Macedonian Orthodox Church

Thousands of people are expected to attend a big Church-organised protest in Skopje on Thursday as the country's biggest religious community, the Macedonian Orthodox Church, called on the government to shelve adoption of the Gender Equality Law and the Law on Birth Registry.

Orthodox Easter messages delivered by two senior clerics in North Macedonia and Serbia have sparked criticism, with Metropolitan Petar of the Prespa-Pelagonija eparchy of the Macedonian Orthodox Church causing particular outrage with his suggestion that gender equality is "blasphemous" and a "poisonous and perverted ideology" that threatens society.

The Church, in a secular state like North Macedonia, should stay out of women's rights and not interfere in laws that do not concern its own affairs, gender equality activists say.

We repeated the same wish at the beginning of 2022. This time, it seems that we managed to forget about the pandemic and the pain it caused us in the previous 30 months.
However, the coronavirus did not disappear - it was only replaced by a bigger suffering.

During the ceremony where he is to be enthroned, Patriarch Porfirije serves a liturgy with several bishops.
Just to reiterate, the Pristina authorities previously forbade the director of the Government Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petkovic, to attend the enthronement.

The Macedonian Orthodox Church is well on the way to finally getting the recognition and independence it craves - but may have to sacrifice the term 'Macedonian', at least for wider use.

"Mostly thanks to your prayers brothers and sister, and thanks to the prayers of all the saints, we established unity," Porfirije said in an address during the liturgy with Archbishop Stefan, the head of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, MPC.

Macedonian and Serbian churches held a joint liturgy in the St. Clement of Ohrid temple in Skopje. Photo: SPC

The traditional pruning of the vineyards near the south-eastern town of Kavadarci for St. Tryphon's Day on Monday turned sour when the Bishop Agatangel of the Macedonian Orthodox Church called in his sermon for the opposition right-wing VMRO DPMNE party to return to power.

Harbinger of city's divisive makeover

The erection of the controversial church foreshadowed the bigger and much more divisive government project to revamp the entire capital in classical style, known as "Skopje 2014", which was first revealed in CGI in a government video in 2010.

The head of the official Islamic Community of North Macedonia, IVZ, Sulejman Rexhepi, has been warned that he may face criminal charges if he persists with his threat to review the ban on public prayers in mosques.