Following the president, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia asked Bartholomew for a tomos
The Prime Minister of North Macedonia, and in the past the leader of the victorious pro-Western Maidan in the country, Zoran Zaev, wrote a letter to the Veselensky Patriarch Bartholomew with a request to grant autocephaly to the Macedonian schismatics.
Earlier, the President of North Macedonia, Stevo Pendarovski, sent a similar letter.
“We respect everything that is determined by international agreements and norms. But we want to be free within the church framework of our country, and our hierarchs should have the opportunity to serve together with the hierarchs of all Orthodox churches in the world,” Zaev’s letter says.
The message also states that “the Orthodox people in our country deserve the ecclesiastical independence that they have dreamed of for a century, and that they expect that the Macedonian Orthodox Church will be recognized as autocephalous, with the blessing and written decision of the first among Christian hierarchs - Patriarch of Constantinople."
Today, during a conversation with representatives of the press, the Macedonian Prime Minister said that more time needs to be devoted to resolving the issue of recognizing the autocephalous status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.
“Firstly, we believe that in coordination with the MOC, which we consulted after the elections in the Republic of North Macedonia, it was the right decision to send a letter to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew,” Zaev said. “As you know, I and the former Prime Minister Oliver Spasovski, the current Minister of the Interior, visited Istanbul and the Patriarchate at the beginning of the year, where we discussed this issue.”
Let us recall that in honor of the church indiction, the President of North Macedonia, Stevo Pendarovski, also made a similar appeal to Patriarch Bartholomew.
After the annexation of Vardar Macedonia, populated mainly by Bulgarians, following the Second Balkan War to Yugoslavia, this territory came under the care of the Serbian Orthodox Church. However, after World War II, the communist regime began to instill in the local population a distinct Macedonian identity based on the Ukrainian model. It even got to the point that, on the initiative of communist Belgrade, a Macedonian church schism emerged, which finally took shape in 1967.
At the same time, none of the local churches recognized the newly formed “Macedonian Orthodox Church”. In 2002, ethnic Macedonian (Bulgarian) John Vraniskovski returned from a schism in the SOC, and by decision of the SOC Synod he was placed at the head of the autonomous Orthodox Archdiocese of Ohrid. For his beliefs, the archbishop was tried several times and spent several years in prison in ordinary cells with prisoners, including forty people.
Today, the Serbian Orthodox Church is officially outlawed in North Macedonia, while Ecumenical Orthodoxy still recognizes the lands of the Macedonian state as the canonical territory of the SOC.
The leader of the Macedonian schism, Archbishop Stefan of Macedonia and Ohrid, is waiting for his tomos.
Following the president, the Prime Minister of North Macedonia asked Bartholomew for a tomos.