in Sunday masses in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, including a Baptism service, church officials said Wednesday, January 28.
Macedonian authorities on January 11 arrested Serbian Orthodox Bishop Jovan Vranisskovski, after police raided his apartment where he had been holding secret Sunday masses with monks and nuns loyal to the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Serbian Orthodox Bishop Marko Kimev and monk Sasko Velkov, who were also arrested but later freed, were fined $175 each for participating in a baptism in July last year in the St. Demetherios’ Church in Bitola, southern Macedonia, reported Forum 18 News (F18News), quoting church sources.
CHURCH LEADERS "THREATENED"
The arrests are "an obvious attempt to scare Macedonian Orthodox Church monks who desired to join the Serbian Orthodox Church, thus entering canonical unity with the rest of the Orthodox world," Bishop Marko told F18News, which covers religious persecution.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Mirjana Konteska told reporters police raided the apartment in the middle of a liturgy after receiving anonymous complaints from citizens that Jovan was disturbing the peace and posing a threat to national security.
However Bishop Marko told F18News that he and others taking part in the service in January were found not guilty of ‘disturbing the peace’, as the police were not able to prove that the singing of the liturgy was loud enough to require police intervention.
LONG DISPUTE
Bishop Jovan and his supporters have been at the center of an almost 40-year dispute between the government-backed Macedonian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church, the main domination of neighboring Serbia.
The Macedonian Orthodox Church declared independence from the Serbian mother church in the 1967, but analysts say that move was never recognized by Serbian, Russian, Greek and other major Orthodox denominations.
It reportedly expelled Bishop Jovan in July 2002 for planning to establish canonical relations between his diocese and the Serbian Orthodox Church.
ARRESTS CONDEMNED
The Serbian Orthodox Church has welcomed Bishop’s Jovan’s efforts to rejoin its ranks and condemned the authorities for the arrests of the church leader and his followers.
In a statement, seen by Transitions Online, Serbian church leaders compared the crackdown with "the persecution of early Christians" and demanded an explanation from Macedonian authorities.
The international human rights watchdog Amnesty International has also demanded Bishop Jovan’s release. Legal analysts say he can only be held for 30 days.
MACEDONIA GOVERNMENT
But the government of Macedonia has reportedly defended its tough stand toward the renegade bishop and expressed its full support for the Macedonian Orthodox Church, saying its independence is vital to the country’s strategic interests.
"The (church) has the full support of the entire Orthodox population in Macedonia," Macedonian Prime Minister Branko Crvenkovski was quoted as saying by Transitions Online, which monitors Eastern Europe.
"The future of the churches is in cooperation and dialogue, not in conflict," he added. Yet, the latest developments underscore international concern over nationalism and religious tension in Macedonia, which broke away from Serb dominated Yugoslavia in 1991.
The Balkan republic already came close to civil war a decade after independence when ethnic Albanian rebels staged an uprising in early 2001. There have been fears among NATO and European Union officials that Macedonia’s Serbs may become restless as well.
