Tsar Peter was a ruler who was active in the sphere of church policy, and is pictured to have been a deep believer himself. He is credited with the fact of granting the title of patriarch to the Bulgarian archbishop, which most probably occurred under the framework of the agreement of 927 (?933/934). The act symbolically completed the process of acquiring full maturity and independence by the Church of Bulgaria. Peter, as the first Bulgarian ruler, had to face a serious problem of heresy. Being fully aware of responsibility for orthodoxy of his subjects’ creed, he was determined enough to take precautions in order to stifle the development of the Bogomil heresy. However, his actual actions (except for his consulting the patriarch) and their results are impossible to pinpoint. On the other hand, it should be stressed that, during the rule of tsar Peter, the Bulgarian monasticism lived through a period of considerable development. The tsar contributed to that progress, though, unfortunately, details of the phenomenon are impossible to determine. Peter himself became a monk before his death, and subsequently his personal worship evolved around his involvement in the monastic movement.
Byzantine historians tied Peter primarily with the establishment of the lasting peace with the Empire in 927. In the sources that present the events from before the reign of the emperor Nikephor Phokas (963-969), when the relations between both states deteriorated, Peter is commonly portrayed as a peacemaker, a deeply religious man, accepting of the Byzantine way of understanding the role of the ruler in religious matters. However, Byzantine authors point out that Peter was able to successfully secure his position and ruthlessly deal with his enemies. The sources describing the events from the last years of his reign portray him as a prideful person, daring to stand up against the Byzantine basileÚj, and who gets rightfully and severely punished for his actions. It should be noted that most often the Byzantine authors did not describe their attitude towards Peter, and did not judge him directly. This results in the reader having to build the image of the Bulgarian ruler himself, based on how the sources describe the events concerning his reign.
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