Boris I
Ruler of the Bulgars who accepted baptism from Constantinople in the 860s and took the name Michael. He put down a revolt of his nobles, asked Pope Nicholas I for bishops, and was later pressed by Pope John VIII to leave the Greek clergy and return to Rome.
A Byzantine history compiled in the tenth century calls him Bogoris and says that he was baptized by a bishop sent from Constantinople and named Michael after the emperor (Theophanes Continuatus 4.13–14, pp. 162–163). Photius wrote to him as to a spiritual son and compared what he had done to the deeds of Constantine the Great (Photius, Letter to Michael of Bulgaria 1, 22, 24). The Annals of St Bertin, a Frankish chronicle of his own time, tell how his nobles rose against him after the baptism and how he put fifty-two of them to death (Annals of St Bertin, year 866, pp. 85–86).
He then sent an embassy to Rome. The answer of Pope Nicholas I repeats his report that the rebel leaders were killed with their children, and takes up his question whether the Bulgars might have a patriarch (Nicholas I, Responses to the Bulgars 17, 72). In 878 Pope John VIII wrote to him as Michael, king of the Bulgars, urging him not to follow the Greeks and to return to Saint Peter (John VIII, Letters, 66 (16 April 878), pp. 58–59). See the Baptism of Boris and the Conversion of Bulgaria.
In the timeline
- AD 864–866, estimated dateThe Baptism of Boris and the Conversion of Bulgaria
Boris, ruler of the Bulgars, accepts baptism from Constantinople and takes the name Michael. He puts down a revolt of his nobles, then asks the pope for bishops, and his country becomes a prize in the quarrel between Rome and Constantinople.
Primary sources
Responses to the Questions of the Bulgars
- Nicholas I, Responses to the Bulgars 17, 72sourcebooks.fordham.edu