Two of three bills that would add a new school subject called "religion and virtues" have won backing from a parliamentary committee in Bulgaria. The human rights, religions and citizens' complaints committee in the 52nd parliament rejected the third bill.

A bill from Dimitar Zdravkov of Progressive Bulgaria and a group of MPs passed with 8 votes for and 1 abstention. A bill from GERB MPs Krasimir Valchev and Toma Bikov passed by the same margin.

A bill from Nikolay Denkov of We Continue the Change and a group of MPs failed, with 1 vote for, 6 against and 1 abstention.

This committee isn't the one that will decide the bills' fate, though. All three now go to the education and science committee, which leads on this issue.

Members of Bulgaria's National Council of Religious Communities spoke at the meeting too. They welcomed moves to give virtues, moral values and knowledge of religion a clearer place in Bulgarian schools.

But the council says any change must protect freedom of conscience, equal treatment for all religions and the secular nature of state education. It also wants religious communities treated as natural partners, with the main denominations closely involved in shaping the new subject.

"The 8% threshold set out in some of the bills could in practice leave smaller religious communities worse off," the council said in its statement.

It's calling for special care to be taken over real access to religious teaching, and for workable answers in cases where only a handful of pupils or parents want it.

The council brings together the Muslim denomination, the United Evangelical Churches, the Catholic Exarchate in Bulgaria, the Central Israelite Council and the Armenian Apostolic Church.