The Metropolitan of Skopje and Archbishop of Ohrid, His Beatitude Stefan, this week received in Skopje the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, His Eminence Anthony. The Russian Church hierarch serves as the chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations.
The Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, among others, conveyed the warmest wishes of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, His Holiness Kirill, to Archbishop Stefan.
At the same time, however, Metropolitan Anthony continued to ignore a portion of a historic decision by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate last May to resume eucharistic communion with the Archdiocese of Ohrid and to re-establish its canonical order in the Orthodox world.
An announcement by the Moscow Patriarchate again referred to the “Macedonian Orthodox Church”, in defiance of the Mother Church decision.
The Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate last May proceeded with the recognition of the previously breakaway and non-canonical Orthodox Church in the Republic of North Macedonia, under the name of Archdiocese of Ohrid, while making clear that the term “Macedonian” and any other derivative of the word are to be excluded from its official title.
The Republic of North Macedonia lies due north of the Greek province of Macedonia, the latter being the land that more closely approximates to the ancient Macedonian Kingdom, and comprises more than half of geographical Macedonia.
His Eminence Anthony later toured several historic cathedrals in the capital of Skopje, accompanied by Archbishop Stefan and hierarchs of the Archdiocese of Ohrid.
