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In March 1945, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, so as to limit the influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church decided to create a separate administration in the newly-created People's Republic of Macedonia. In Skopje, a Resolution to create the Macedonian Orthodox Church was submitted to the Serbian Orthodox Church who had since 1919 been the sole titulary. This resolution was rejected, but a later one, submitted in 1958, proposing the Ohrid Archdiocese of Saint Clement as a Macedonian Orthodox Church was accepted by the Serbian Orthodox Church on June 17, 1959 under strong pressure from the Communist authorites. Dositheus was appointed the first archbishop. The Macedonian Orthodox Church at that time only held an autonomous status but during the Third Clergy and Laity Assembly on July 19, 1967, in Ohrid, the Macedonian Orthodox Church was proclaimed as autocephalous contrary to canonical law.
Since the breakup of Yugoslavia and the end of Communist repression of the Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church has been in conflict with the Macedonian Orthodox Church, which has yet to gain recognition from the Patriarchate of Constantinople or any other autocephalous church. The issue of dispute is the anti-canonical method used to gain autocephaly, the issue of the Serb Orthodox minority (at least some 40,000 strong) and the question of some hundreds of Serb Orthodox shrines from the medieval Nemanjic period. The two Churches had been negotiating the details of a compromise agreement reached in Nis, Serbia in 2002 which would have given the Macedonians a de facto independent status just short of canonical autocephaly, when the Serbian Orthodox Church granted its embattled branch in the Republic of Macedonia full autonomy in late May 2005. The Macedonian prime minister rejected the move "with indignation". The government has stepped up its hostility to the Serbian Church and reaffirmed its support for the rival Macedonian Orthodox Church, which is not recognised by the rest of the Orthodox world.
Archbishop Jovan of Ohrid - who heads the Serbian Church in the Republic of Macedonia - complained of a new state-backed media campaign against his Church. "They are creating an unstable, explosive atmosphere among the population and are virtually inviting people to lynch us," he told Forum 18 News Service . The government has denied his Church registration, attacked its places of worship and launched two criminal cases against him. Macedonian government leaders have been unable to explain why they are interfering in the dispute between the Macedonian and Serbian Orthodox Churches and why they are denying full legal rights to Serbian Orthodox believers. Archbishop Jovan was later arrested, removed from his bishopric and then expelled from the country. Archbishop Jovan returned in 2005 and, after attempting to perform a baptism, he was arrested, sentenced to 18 months in prison and jailed with extremely limited visitation rights.
According to its roots, the Macedonian Orthodox Church is representing the first Christian experience of Europe. Its history goes back to the mission of St Apostle Paul and bares the witness of the one of the highest in virtue Christian community in the first centuries of Philippi. It was God’s will to sow the seed of the new teaching here (see Acts 16, 9), but it was due to the strong faith of the Macedonians that the seed grew up as a strong fruitful tree. Being a crossroad of the ancient civilized world, Macedonia made it possible for Christianity to be conveyed to many people. In later times, Macedonia was a bridge between East and West and played an especially important role in the Orthodoxy during the Latin occupation of Constantinople. Macedonia was also a place where the enlightening of the Slavs began and its spoken language was determined to become their first standard language. The Macedonian Orthodox Church is a successor of the Archbishopric Justiniana Prima (founded as an autocephalous Church in the time of the Emperor Justinian the Great, VI c., probably with the center in today’s capital of the Republic of Macedonia – Skopje) and the famous Archbishopric of Ohrid. It has uninterrupted apostolic succession, i. e. succession of the bishops together with their communities (Churches). The canonical territory of the Macedonian Orthodox Church coincides with the borders of the state Republic of Macedonia, but the Church also has few provinces outside the state borders – in the rest of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zeeland. The head of the Church holds the title of Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia. From 1999 the archbishop of the Macedonian Orthodox Church is His Beatitude Stefan. The supreme legislative body of the Church is the Archbishopric Church-National Assembly, consisted of bishops, priests, deacons and lay persons, i. e. the Church in its fullness. However, the highest authority in the hierarchy is the Holy Synod of Bishops, in which all the bishops are equal members (as expressing the fullness of their church community). According to the orthodox understanding of the hierarchy, the archbishop, i. e. the head of the Church, has priority in everything, but only priority by honor or priority to be the one on the place of God in service (Liturgy), according to St Ignatius of Antioch, the God-bearer (kade?). This priority is making obvious by mentioning the archbishop at every Liturgy in the first place – First of all, o God, remember the archbishop of Ohrid and all Macedonia Stefan... Still, the Macedonian Orthodox Church keeps in its fullness the original tradition that every province is the whole Church of Christ, under the presidency of the provincial bishop. That means that every provincial Church (the bishop, presbyters, deacons and the lay persons) is in certain terms independent or, better, interdependent with the other Churches through the love for each other. The Macedonian Orthodox Church directs itself according to the Holy Scripture, holy canons of the Orthodox Church and its own Constitution. In other words, the Church directs itself according to the Spirit of the Holy Tradition, expressed in what we have mentioned, but also still expressing itself through the holy men, good will, perfect deeds and all the divine virtues of the living Church of Christ. The Macedonian Orthodox Church has a long history of education or enlightening, but in – so to say – eastern sense, that differs from the general western understanding of the same noun by the fact that this idea is still closely tight to the God’s uncreated light. The One who enlightens is God and enlightening is not confined only on the mind of the man, but reaches the secret and most deep parts of the human being. So the goal is not to become cleverer or to have a sharp mind, but to clarify the whole being in order to become god by grace. In Macedonian culture this idea is still tightly connected to the noun of the enlightening. This kind of thinking can be seen as very natural if we have in mind that Macedonia (Ohrid) was the place where emerged the first University of the Slavs in the IX century. The founder of this University and its head was St Clement of Ohrid, who was also the first bishop with Slavonic origin. In that University were educated – or enlightened – about 3.500 persons. Those persons, together with their teachers, were the first intellectual potential of the Slavs. Working with the language of the local Macedonian Slavs, they also – as we mentioned above – created the standard language of the Slavs. (We should also mention that St Cyril and St Methodios learned the Slavonic language from the Macedonian Slavs – as children they were living in Thessalonica and later on St Methodios was the administrator in the eastern part of what is today Republic of Macedonia). With its educational institutions, the Macedonian Orthodox Church represents a continuation of this tradition. The Church has a secondary school and a Theological faculty in Skopje. The Church is also fighting to provide a space for a teaching of the faith in the official system of education, which still has exclusively atheistic shape. The Church has kept the good tradition of the Sunday schools, but also has its missionary-enlightening activity directed towards grown-ups. The Macedonian Orthodox Church has its own web-site (www.mpc.org.mk) and most of the provinces are engaged in issuing magazines, books, etc. The Macedonian Orthodox Church celebrates its Feasts according to the Julian calendar (old style) and the services are held in Macedonian or in old Church-Slav language. The Macedonian Orthodox Church has 10 provinces (7 in Macedonia and 3 abroad), 7 bishops, about 350 priests. Most of the people in the Republic of Macedonia are Macedonians and are orthodox (about 1.700.000 people or 65%-70% of the whole population). Abroad the Church has under its jurisdiction about 1.000.000 believers. About 30.000 people are baptized every year in all the provinces. Many people who were not baptized until they became adults are baptized in original way in the waters of the nearby rivers, as happens near Skopje, in the region called Matka. This region is well known by its cultural treasures – the monasteries from the XIV c. and on. The newly baptized in the river Treska are crismated (anointed with chrism) and receive their first communion at the Liturgy in the monastery dedicated to the Mother of God (Presveta Bogorodica). And there is no better opportunity for everyone who wants to understand why monasteries in Macedonia are so honored, than to see this fullness of beauty of the region, together with the baptisms and, most of all, the dedicated live of the nuns. One respected Macedonian poet said that the phenomenon called Macedonian monasteries is the richest synonymy of Macedonia, the sound of the circulation of our blood, because there was and until today there is no more complex synthesis of the noun for Macedonia than the institution of the monastery. The lives of the monks and nuns, their prayers, their exploits (?) are interweaved (?) not only with the Macedonian culture, education, but even with the very soil of this country. No person left the Ohrid Lake without a lifelong impression of the unique harmony between the nature and the spirit. Amen, amen I say to you that the man should deify himself and the creation should be sanctified. This lake was the place for hesyhia (?) before the Mount Athos developed as a heaven on earth and afterwards was in all times connected with this spiritual center of the Orthodox Church. This place – as many others in Macedonia – is witnessing of the ongoing exploits for sanctification of this unique Earth that God gave to us, bare witness of the potential and the stature of the inner man that, according the will of God, is not supposed to die.
External links
- Macedonian Orthodox Church - the official site
- Macedonian Orthodox Cathedral Sts Peter and Paul-Crown Point, IN, USA
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