“It has been 28 days since His Beatitude the Archbishop of Ohrid and Metropolitan of Skopje Jovan (John) is (sic) imprisoned in the prison Idrizovo, near Skopje.”
The website of the ancient Christian Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM, ticks away the days of the imprisonment of its head, “the only confessor of the faith who, in modern Europe, has been convicted and put in prison because of his religious beliefs.”
Archbishop Jovan, 39, began serving a two-and-a-half year sentence for “inciting ethnic and religious hatred, discord and intolerance” on July 26, a month after an appeals court upheld a lower court verdict. He was sentenced to serve 18 months in prison on top of a previous one-year sentence by the same court for conducting a baptism.
The Hierarchs of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas, in a statement issued Aug. 11 in New York, have called upon the Macedonian authorities to release the archbishop, referring to his imprisonment as “an offense to all democratic societies and to all institutions and organizations dedicated to the protection and preservation of human rights,” concluding the fact that “a recognized, canonical Orthodox Christian hierarch can be sentenced to a year-and-a-half prison term for fulfilling his religious responsibilities is simply beyond our comprehension.”
The American Orthodox Church’s Metropolitan Herman has called the arrest “a blatant and shocking assault on freedom of conscience and on freedom of religious faith and practice”; the Holy Synod of the Hellenic (Greek) Orthodox Church has lodged an “energetic protest” with the Macedonian authorities; the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church has expressed its “bitterness and shock upon this act of trampling of elementary religious and human rights”; while the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), “the first among equals” in the Orthodox Church hierarchy, calling himself “saddened and puzzled” by the arrest, has appealed for the archbishop’s release directly to the Macedonian prime minister, Vlado Buckovski.
In a show of Christian solidarity, the Roman Catholic Church has also joined the campaign to release the archbishop, as Bishop Josef Homeyer, the president of the Commission of European Bishops’ Conferences, has “written to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the present head of the European Council; and to other officials of the European Union, calling their attention to the imprisonment of Metropolitan Jovan” and asking for his release, according to Catholic World News.
Priests of the Ohrid Archbishopric have accused Macedonian authorities of resorting to brutal methods, initially denying Archbishop Jovan his Bible, stripping him of his cassock and shaving off his beard, which is worn by all Christian Orthodox clergy.
FYROM officials have referred to the case as Macedonia’s “internal affair,” with FYROM President Branko Crvenkovski accusing the imprisoned archbishop of trying to “replace and deny the existence of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.”
The Republic of Macedonia, still going under the abbreviation of FYROM due to Greece’s historical objections to its name, is one of former Yugoslavia’s six federal republics, having declared its independence in 1992. It is composed of a majority South Slav population combining Serb, Bulgarian and local particular influences. Muslim Albanians, which make up almost a quarter of its population and are closely allied with radical Albanians in Serbia’s neighboring Kosovo province, raised a short, violent secession drive in 2001, eventually winning NATO and EU support in federalizing the country.
The church controversy’s roots go back to 1958, when, under pressure from former Yugoslav Communist ruler Tito, the Orthodox dioceses on the territory of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia were granted “autonomous status” within the Serbian Orthodox Church, only to unilaterally “secede” in 1967, under the name of the “Macedonian Orthodox Church,” as part of the Communist drive to weaken and divide the Serbian Church.
The self-proclaimed Macedonian Church has not since been recognized by any of the world’s other Orthodox churches. Since 1990, the current Serbian Orthodox patriarch, Pavle, 91, has sought to reverse the Communist legacy and heal the various church splits both within the former Yugoslavia and in the Church diaspora worldwide. This included the restoration of dialogue with the Macedonian Church, leading to the signing of the “Nis Agreement” of May 2002, by which the Serbian Church agreed to grant substantial autonomy to the Macedonian Church under the name of the ancient Ohrid Archbishopric, which traces its roots back to the 6th century Roman Emperor Justinian.
Although three Macedonian Church bishops initially signed on to the agreement, they backed down upon returning home under pressure from the FYROM government and media. Archbishop Jovan’s troubles with FYROM authorities began when, alone among the bishops, he answered a renewed call by the Serbian patriarch to heal the breach later that summer. “They are just playing church in Skoplje (the Macedonian capital),” he said at the time, adding that it was time to end the Macedonian isolation from the other Orthodox churches.
The Macedonian Church leadership immediately dismissed him from his diocese and removed him with the help of Macedonian police forces. He was initially ordered to a monastery, but armed hooligans soon attacked the monastery and expelled him, whereupon he moved to his mother’s apartment in the town of Bitolj, turning one if its rooms into a chapel. However, armed gangs encircled the building, preventing the faithful from visiting his services. In the meantime, the Serbian Orthodox Church annulled the Macedonian Church’s acts, eventually naming Jovan to head the newly restored Ohrid Archbishopric.
During the ensuing three years leading to his imprisonment, Archbishop Jovan has been subjected to constant state-inspired harassment, in the form of numerous police searches and detentions:
- In January 2004, monks from four of the Archbishopric’s monasteries were evicted from their monasteries by armed police without a court order, with several undergoing temporary detentions or court trials;
- In February 2004, nuns from the monastery in the village Nizhepole were terrorized, their hair was forcedly cut off and a fire was set to the monastery by “unidentified” attackers;
- In October 2004, Macedonian state authorities, accompanied by strong police forces, demolished the temple in the village Nizhepole on the premise that it “lacked a building permit,” although that was the case with most of the other houses in the village; and
- On July 12, 2005 (the Feast of St. Peter and Paul according to the Julian Calendar), a chanter of the Ohrid Archbishopric priest was brutally beaten by a mob led by a Macedonian Church priest, which proceeded to demolish the temple of Saint Nectarios of Aegina, erected on a private lot, as police looked on.
Both Jovan and his clergy have accused the Macedonian state of being run by “neo-communists” who are following the footsteps of Tito’s regime, which formed the Macedonian Church “in order to control the diaspora in the U.S., Australia and Europe” and personally appointed “most of the its current bishops.” Many local observers feel that Macedonia’s current rulers are trying to use the church issue as a way to homogenize political support, in which they have the tacit support of Western powers eager to keep the region as divided as possible.
Indeed, on Jan. 23, 2004, the Macedonian Parliament issued a “Declaration for support of the autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church,” while the Macedonian court that confirmed one of the sentences against Jovan declared that “the Macedonian Orthodox Church is the only religious organization of the Macedonian people,” causing the archbishopric to charge the Macedonian state with “violating the Constitution of the state regarding the religious freedom of the citizens,” as well as “international conventions regulating freedom of religious confession.” In March 2002, a Macedonian state delegation headed by then-President Trajkovski (himself a Methodist), met the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople during a state visit to Turkey and declared that the issue of the Macedonian Church was “tied to the identity of the Macedonian people.”
In a statement issued after the archbishop’s arrest, Macedonian Helsinki Committee President Mirjana Najcevska declared the organization’s opposition to the way the archbishop and his clergy were treated “just because they decided to have a different belief. We oppose the protective approach of the government toward a specific religion because it represents a tradition, a cultural heritage and is linked to a particular ethnicity.” Some Orthodox churches have charged the Macedonian Church and government of following a policy of “phyletism,” the policy of church organization based on ethnicity, which was condemned at the Synod of Constantinople in 1872.
Just before his arrest, Archbishop Jovan stated to the Norwegian Forum 18 news service: “It is ridiculous that they are trying to silence me, in this age of the Internet and mass communication. … When they strike the shepherd they expect the sheep to scatter, but church history is paradoxical – the more the church is persecuted, the more followers it gets.”
And in his only interview since being imprisoned, Jovan stated that he would not “beg the mercy of anyone but Our Lord Jesus Christ. … My example is insignificant. No one anywhere should be punished for having a different belief. … Each believer has to be prepared in advance to suffer for Christ, because He, being absolutely innocent, suffered for the salvation of us all. … I am prepared to leave prison immediately but also to remain for the rest of my life. That will not be decided either by politicians or earthly courts. I do not put my faith in human rulers but in our merciful Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Serbian government has expressed dismay at the decision to imprison the archbishop, but is taking a low-key approach through diplomatic channels and appeals to international bodies, fearing that a breakdown in relations would destabilize the fragile peace in the region. However, a government ministry in charge of transportation has recalled two airliners leased by the Macedonian national airline from its Serbian counterpart.
The Orthodox Church has over 350 million adherents worldwide, organized mainly around national churches headed by patriarchs, archbishops or metropolitans, who adhere to a common liturgical and canonical tradition stemming from the first seven Ecumenical Church Councils held between A.D. 325-787 and the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire’s 11th century definite disengagement from papal supremacy.
Aleksandar Pavic covers the Balkans for WorldNetDaily.com.
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