DepartmentHistory

Prof. Momchil Metodiev. Ph.D.

Prof. Momchil Metodiev, PhD is the Head of the History Department, having been a guest lecturer in the same department. He graduated from the Sofia University History Faculty, in 1995 with a major in General Medieval History and in 2002 he defended his doctoral dissertation, entitled Evolution of the Pope’s Institution (from the beginning of the 4th to the beginning of the 7th century). The academic degree Doctor of Philosophy was awarded to him in 2010, after defending a doctoral dissertation, themed The Orthodox Church and the Communist Regime in Bulgaria.

From 1997 to 2007 he worked in the diplomatic corps of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; before that he had worked in the Central State Archive Service as an archivist and in the Sofia Seminary of St John of Rila.

He has also specialized in Korean Studies in the University of Yonsei, Seul, South Korea, as well as International Relations in the Clingendael Institute, Hague, the Netherlands.

He is also a translator of text in the field of contemporary church history and theology, among which are the Encyclicals of Pope Francis, as well as the Autobiography of G.K. Chesterton.

Prof. Momchil Metodiev’s research interests are related to the History of the Church and the History of Communism in Bulgaria, including the comparative study of the former and the latter. Since 2007 he has been the chief editor of Christianity and Culture Magazine; since 2008 he has been a researcher with the Institute of Studying the Recent Past; since 2017 he has been the academic consultant with the Sofia platform.

Important publications since 1997:
New York Metropolitan Bishop Andrey: Biography, Memories and Diaries (RIVA Publishing, 2016)
State Security: Inherited Advantages. Professional Biographies of Leading Officers (Institute of Studying the Recent Past [ISRP]), 2016); with Maria Dermendzieva
Between Faith and Compromise. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Communist State (ISRP, 2010);
Legitimacy Machine. The Role of State Security in the Communist State (ISRP, 2008).

He is the author of a series of articles and studies, some of which were published in international academic journals and by academic publishers.

He has worked on the compilation of a number of documentary collections, like The Diaries of the Bulgarian Patriarch Cyril (NBU, 2018) with Zhivko Lefterov and the collection of the State Security Files.

He has also worked on the History of the Cold War project by the Woodrow Wilson Institute, Washington, USA.