The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, on Monday received the current caretaker Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, Oliver Spasovski, with talks directly touching on the ecclesiastical issue in the land-locked former Yugoslav republic in the southern Balkans.
Spasovski was accompanied by his predecessor, Zoran Zaev.
Afterwards, it was announced that the Ecumenical Patriarchate will invite representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church to its Fanar-district seat, in order to try and find a mutually acceptable solution for returning the Orthodox Church in the republic to canonical order and recognition by the world’s other ancient and junior Orthodox Churches, namely, as the Ohrid Archbishopric.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate said the initiative follows recourse to the Mother Church by the non-canonical Church in the country – formerly recognized by Greece and international organizations (UN, EU, NATO etc) as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM).
