History of the Bulgarian Protestant Bible

When the representatives of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS )was traveling through European Turkey they noticed the easy with which Bible literature was distributed among the Bulgarians. This observation was conveyed to the missionaries in Constantinople and London. The BFBS came in communication with the Greek Bishop in Ohrid, who gave the responsibility of translating the Gospels to two priests from the town of Sliven. Their work however failed. Their translation of the Gospel of Mathew was of poor quality and the BFBS discontinued their arrangement. The first translation of the Gospel was produced by bishop Theodosy from Bistretcki monastery close to Bucuresht, proposed by H. Pinkarton. It was printed in London in 1828, 5000 copies were send directly to St. Petersburg, where it was completely destroyed.

Then BFBS turned to the Bishop of Turnovo Ilarion with the same request. He committed the work on the translation to Neofit Rilski, who knew old Bulgarian, classical Greek, Russian and Serbian. In the mean time Peter Sapunof of Triavna an immigrant in Bucharest together with priest Seraphim of Satara Zagora published in 1828 the New Testament. This lead to Ilarion stopping the work on the translation. Soon it became clear that Sapunoff's translation included only the four Gospels. Of this work only 1100 copies were published, the authors distributed 400 copies the rest were bought and distributed by the Bible Society. The same year BFBS refused to publish Nefit's translation which was made by a mixture of old church Bulgarian and western dialect.

BFBS renewed it's interest in publishing a modern translation on the Bible. They came in communication with Bishop Ilarion, and in 1839 Neofit's translation was published in Smyrna (Ismir) under the guidance of Elias Riggs. This version included only the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Under the request of the Greek Archbishop of Constantinople this first edition was destroyed. In 1850 a second edition was published in 30 000 copies. It was distributed widely in European Turkey and had great effect on the spiritual and cultural development of the Bulgarian ethnicity. This edition was characteristic with the use of old Slavic words, mix of Turkish words and Samokov dialect. Over all Neofit Rilski work undergoes six editions. Smyrna 1840; Smyrna 1850, Bucharest 1853; London 1853; Bucharest 1857; Bucharest 1859

Next BFBS requested from Dr. Elias Riggs to translate the whole Bible. Riggs was established in Smyrna where he worked over a few decades translating the Bible in Middle Eastern languages and publishing grammatical textbooks for the foreign missionaries. In 1844 he was in contact with Constantine Fotinoff, who was publishing the magazine "Luboslovie" in the missionary publishing house. 1830's Riggs invites Fotinoff to work on translating the Bible. 1855 his translation of Psalms was published, two years later in Constantinople was published Genesis(1857). During his life time the BFBS published Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Constantine Fotinoff, however passed away in 1858.

After Fotinoff's dead Elias Riggs invited Hristodul Sechanoff of Samokov(teacher in Gabrovo). Their effort was also joined by Dr. Albert Long (former missionary to Bulgaria, and now president of Robert College) in 1863. Another addition to the team was the successful Bulgarian writer and a poet Petko R. Slaveikov.

First they modernized and corrected the Neofit translation of the New Testament and published it in 1866. Same year Dr. Long traveled to New York to supervise the publishing of a larger print version, in two columns, left with Old-church Bulgarian and on the right modern Bulgarian.

In 1871 after 12 years of labor the team published in 36 000 copies their complete translation of the Bible. It was issued in two version(large print and small print) both with references.