SKOPJE, 29. SEPT. 2016 – An unusual meeting between Macedonian and the Serbian Orthodox bishops has raised hopes of a thaw in relations between the two estranged churches. The decision of Bishop Timotej of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, MPC, to attend the opening of a new Serbian Orthodox church in Bar in Montenegro has raised new hopes of a thaw between the two churches. Timotej, who acts as a spokesperson for the MPC said his reception last Sunday was pleasant but declined to speculate on whether this unusal event heralded the resumption of long-stalled talks between the two bodies. “That is a matter that should be carefully prepared because neither we nor they [the Serbian Church] want to meet just for the sake of meeting. Such talks should yield concrete results,” Timotej said. During his visit, Timotej presented his host, Bishop Amfilohije, with a small relic, part of the remains of St Jovan Vladimir, which are kept in Macedonia. The new church in Bar is dedicated to this saint. As a sign of gratitude, Amfilohije, the Serbian cleric in charge of leading the talks with the MPC, presented his Macedonian guest with a cross and a small icon. Bishop Timotej said the visit went off well. “It all went off in the best order. Bishop Amfilohije did not hide his words of gratitude to the Macedonian Orthodox Church. At the solemn diner, in front of all the present guests, he expressed gratitude to me as the Macedonian Orthodox Church Bishop of Debar-Kicevo. He informed [them] that our MPC delegation had brought relics and that this represented a special honour,” Timotej said. The two churches are locked in a long-standing conflict over the right of the Macedonian Church, MPC, to be accepted as an equal to the other Orthodox churches. The Serbian Orthodox Church, which has close ties with other Orthodox churches, has blocked recognition of the Macedonian Church by other Orthodox churches ever since it unilaterally declared “autocephaly”, or independence, in the late 1960s. The Serbian diocese in Montenegro has officially remained silent about its contacts with the Macedonian Church, only saying that its Macedonian guest did not participate in the official ceremonies for the opening of the new church, as representatives of unrecognized churches cannot do so. However, an unnamed source from the same diocese told the Montenegrin newspaper Pobjeda on Tuesday that the MPC “has a chance to regain its canonical status.” In recent years, relations between the two churches have been additionally burdened by the incarceration in Macedonia of a renegade Serbian priest, Jovan Vraniskovski. Vraniskovski was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail in Macedonia in 2012 for embezzling some 250,000 euro from the Macedonian Church before he defected to set up his own church, in communion with the Serbian Orthodox Church. After serving three years in jail, Vraniskovski was granted early release in January last year, which created preconditions for renewed talks between the two churches. However, no official talks have been held ever since. Unlike the Catholic Church, which is governed by one central figure, the Pope, the Orthodox world is much more diverse. Many states with a mainly Orthodox population have their own de-facto national churches led by their own patriarchs.
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