Education and early ministry
Born Vangel Razumov in the Bitola region under Ottoman rule, the future metropolitan was educated at Bulgarian schools and the Ecclesiastical Seminary in Constantinople, the latter on a full scholarship. He was tonsured a monk in 1910, taking the name Boris, and ordained hierodeacon.
He continued his studies abroad at the University of Chernivtsi, earning a doctorate in theology in 1915, and was reported to have mastered ten languages. Ordained hieromonk in 1917 and made archimandrite in 1922, he served for several years as rector of the St. John of Rila Theological Seminary in Sofia before his episcopal consecration as Bishop of Stobi in 1930 and his tenure as Secretary General of the Holy Synod.
Metropolitan of Nevrokop
Appointed to the Nevrokop see in 1935, Boris governed the diocese for roughly thirteen years. He oversaw the construction of 33 new churches and the founding of Orthodox brotherhoods, and was known for his discipline of the clergy: he forbade priests to accept payment for liturgical services and laicized those guilty of serious misconduct, while showing pastoral compassion toward struggling clerics.
Resistance and martyrdom
After the communist takeover of Bulgaria in 1944, Metropolitan Boris consistently opposed the regime's interference in the Church. He forbade his clergy to join communist organizations, and in 1945 he organized financial support for the families of priests sentenced by the communist 'People's Court.' State security regarded him as a hostile figure and placed his movements under close surveillance.
On November 8, 1948, after celebrating the Divine Liturgy and preaching on Christian martyrdom in the village of Kolarovo, he was shot and killed by Iliya Stamenov, a defrocked priest with a criminal past whom he had refused to restore to the priesthood. The lenient sentence given to the killer and the subsequent destruction of his security file led many to view the assassination as orchestrated by the communist authorities.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church later honored Boris as a hieromartyr, and he is widely venerated, with his commemoration kept on November 8, the day of his death.
