This independence, after about fifty years, was partially destroyed by a Greek Emperor; and in 1018, Basil II.

restored the supremacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The kingdom was revived in the latter part of the twelfth century, but was again overthrown in 1393, by the Sultan Bajazet I.Mohammed II., when he subverted the Eastern Empire in 1453, made the religious chiefs of the Christian sects responsible, not only for the spiritual administration of their respective flocks, but also for that of a large share of their temporal affairs,--such as public education, civil suits, contracts, wills, and the like.

The Bulgarians appear for a time not to have been formally recognized by the Turks as belonging to the Greek Church, and of course were not subject to its Patriarch; but the Fanariote Greeks succeeded at last in making the Porte believe that, being of the same religion with the Greeks, they should be placed under the direct authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople; and this was effected in the year 1767.

Thus the Bulgarians lost their religious independence.
Since then, they have ever cherished an intense dislike of the Greek bishops, whose aim has always been to extinguish every remnant of national feeling, and obliterate all traces of their origin.