Religious education in Bulgaria during the period of democracy

İngilizce Özeti (Abstract) In 1989 there was a shift in the political regime from communism to democracy in Bulgaria. The both of them have its characteristic legal and sociological infrastructure. The same principle is valid for the education system. The main purpose of the thesis is exploring the religious education for the period 1989-2018 through making an inquiry of various issues. Questions as the historical development and transformation of the religious education in Bulgaria, religious education institutions established before and after the shift to democracy, practices used in the religious education, deliberations made on religious education and legal grounds were elaborated. The methods used in this research were literature review and semi-structured interviews, successfully conducted in Bulgaria. The different aspects of religious education during the democracy period were examined in three chapters. The first chapter comprises the political and religious developments and traces the historical progress of the religious education before the democracy. The legal grounds of the religious education in the context of religion-state relationships were revealed in the second chapter. Additionally the deliberations made on religious education were reviewed. In the last chapter, the religious education of Christians and Muslims was investigated. Because of the fact that he majority of the Bulgarian population belongs to the Orthodox Christian faith, the education institutions responsible for the Orthodox clergy and the status of the religious education in the state schools was discussed. Besides, the condition of the Islamic classes in state schools was studied and the Islamic education institutions set up in the democracy were listed. It was proved with this research, that the religion-state relationship and the religious education during the democracy followed a pattern of historical continuity and consistency. It was witnessed that religious education in state schools is very popular and compulsory when the regime was monarchy, it was forbidden during the communism and it was facultative, but unpopular during the democracy. After the shift to democracy, new foundations of Islamic religious education were laid down in Bulgaria. On the one hand the new system was based on the traditional religious education in Bulgaria, on the other hand on the experience of the modern religious institutions. The historical responsibility of the legendary Nuvvab School was inherited by the three Imam Hatip High Schools and the Higher Islamic Institute. The functions of Sibyan primary schools were taken over by the elementary schools and Quran courses. The research was completed by making a broad evaluation and putting forward recommendations in the conclusion section.