An ancient proverb says that the gloom is heaviest immediately
before the dawn. Indeed, in the history of Bulgaria, the year
1876 was seemingly one of the gloomiest eras, filled with
bloodshed, suffering, and horrors. Why? “When the fruit is
brought forth,” the (Heavenly) Farmer “immediately...putteth in
the sickle, because the harvest is come” (St. Mark 4:29). A
Russian newspaper thus wrote the following, with regard to this
fateful year: “Recently, in neighboring Bulgaria, a pogrom has
been underway against the Christians, which—in the words of one
of our Hierarchs—has taken us back to the times of the ancient
Christian martyrs. Hundreds of Bulgarian towns and villages are
in throes and have been drowned in blood. Thousands of men, tens
of thousands of old people and women, maidens and children, have
been slaughtered, burned alive, or taken into captivity as
slaves. Many of the enslaved were forcefully converted to Islam,
though not a few preferred death to Islam. In the monasteries
and convents, monks and