Anthim I
[2] Anthim I was born in Kırk Kilise (Lozengrad) in Eastern Thrace (today Kırklareli, Turkey) and became a monk in the Hilendar monastery on Mount Athos.[3] He studied in the Halki seminary (on the Princes' Islands near Constantinople), in Odessa as well as in Russia.He graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy (in Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra) in 1856.He was ordained hieromonk by Metropolitan of Moscow Philaret Drozdov.[4] After he unilaterally declared an independent national church of the Bulgarians on May 11, 1872, he was defrocked by the Patriarchal Synod, under whose canonical jurisdiction he had been consecrated bishop.