Russian church wants to mediate in SPC-MPC dispute

BELGRADE - Metropolitan Ilarion Alfeyev, the second most senior official of the Russian Orthodox Church, has said that Moscow wants to mediate in the church dispute between Belgrade and Skopje, the Religious Information Agency (VIA) reported on Monday.

The Russian Orthodox Church cannot recognise the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MPC) unilaterally - that should be done based on an all-Orthodox solution, and we are ready to be the mediators, the agency quoted the metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church, who is in charge of foreign affairs, as saying in a statement to Bulgarian media.

He has recently visited Sofia, as well as Skopje, where he met with Archbishop Stefan, the head of the canonically unrecognised Macedonian church, and Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov.

Metropolitan Ilarion also spoke to Archbishop Jovan Vraniskovski of Ohrid, who is serving a prison sentence for allegedly misappropriating EUR 250,000.

The MPC has defrocked Bishop Jovan, and the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) has appointed him as the Serbian exarch in Macedonia.

The SPC believes that Archbishop Jovan is a victim of rigged political trials because of his opposition to the schism, while Amnesty International and Freedom House have said that he is a prisoner of conscience.

On December 21, while on a visit to Macedonia, Metropolitan Ilarion, who is in charge of foreign affairs at the Moscow Patriarchate, requested that Archbishop Jovan be pardoned.

Meanwhile, the MPC has conveyed the request for Vraniskovski to be pardoned to the head of state, but there has been no response so far, the VIA - established in Belgrade at an endowment that bears the name of the Russian Grand Duchess and saint Elizabeth Feodorovna - reported...