Mihail Lukanov
Papers of BAS. Humanities and Social Sciences
Vol. 12, 2025, No. 2
The identity of the Bulgarian Church of God: Prophecy in word and melody
Mihail Lukanov
Abstract. This study examines the song heritage of the Bulgarian Church of God (BCG) from its foundation in 1928 until the political transformations of 1989, while also considering later processes to a limited extent, and focuses on the intersection of prophetic speech and musical expression as a key marker of community identity. The research reconstructs the largely vanished practices of BCG hymnody through eyewitness testimonies and oral histories, combining both emic (internal) and etic (external) perspectives within an ethnomusicological framework. It explores how BCG followers interpreted their songs as divine revelation rather than mere artistic composition, and how this perception functioned within broader processes of group cohesion, identity formation, and cultural resistance. Special attention is paid to the church’s distancing from mainstream Western musical models in favour of a distinctly Bulgarian, folk-like sound, as well as to the later transformation of worship under the influence of globalized gospel music and popular styles after 1989. Not least, the analysis conceptualizes the BCG’s hymnal practice as a specific form of theology in melody – an audible manifestation of faith that mediates between the personal and the collective, the traditional and the modern, the national and the universal. The findings suggest that while musical modes of expression have evolved within BCG, the prophetic function of creating songs as vehicles of divine inspiration and communal identity remains a defining feature of the movement.
Keywords: Bulgarian Church of God, Evangelism in Bulgaria, oral tradition, folk elements in worship