The Macedonian Orthodox Church in the New Millennium

Abstract

This chapter examines the political challenges, potential, and environment of the Macedonian Orthodox Church during the twenty-first century. It interprets the Church’s place in shaping Macedonian identity, expressed by the idea of Church as a national “pillar,” and support of its quest for acknowledged “autocephaly,” proclaimed unilaterally in 1967. The chapter develops several themes. First, it examines the Macedonian Church’s relations with the Serbian Orthodox Church, the abortive “Niš Agreement,” and Serbian formation of a rival Orthodox entity under Bishop Jovan Vraniškovski. Second, the chapter comments on a “syndrome” of attitudes and values associated with the Macedonian Church: intolerance, homophobia, nationalism, and conservatism. The final section considers Archbishop Stefan’s offer to the Ecumenical Patriarch, to rename the Church the “Archbishopric of Ohrid,” possibly in connection with the “Prespa Accord,” resolving the “name dispute” with Greece. A conclusion speculates whether an autocephalous Macedonian Church might diminish espousal of those aforementioned values conflicting with Macedonia’s EU membership.