Page "Bulgarian Exarchate" Paragraph 18

The subsequent Council in Constantinople, chaired by Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimus VI, in September 1872, wherein the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem ( the latter declined to sign the Council's decisions ) also participated, declared on September 18 ( September 30 ) the Bulgarian Exarchate schismatic and declared its adherents excommunicated.

The latter were accused of having “ surrendered Orthodoxy to ethnic nationalism ”, which had been qualified as a heresy-" ethnophyletism " ( εθνοφυλετισμός ).

The Slavic Orthodox Churches did not support the Council's decisions ; Russia's Most Holy Synod and the Russian government, while claiming neutrality, were actively assisting the Bulgarians ' cause with Count Nikolai Ignatiev, then the Russian Ambassador in Constantinople, having been instrumental in securing the 1870 firman.