Portal:Bulgaria/Selected article/10

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church (Bulgarian: Българска православна църква, Bălgarska pravoslavna cărkva) is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia. The recognition of the autocephalous Bulgarian Patriarchate by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 927 AD makes the Bulgarian Orthodox Church the oldest autocephalous Slavic Orthodox Church in the world, which was added to the Pentarchy of the original Patriarchates - those of Rome (which became today's Roman Catholic Church after the Schism), Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem - and the autocephalous Georgian Catholicosate.