 During this period the Bulgarian Patriarchate was abolished and the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople was declared by the Ottoman Sultan as the spiritual leader of all the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, regardless of their ethnicity.In the 19th century the Bulgarians began a struggle for the restoration of an independent Bulgarian church, which was met with stiff opposition by the Constantinople Patriarchy.While the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was restored in 1872, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, refused to recognize it until much later, in 1945, and especially after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the end of the Balkan & World Wars.