the monasteries and churches were the repository of the Bulgarian esprit and culture during the five-century-long Ottoman yoke, and the idea for unity of the nation‟s spirit is present in the picture reports of the Press.

During the visit of the Bulgarian king-in-exile Simeon II and his wife here many newspapers published photos of the frequent visits by the Royal couple in monasteries and temples. These photos emphasized the triad Church-Ancestry-Homeland. The praying Simeon is identified with The Bulgarian who is searching for solace and salvation in God, in Christian values and virtues. These illustrations aimed at expounding the treasures of the human soul, discovered and rediscovered by East-Orthodoxy. Christianity in general is depicted as the source of goodness, charity, spiritual enlightenment and advancement. The photos in the picture-reports of the spiritual sanctuary are not snapshots of motions, but an expression of the experience of being in touch with God. Bulgarians in general lack the necessary religious culture, and probably this is the reason for accentuating on the cathartic function of the ritual, on faith as a subconscious need for exoneration of the soul, on the search for kindness. At the same time the spiritual sanctuary is being linked to the idea of unity through the East-Orthodox Church as a pillar of national statehood.

THE INTERNAL LIFE OF THE EAST-ORTHODOX CHURCH is represented by illustrations of the squabbles and dissension in the religious institutions. Contrary to the written texts that try to keep a

semblance of equidistance to the contending sides, the pictures in the researched newspapers (except for Democratsia) illustrate, through the instruments of visual impact, their own attitude to the warring parties. The instruments are invisible to the outside person, but they imprint tenacious impressions on the subconscious. Covert preferences for the official Synod and for Patriarch Maxim are being impressed by visual means. Maxim‟s pictures (as portrays, or snapshots) usually leave the impression of wisdom, dignity, steadfastness, good will. At official religious celebrations and liturgies Patriarch Maxim is the center of the ritual and its visual interpretation. The newspaper usually publishes portraits of the alternative Patriarch Pimen, without situating him compositionally in the religious or social space. At the initiation of the alternative Synod the newspapers did not publish illustrated reports of the clerico-laic convention. Instead, they printed photos of black flags, hanging on the front of the Synodal Palace and of the anxiously tolling church-bells. Most expressive are the pictures of the squabbles at the candle factory. The revolting priests (of the alternative Synod) are shown in the street, bareheaded, with flying cassocks, and the visual language of motion and posture is quite unacceptable, viewed from the standpoint of the respectable universal codes of perception. On the other hand Patriarch Maxim is pictured in a series of illustrated press-reports standing in front of the factory gates, his face sad and pensive, while the scepter in his hand indirectly indicates who is the real head of the Bulgarian East-Orthodox Church. The photos occasionally show the alternative Synod in a grotesque way (Trud, 168 Chasa, Duma): Father Pimen with a bowed to the ground head; conceited and inspiring no respect faces of protesting priests. The visual effect is more one of a street spectacle than of a religious problem, and reminds us of the general public confusion and intellectual bewilderment. The message is that those who try to stir up discord in the Bulgarian East-Orthodox Church, are demolitionists of tradition, of ancestry, of statehood. The illustrations only in Democratsia show in a favorable light the leaders of the alternative Synod, the protest-meeting of theology students, delegates at the clerico-laic convention. But the photos are mainly illustrative, with no hidden influences, without creating antagonistic attitudes to the official clerical authorities. As a whole the illustrations in the Bulgarian Press are conventional, they reproduce the status-quo, and are insensitive to the differing, to the otherness in all its manifestations.

Illustrations dedicated to ISLAM - the other traditional creed in this country - are considerably less in number. These illustrations account for 26.6 percent of all prints directly related to the theme of religion. The illustrations presenting Islam are strongly expressive, loaded with hidden influences.

Almost all the newspapers register in visual form the official Islamic holidays Ramadam-Bairam and Kurban-Bairam. Very symptomatic are the illustrations of Kurban-Bairam in the Trud daily.

The written texts are informative and well-meaning, while the illustrations going with them carry far more complexed semantics. First composition: A black ram is slaughtered by the regional mufti in Sofia. The snapshot pins down the moment when the mufti, ritually dressed, cuts off the head of the beautiful animal, full of vigor. Although animal sacrifice exists in the Bulgarian traditions also, the impression of this scene stirs up sorrow for the slaughtered animal and loathing for the slayer. As universal codes on the level of the ARCHETYPE, destruction, violence, arbitrary power over the vulnerable invoke negative emotions and bad feelings towards Islam. Second composition: A small child is decorating with flowers the head of the sacrificial animal. Thus, on the subconscious level, is insinuated that even children are turned by Islam into cruel, heartless and aggressive beings. These photos are symptomatic of the existence of a wide range of manipulative techniques, used by Bulgarian illustrators. On its part, theDuma daily prefers illustrations on the subject of Islam from abroad. In these illustrations Islam is depicted as dangerous and aggressive. First composition: Picture of aggressive young men with outstretched clench-fisted hands. The explanation note beneath the photo states: “The Islamic Welfare Party denounced everyone who dares deny Allah”. Second composition: Shown is the effect of a terrorist attack by the Islamist Front for Liberation of Kashmir.

Destruction and death stare at us from the picture. Although these illustrations are not related to the practicing of Islam in this country, their emotional impact and the message they carry contribute to the accumulation of negative characteristics, being ascribed to this creed. On this background strong impression produces a photo by Reuters on the subject of Christianity. The setting is as follows: An actor, dressed as Jesus drags a heavy cross through the street and collects donations for the homeless children. Artistically this picture recalls ingrained values as goodness, charity, human passion, and love.

In covering untraditional denominations photos are rarely used. If any, they usually are of foreign sources, and illustrate the activities of Aoum, Moon, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Word of Life, etc. Such illustrations, with rare exceptions, show the otherness of the subject religion as menacing, destructive

of traditions and of statehood, transforming the individual into a puppet of a foreign ill-will. If these illustrations are typical of prohibited in Bulgaria sects, we should not forget that the same tonality of interpretation is applicable to recognized in this country non-traditional denominations. Favorably is treated on the visual level the Society for Krishna awareness. Their rituals celebrating the arrival of their New Year were the object of a series of artistically decided photo-reports.

The analysis of editorial policy towards illustrations in the press gives a clue to understanding the intellectual public atmosphere, to the hidden PHILOSOPHY OF THE VISIBLE. The visible is bustling with messages, often unpleasant to a society moving in the direction of lasting democratic reforms.

The following trends can be detected: Triviality of illustrations on religious subjects, an inclination of grinding the messages to the level of commonplace thought.

Seeking communal and not religious artistic forms and metaphors in the visual interpretation of topics pertaining to religion.

Both the illustration and the religious topic are being ritualized. The visual stereotype of “The praying man, candle in hand” is an expression of the positive attitude to religion. There is a tendency to socialize religion, but no effort to enrich spiritually the public. Religion becomes in a way a peculiar social hostage.

Not the religious values are being propagandized, but the external ritual shell of religion. Repetition and monotonousness in visual coverage create an impression of security.

Occasionally illustrations humanize religion and transform it into an attainable message. Illustrations on current events prevail. Artistic photographs, expressing the innermost religious soul of the author are exceptions. Bulgarian photo-reporters have creative abilities, but lack the necessary knowledge to translate into the visual language religious parables, plots, symbols.

Visuality in religious events is so great that it is difficult to skip it and enter the complex and lavishly populated by symbols and messages religious realm. The Bulgarian illustration as yet has not crossed the threshold of sophisticatedness, of meeting the emotional and intellectual challenge.

Summary The research Media and Religions gives a timely opening for and correctness to scientific findings.

The problems of Bulgarian newspapers came to the fore with all the severity only in the last three years. Some of them, as the attitude to religious self-determination of the Bulgarian, proved, post factum, to be one of the considerable troubles of this country. The naming of non-events and their simulation as events by the press, suddenly delineated the subject of simulacrums. The occupation by journalism of the empty space, left by half a century of totalitarian atheistic domination, created an environment conducive to a brutal dehermetization of the public, political, cultural, and intellectual sphere. Something more. The media simulacrums led to anomalies both in the psychological sphere of the individual, and in the field of action by authorities, bound to safeguard democratic law and order, and values of society. Through their discourse the media imposed a moral, but also a legalistic “aura” on events related to religious self-determination of the individual. A discriminatory law aiming to “limit the access of alien religions, breaching the Bulgarian identity”, passed by the Bulgarian Parliament in 1994, was acclaimed by the public cognizance as something exceptionally positive. Logical was the boomerang effect that journalists themselves brought upon their own heads. Instead of being mediators and protectors of the public interest in the sphere of the human right to a personal choice of god and belief, the Bulgarian media were highly rated by the post-Communist State as collaborators.

With media assistance the atheistic ideology of days past managed to preserve in acting condition recidives of intolerance to dissent, to the metaphysical pillars of the terminal questions about the human existence.

MEDIA AND RELIGIONS

The non-traditional religions appeared in Bulgaria in the current universalization of the socio-cultural space and they posed an interest largely to the young people in the country. Over the past 5-6 years new evangelical churches like Truth from Zion, Word of Life, Rema, Emmanuil, Christ‟s Warriors (most of them stemming from the Pentecostal Church) were registered. Jehovah‟s Witnesses was also a novelty to society.

Although the process of appearance of new religious movements has been going on for the past 5-6 years, the amount of sociological research on the reasons for their expansion is decidedly small. Our research team has information from the National Centre for the Study of Public Opinion for 1994 and 1995, and from the Central Institute of Statistics for 1996. These researches, however, had not been conducted solely for the purpose of investigating the reasons for seeking spiritual alternatives and new religious niches outside of Orthodoxy; they were carried out with the aim of studying the attitude of society to negative phenomena like drug-abuse, prostitution and sects. This brings out the need of introducing already known information about these processes, known throughout the world as „new religious movements‟.

In West European countries, Canada and the United States the boom of new religious movements was most marked during the 50s. In Bulgaria, however, facts about the individual spiritual necessity among different groups of the population for the doctrines and religious practices of new religious movements became known, for obvious reasons, only now, at the end of the century. Without attempting to exhaust the prerequisites for the appearance of these processes, which are new for the country, we will only state those which, in our view, are central to the situation both of society, and the individual. In the first place, a basic prerequisite for turning to an alternative religion is the characteristic for Orthodoxy heirarchical alienation of the clergy, followed by the prevailing mystical character of the church sacraments. For a larger part of the modern conscience, which is to a large extent residually atheistic or purely secularized, the rituals of Orthodoxy exert an extremely abstract influence, which induces in those seeking consolation in the church a feeling of trust deficit, loneliness, archaism. This feeling is especially marked in young people who express the view that there is a lack of real solidarity on part of the clergy to their existential problems. Another reason for the breaking off of the connection (if it ever existed) is the prevailingly elderly composition of the Bulgarian clergy, as well as the canonical use of the Church-Slavonic language, which makes the prayers, the holy texts, practically incomprihensible.

Of course, the grown popularity of alternative religions can be explained with the same reasons that have led to their growth throughout the world: striving for change of life with an accent on peace and love; a will for sexual discipline; abstinence from the use of alcohol and smoking; a need for new ethics in the form of songs, dances, new symbolics and form of prayer, and the divine service in general. Last but not least is the fact that the dramatic discords in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church from 1992 have also been instrumental in driving back the people. It was on this basis that the seeking of new spiritual leaders, unencumbered by the communist past and marketeering atheism, took place.

Their pastoral help, frequently charismatic air and attractive presentation of theological ideas to the auditorium are considered of relevance to a larger extent to the way of life and existential problematics of the modern being.

2. In the sociological research MEDIA AND RELIGIONS Protestant denominations are assigned a lot of space. Liberalism and the easy practice of professing the Protestant faith, as well as their novelty and quick adaptivity to the actual conditions, make them appropriate for Bulgaria. The problem with their registration (from 1994 there have been numerous refusals for registration) is not only of a religious nature, but of a legal nature.

In the newspapers under observation, Word of Life figures in the media space mostly with texts directly linked to religion: 36.66%. The Trud daily has the most significant contribution on this subject.

The newspaper uses quantitavely enough the approach of writing about Word of Life in the context of „sects in general‟. Similar to Trud, the dailies 24 Chasa and Duma also use labelling of the denomination for their professional aims. After the subsequent declaration of most of the nontraditional denominations as illegal (apart from Word of Life, we can also site Jehovah‟s Witnesses), the press shows a tendency for a relative decrease in the number of described events. The research team considers, however, that in spite of this tendency, the number of texts on „sects in general‟ is by no means small! In the newspapers under observation, Word of Life frequently draws upon itself

conclusions referring to United Church of Moon.

An interesting approach in the portrayal of the non-traditional denominations is the use of checked, as well as unchecked information: this is as much true of Jehovah‟s Witnesses, as it is of Emmanuil and the Mormons. When Word of Life (and another new evangelical church Christ‟s Warriors) are concerned, the checked information gives over its leading position to sinister suggestions. An eloquent illustration in this respect are the key-words which are used: death, harassment, blood, victims, recruit, Satan, brainwashing, destroying. Regarding Word of Life the events under description are most frequently linked with justice (12), but also with education (7). And again the most frequently used words specifically referring to this denomination are: sect (14), prohibited (5), illegal (3); words with negative connotations are also met - suicide, psychosis, mental illness, desecrate, rage. Regarding Jehovah‟s Witnesses the key lexical items share a common pattern: sect (17), apocalipsis, death, threat, apostasy, satanist, sadistic attack. In general, Jehovah‟s Witnesses are described for the most part in negative overtones - 4,8 (17).

The negative image of Word of Life is linked with values from all groups. Not only the central newspapers contribute to this image, but the regional ones also; Ekip 7 is an example of a regional newspaper which rarely runs articles on non-traditional denominations and its interest in Word of Life is more of an exception. The media image consists of the following characteristics - unfamiliar, foreign, other - 27.5/11; aggressive - 22.5/9; connected with death, destruction - 3; bringing social destruction, demolishing the Bulgarian system of government. These characteristics are also valid for Jehovah‟s Witnesses. „Foreign‟, „different‟ invariably figure in the same context with other negative characteristics - it is a typological motif which unlocks further negative characteristics.

EVALUATION 1. It is obvious that owing to inadequate understanding of the religious problematics, both types of newpapers under observation - commercial and political - breed a spirit of intolerance. They create an innerly contradictive image of the religions, including of the 2. Within the cultural sphere, there exist publications in Bulgaria which are addressed toward a small and intellectual audience (the intellectual elite), which articulate the new processes in the intellectual sphere conceptualizing them in a relevant and positive manner.

3. In our view, owing to the transitional period in the Bulgarian media practice, the processes of intolerance could be overcome by gathering media experience in the sphere of religion. At the same time, the audience too could overcome its hostility which in turn would positively influence the newspaper product. Unfortunately, one of the niches in which the commercial aspect reproduces these processes is precisely intolerance to spiritual facts, which will remain for an unclear and unpredictable period of time yet.