The President of North Macedonia, Stevo Pendarovski, sent a letter to Patriarch Bartholomew, thanking him “for the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to restore the canonicality of the Orthodox Church in his country”.
In this letter, Pendarovski “believes that the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s acceptance of the Church of Northern Macedonia in canonical unity and Eucharistic communion “restored the historical injustice committed against our Church and it’s faithful and healed the deep wounds caused by decades of isolation,” expressed “his hope and expectation for a final settlement of the administrative status of his country’s church in the near future through the granting of an Autocephaly Tomos by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, stressing that the completion of the autocephaly of the church of North Macedonia is a top national interest”.
Last week, the Holy Synod of the Constantinople “decided to restore the canonicality of this church, recognizing it with the name “Ohrid Archdiocese” while excluding the term “Macedonian” and any other derivative of the word “Macedonia” for its name”.
The country’s Orthodox Church seceded in 1967 from the Serbian Patriarchate and proclaimed its autocephaly as the “Macedonian Orthodox Church”, which is not recognized by any official Orthodox church in the world. But the Serbian Orthodox Church accepted the return to the canonicality and the Eucharistic communion of the Church of North Macedonia, which is no longer considered schismatic, and unlike Fanar does not limit it in name and diaspora.
