Patriarch Maxim (Bulgarian: Патриарх Максим) (born Marin Naydenov Minkov, October 29, 1914, Oreshak) is the current head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. He was the second of two children of Nayden Minkov Rachev, but very little is known about his parents' background. He was educated only in his native mountain village of Oreshak but from his late childhood he became a novice monk in the Troyan Monastery and then studied Orthodox Theology at Sofia University. He took Holy Orders in 1941 and became secretary general of the Holy Synod in 1955 and titular bishop of Branit on December 30, 1956.