Bulgaris, Eugen

Bulgaris, Eugen a Russian archbishop, was born in Corfu 1716. He entered in early life the priesthood of the Greek Church, and subsequently continued his studies in Italy. On his return he assumed in 1742 the direction of a school at Janina; later he taught successively at Kohani, on Mount Athos, and in Constantinople. The encouragement which he gave to philosophy found many enemies and led to charges of heterodoxy, on account of which he had to quit his position both at Janina and on Mount Athos. He left Constantinople in 1768, in consequence of the war of Russia against Turkey, and went to Russia, where Catharine II appointed him archbishop of Kherson. This position he only retained a few years, and the last years of his life he spent in St. Petersburg, occupied with literary labors. He died in that city in 1806. Bulgaris is one of the most prominent scholars of the modern Greek Church, and has exercised a lasting influence upon the progress of Eastern Europe in both secular and religious literature. His works, mostly in the ancient Greek language, are numerous. His Manual of Logics has ever since remained a favorite text-book in the Greek schools. Among his theological writings are several volumes of funeral sermons and eulogies on saints. He also published a translation of the work of Adam Sernicavius on the Procession of the Holy Ghost. The latter work is one of the standard works of the Greek Church on the much disputed doctrine, and the Roman Congregation for the Union of the Eastern churches with the Church of Rome (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide pro negotiis ritus Orientalis) specially instructed one of its consultors, Dr. Laemmer (subsequently appointed professor at Breslau) to refute it. Dr. Laemmer consequently undertook the publication of the Scriptorum Graeciae orthodoxae bibliotheca selecta (Freiburg, vol. 1:1865: contains Prolegomena; two sermons by Nicephorus Blemmida; the work of the Patriarch Johannes Veccus, of Constantinople, De unione Ecclesiarum, as well as the Sententia synodulis and the Apologia of the same author). — See Pierer, 3, 445; Laemmer, Script. Graec. orth. bibl. sel. vol. 1.