A third con-celebratory and Archieratical Divine Liturgy was co-officiated on Sunday at the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, in Belgrade, by the Patriarch of Serbia, His Holiness Porfirije, and the Archbishop of Ohrid, His Beatitude Stefan, along with several hierarchs of the two fraternal Orthodox Churches.
After the Divine Liturgy, His Beatitude Porfirije conveyed, via the First Secretary of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Patriarchate, a Tomos – or patriarchal charter — to the Archbishop of Ohrid, with the latter reading out an official recognition of Autocephaly, by the Serbian Orthodox Church, for the now canonical Orthodox Church in the Republic of North Macedonia.
Such a development, as widely reported, allows the Archbishopric of Ohrid will to also seek the Tomos of Autocephaly from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Mother Church.
The Sacred and Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, chaired by the Ecumenical Patriarch, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, last month issued a decision resuming eucharistic communion with the Archbishopric of Ohrid, thereby returning that Church to the path of canonical status.
The Republic of North Macedonia is a small land-locked country in the southern Balkans. It lies due north of the northern Greek province of Macedonia, which approximates to historical Macedonia of antiquity and occupies more than half of geographical Macedonia.