ORTHODOX OHRID ARCHBISHOPRIC

Protocol No. 09 from 11 January 2004

Having a double reason for joy, first because of the glorious birth of Christ in body that happened in order to unite the separated and to save the fallen, and second because of the liturgical and canonical unity that the Ohrid Archbishopric achieved with several monasteries on the day of Christ’s birth, we address the public to announce that on Christmas day, the male monastery “St. Great-martyr Dimitry” in Skopje, known as Marko’s monastery, with the abbot Maxim (Risteski) together with his entire brotherhood and the female monasteries: “Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God” in Resen, with its abbess Kirana (Parlic), her entire sisterhood and the spiritual father of the monastery the abbot David (Ninov) and “St. prophet Elijah” in Skopje, with the custodian Taisa (Krceva) and her entire sisterhood, entered a liturgical and canonical unity with the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric, and through it with the entire Orthodox ecumene.

Unwilling to stay in the spiritually devastating schism, in which there is no salvation and which, promoted by the high clergy of the schismatic MOC, day-by-day turns into a heresy, the abbots and abbesses of the above-mentioned monasteries, supported by the entire brotherhood, that is, sisterhood of the same, before the feast of the Birth of Christ submitted a written request to HSB of the Ohrid Archbishopric for reception under its jurisdiction. Correctly understanding that the full guilt for the schism in the Church in the R. Macedonia lies in the bishops of the schismatic MOC, accusing them for being political poltroons and for acting only in their own interest, these God-seeking souls left the damaging and destructive schism and asked to be members of the one body of Christ which is the Church. Because the ethnophiletism, or the creation of Churches based on ethnic belonging was judged to be a heresy in the 19th century, because in the Church there is neither Jew nor Greek, just as the apostle says, for Christ became a man in order to surpass all divisions between men, the monks from the abovementioned monasteries, who together with those who were previously in communion with the Ohrid Archbishopric make more than 70% of the monasticism in the R. Macedonia, asked to enter into the only canonical structure of the Orthodox Church in these regions, and that is the Ohrid Archbishopric.

Although they were formally accepted in a liturgical communion at Christmas, the first concelebration and communion happened on Sunday, 11 January 2004 in the chapel of the Resurrection of Christ in Bitola.

From the office of the
Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric