The Reims Gospel is written in Old-Bulgarian

The coronation of the French kings was always performed in the cathedral in the town of Reims. When they swore the oath, they placed their hands on an ancient church book with a beautiful facing, in which relics were incrusted (most probably sacred relics, parts of the Holly cross and others). This is the so called Reims or coronation Gospel. Vassil Aprilov writes that this Gospel is probably Bulgarian. Stilyan Chinchilov and some other authors state this fact but the data about the book we have are too scanty.

In the third volume of the Cyril-Methodius Encyclopedia from 2003 there is a detailed article by Georgi Minchev on the Reims Gospel in which the points of view of researchers from different countries who dedicated their works to this medieval artifact are shown. The disputations among the scientists on the origins of the text aren’t over. Often the stated stands and conclusions contradict one another.
On the 21st of February the chairman of the Council of Human Rights and Confessions Lutchezar Toshev sent a request for cooperation to the Right Reverend apostolic nuncio in Bulgaria Monseigneur Giuseppe Leanza, asking for information about the Reims Gospel. On the 23rd of March Mr. Toshev was invited in the legation where in the presence of His Beatitude exarch Hristo Proikov, the Right Reverend Monseigneur Leanza gave him a compact disk with an electronic colored copy of all the pages of the Gospel, sent by the archbishop of Reims Monseigneur Thierry Jordan with an accompanying note from abbot Goi.

The book upon which the French kings swore oath was written in Old-Bulgarian and consists of 32 pages written in Cyrillic, the remaining 62 pages are written in the Glagolitic alphabet, the alphabet created by St. Cyril and St. Methodius.

Thanks to the Council of Human Rights and Confessions in the face of its chairman Lutchezar Toshev and the kind assistance of the Nunciature, of the Bulgarian Catholic Church and the archbishop of Reims, it is now possible that all the pages of the Reims Gospel are presented to the public and that the Bulgarian scientists can conduct their research on the text.
Today this sacred artifact is kept in the vault of the Reims library and access to it is allowed only in very exceptional occasions.

During the French Revolution the facing was robbed but the wooden covers, wrapped in red leather remained.

There are a few accounts on how the Gospel gets in the Reims Cathedral.

Referring to a hand-written note, the Reims archivists affirm that the book was brought by Cardinal Charles de Loren – archbishop of Reims, who received it as a gift or bought it during the last session of the Church Council in Trento (1545–1563). He bestows the “Slavonic Gospel” on the Cathedral for Easter (1574). Before that is was preserved in the “St. Jeronim” monastery near Prague.
The second account is Russian. It is said that Anna Yaroslavna (daughter of the Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise) brought the book to France from Kiev at her wedding with the French king Henry I in 1051. Some Russian researchers base their assertions on a marginal note at the end of the Gospel that stated: “Anna Regina” (Queen Anna) which according to them is preserved to this day in Paris – in the “Chernuski” museum, created by the famous banker-collector from Milan. It is clear that the matter here is about another book because the Reims Gospel was never in that museum. The Gospel des not contain such marginal note which proves yet again that this account is based on a misunderstanding.

There is a third account – that in 1469 the Gospel was brought to France from Constantinople by the Byzantine man of letters Mikhail Paleokapa. This account relies upon the inventory books of the Reims Cathedral from the seventeenth century.

Except from the Bulgarian origins of the Gospel, there are hypotheses for Serbian, Croatian, Russian, Czech or a transcript from an older Bulgarian original. What is the truth, we are about to learn from the specialists.

The material was granted by Lutchezar Toshev, chairman of the Council of Human Rights and Confessions of the National Assembly
Photo: Viktor Giltyai