One of the “bishops” of the unrecognized “Macedonian Orthodox Church – Ohrid Archdiocese” Parfeny Fidanovsky said that he expects “good news” from the Patriarchate of Constantinople regarding the recognition of its autocephaly. The process was suspended by a pandemic, he said in an interview to mia.mk.

“Solving such complex processes also takes time. Of course, this general pandemic situation affects this process, as well as many other things in the world,” he said.

According to him, “the Serbian and Russian Churches do not approve of the step with the demand for autocephaly from the Phanar.”

However, the “bishop” is “inspired” by the example of the Ukrainian OCU, which, however, is already undergoing significant tensions just two years after its creation.

He states: “The canonical order of the one, holy, apostolic and cafolic Church is as follows – all local church hierarchies should be united, gathered around the First Crown Mother Church in Constantinople through her historical and canonical rights and decisions of the Council.”

The Orthodox Ohrid Archdiocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church is the only canonical church structure in North Macedonia. The position of Orthodoxy in North Macedonia is complicated by a church schism: in the country, in parallel, there is a non-canonical Macedonian Orthodox Church, supported by the country’s authorities.