StephenS wrote:Nationalism gone mad, methinks.
I agree. It seems like this whole situation is political as both the Serbian and Macedonian governments are involved in a tug of war.
From the Macedonian Orthodox website: http://www.mpc.org.mk/english/MPC/brief-history.asp
6) With the Niš draft agreement of the year 2002 between the Macedonian and the Serbian Churches, all the disputable canonical and liturgical mutual problems of the two Churches were satisfactorily resolved. The only disputable problem for the Serbian Orthodox Church remained the name of our holy Church and its status. Our Church due to pastoral reasons insisted on the name ‘Macedonian Orthodox Church' and on an independent status, whereas the Serbian Orthodox Church, out of political reasons (it does not recognise the existence of the Macedonian nation), insisted on the name Ohrid Archdiocese and on an autonomous status. All theological and historical facts suggest that the problem of the name of our Church does not have an ecclesiastical, but purely political foundation; whereas the term which is to formulate its organisational status, i.e. ‘autonomy' or ‘independence', does not have an essential but merely formal meaning, since the essence of the status itself was defined with the content of the Niš draft agreement. Following the rejection of this working document as well, and this mainly because of the disagreement around the name, and after the Serbian Orthodox Church had realised that it would not manage to change our name, it stopped unilaterally the talks with the Macedonian Orthodox Church and has ever since been trying to organise a parallel church in the Republic of Macedonia through the support it has been giving to the deposed by our Church former Metropolitan of Povardarie. We are grateful to God that until now every attempt of the Serbian Orthodox Church to divide our Orthodox people and form a parallel church has remained unsuccessful. Owing to the wrong pastoral approach, the Serbian Orthodox Church has never been given and will never be given the liturgical “amen” of the Orthodox people in the Republic of Macedonia, without which none of its decisions are valid and it can do nothing in our area.
Since the Macedonian Orthodox Church under Met. Stefan, which is favored by the Macedonian government, has declared on its website that it has had concelebrations with other World Orthodox jurisdictions, this shows that the Macedonian Orthodox Church under Met. Stefan is part of World Orthodoxy and not part of True Orthodoxy.
