Yosif Sokolski

Joseph Sokolsky (Bulgarian: Йосиф Соколски, Gabrovo, Ottoman Empire 1786 – died in Kiev, Russian Empire September 30, 1879) was the first senior Eastern Orthodox Bulgarian clergyman who convert to Catholicism, thus becoming a pioneer of the Bulgarian Byzantine Catholic Church. Sokolsky negotiated with Vatican a formal union due to Phanariotes domination over Bulgarian Orthodoxy and gained Catholic recognition 1861 when Pope Pius IX named him Archbishop for the Bulgarians of the Byzantine Rite. He was also accepted in that capacity by the Ottoman Empire.

Sokolsky was born around 1786 in an Eastern Orthodox family in the village of Nova Mahala, today quarter of Gabrovo. His baptismal name was Ivan. Around 1802 he became a novice in the Troyan Monastery, where he took religious vows in 1806. In the 1820s he visited Mount Athos, where he brought the collection of works containing the life of Gabrovo's Bulgarian Saint Onuphrius. On May 1, 1826 he became abbot of Kalofer Monastery. In 1832, Archimandrite Joseph Sokolsky left the Troyan Monastery and founded a monastery at a place called Falcon near the village Etar (now part of the city of Gabrovo). New monastery became known as "Sokolsky". In the 1840s in the same area Sokolsky created a "Joseph Convent". In 1836, Joseph Sokolsky also opened a school for boys. At one time in this school taught famous Bulgarian educator Neophyte Bozveli. For his achievements as an Orthodox Archimandrite, Sokolsky was much revered among Orthodox Bulgarians.

In 1860 the Bulgarian national leaders and clergy campaigned for autonomy of Bulgarian Orthodox Church within the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, but without much success. At the same time, among the Bulgarians in Istanbul, an alternative solutions were proposed, in form of union with Catholic Church. Chief advocates of such notions were Dragan Tsankov and Georgi Mirkovich.

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