Skopje, North Macedonia, March 1, 2024
Photo: religija.mk
At its session yesterday, the Holy Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric resolved to research the Church situation in Ukraine.
“The Synod devoted serious attention to the study of the Ukrainian ecclesiastical issue and established a commission that will study the status of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which received autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” the Synodal report states.
This decision comes immediately after the MOC primate, His Beatitude Archbishop Stefan of Ohrid, returned from a trip to Rome where he met with, among other people, Andrei Yurash, the Ukrainian ambassador to the Vatican.
Yurash, previously the head of the Ukrainian Department of Religious and Ethnic Affairs, is known as an enemy of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church who actively worked to ban the Church in the past. According to published photos, Yurash seems to have attended all major events of the Archbishop’s visit, including the moleben at the tomb of St. Cyril.
Abp. Stefan with Yurash (far left). Photo: Facebook
The same Synodal commission will also study the issue of the naming of the Macedonian Church amongst Greek-speaking Churches.
It is known that these two issues—the MOC’s stance towards the schismatics and its name—are the reason why Constantinople and certain other Churches do not recognize the autocephaly of the Macedonian Church.
In March of last year, the MOC Synod decided “not to concelebrate with the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine until the full resolution of its status in the fullness of Orthodoxy.”
And in an interview last month, His Eminence Metropolitan Timotej of Debar and Kičevo explained that the MOC’s stance towards the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” headed by “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko, is the reason that Constantinople refuses to recognize MOC autocephaly.
It’s also known that the Constantinople is so against the idea of the MOC using the title “Macedonian” that it insists it not even refer to itself as such for its own internal uses, as His Eminence Metropolitan Petar of Prespa and Pelagonia has explained.
However, the MOC Synod explicitly understands itself as the guardian of the Church’s statutory order and norms, including its full name of “Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric.”
The MOC primate, His Beatitude Archbishop Stefan of Ohrid said in an interview in 2022 that Greek-speaking Churches are welcome to refer to them as the Ohrid Archbishopric if they want, but the MOC will continue to refer to itself by its full name of the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric.
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