Between Constantinople and Moscow: Autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church—Archbishopric of Ohrid

The article examines the history and the mechanism of obtaining autocephalous status for the Macedonian Orthodox Church—Archbishopric of Ohrid, from the early initiatives in 1944, through the self-decared autocephalous status in 1967, the appeal to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in 2018, and finally the granting of a Tomos by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2022 and further steps toward obtaining full recognition by all other Orthodox Churches. In a situation of division in the Orthodox world, with churches gravitating around Constantinople and those around Moscow, there are differences in ecclesiological understandings of the processes for obtaining autonomy and autocephaly. In this dilemma, political motives prevail rather than dogmatic and canonical ones. These differences are profoundly influenced by geopolitics, particularly in light of the Ukrainian Civil War that began in 2014, which escalated into the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022. The Macedonian case is compared to the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2019 granted by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.