Interview with Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica
(
06.03.2004
)
With the Niš Agreement the Macedonian Orthodox Church was given the widest possible autonomy, which most probably would have grown later into autocephaly. Could you tell us why was the agreement in question not accepted on the part of the Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church? We cannot speak about certain Niš agreement since it is only a working document of the two commissions, the fifth of them, a document that only the Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Holy Synod of Hierarchs of the Macedonian Orthodox Church are entitled to accept and sign or to reject. The Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Church accepted it, just as it had accepted the previous working document from the monastery of St. Naum near Ohrid, but the Holy Synod of Hierarchs of the Macedonian Orthodox Church sent it back to be finalised, just as it had done with all the previous working documents. Had both the entitled Assemblies accepted the Niš working document of the two commissions, then we could speak about a Niš agreement, as it is now we cannot. I think this is clear to all. Therefore the question is properly formulated thus: why was this document, too, not accepted by the Holy Synod of Hierarchs of the Macedonian Orthodox Church? We, as a Commission of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, already in Niš tried to explain the representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church that two positions from the working document, which are a pastoral absurd, we cannot, and also do not want to, defend, and these are: firstly, the constitutional name of our Church ‘Macedonian Orthodox Church’ not existing in it, and secondly: the determination of our administrative status with the term ‘autonomy’. Our proposal was the name Macedonian Orthodox Church to be directly and clearly present in the working document, and instead of the term ‘autonomy’, the term ‘independence’ to be used as already accepted on the part of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1959. These two issues, which are the only disputable issues between the two commissions, for us as Episcopes of the Macedonian Orthodox Church are of exceptional pastoral importance, and certainly not of eschatological. Still, we, as a Commission of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, signed this document (after all that has happened I still see it was a very good thing), because its ecclesiastical content was treated exhaustively, that is, as regards the church problems of the document we as commissions have nearly no essential differences or disputable issues between us. Thus, after we brought into line the church content in the working document from Niš and achieved what is an ecclesiological ideal (not to allow our spiritually free and independent Churches to come under any other dependency or subordination to one another apart from the evangelical "dependency" in the same faith, same grace, love, and communion) the greatest layman could clearly grasp that the use of the terms ‘autonomy’ or ‘autocephaly’ or ‘independence’ has become no issue, that is, a simple formality. The fact worries that a most simple formality appears as an obstacle in the relations between the two hierarchies, particularly when we know that the Fathers in order to preserve the unity of the Church introduced new terms even in the triadology, as for example the Nicene term ‘consubstantial’. As regards the use of the name Macedonian Orthodox Church, I wish we previously recalled the following: primary condition for every Local Church in its apostolic mission, that is, the preaching of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to every man, is respect of the personal identity (by this of the national, too) of every actual person which we address with our preaching. Missing the personal identity of the one whom we address, regardless of the reasons for it, means inevitable failure of the church mission and negation of us as pastors. Pastoral ideal, for all of us, is the attitude of the Holy Apostle Paul: For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win the Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as a weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you (1Cor. 9:19-23). And finally, it is a pastoral failure and a satanic deed to violate the freedom and dignity of the man by not recognising his personal identity, and particularly to try to change it. So, as a Commission we signed the working document in Niš because of the concord in our stands concerning the crucial ecclesiological, canonical, and liturgical issues, while our Holy Synod did not accept it since this working document, too, pastorally was not completely formed, because the issue of the name and the status of our holy Church has become an issue of the identity, dignity, and the historical struggle of the Orthodox people entrusted to us, i.e. a current political and national issue and as such – a current pastoral issue. The main question raised now before the Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Church is why it would not accept the name Macedonian Orthodox Church since it is a fundamental pastoral issue for the Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church (that is, a fundamental and only way for a primary approach to the entrusted people) and since we have no essential differences in the church content of the last working document between the two commissions. Or, why do not the Serbian Orthodox Church and the other Local Churches accept our proposal to use only the ecclesial names in the official relations between the Churches, as for example: Ohrid Archdiocese, Peć Patriarchate, Athens Archdiocese etc.? If these two questions have no theological answer, then all else is worldly politics. We know from history that none church territory has acquired autocephaly staying in a schism. The Bulgarian Exarchy is an example, which for 80 years had been in a schism and first had to return into the canonical order, and only was granted autocephaly after that. It is completely the same with the American Orthodox Church. Why did the Macedonian Orthodox Church not decide to make this step, and then to ask for autocephaly? Is the history of acquiring autocephaly exactly as you tried now in a couple of lines to explain to us it is a big question, but this is not important now. That is not at all a problem between the Macedonian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church. We ask the content of the Niš working document which concerns the status of our Church terminologically to be determined as independence. As I explained above, on all the clauses in the Niš working document that are of purely church content (ecclesiological, liturgical, canonical, etc.) there are no opposite opinions between the two commissions. Therefore personally I think that the use of the term ‘independence’, in respect to it being a formal question, should not appear as a problem between the two commissions and Churches. The main problem for the Commission of the Serbian Orthodox Church is the use of the name Macedonian Orthodox Church on our part, and when such thing appears as a problem between two Churches, with all the consequences that arise from it and which we see nowadays, ...make out yourselves what it is. The explanation that the Greeks find it a problem is not acceptable. If there is a good will, there is a solution for it as well, I mentioned it above: by using the ecclesial names. In this regard, in the Orthodox world whenever a question about the Macedonian Orthodox Church is raised, the representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church always point out that this is their internal problem. We do not ask for a Tomos of autocephaly from Constantinople, we are resolving the church problem between us and the Serbian Orthodox Church. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Today in R. Macedonia there is also a canonical hierarchy, headed by Metropolitan Jovan, recognised by all the Local Orthodox Churches. What if it happens that this hierarchy soon acquires autocephaly, what stand will your Synod take? Will it lose the support from the clergy, the State, and the people? The true question is: why is someone from the Serbian Orthodox Church exactly now taking that step and causing this, although unimportant, schism in the Macedonian Orthodox Church? The Macedonian Orthodox Church in the last few years has experienced unparalleled renewal in comparison with the neighbouring Orthodox Churches. Over twenty monasteries have been renewed with around a hundred monks and nuns with all the positive effects stemming from it. Those effects will have certainly been felt also in the Holy Synod of Hierarchs of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Why such an adventure, exactly now, after forty five years of patient waiting and in the moment when we were already on common ground in Niš? I called a schism what you named a canonical hierarchy, not because they are only some hundred people, not because they have not a single church, not because they have not a single monastery, not because I do not like them (I have tonsured and ordained most of them, starting with the Serbian exarch Jovan), and not because I do not count them canonical, I call them a schism because with the thing done they did not achieve any pastoral effect whatsoever, because they missed pastorally the Macedonian people and aimlessly distanced from it and because the consequences of their existence can be rather negative for the unity of the whole Orthodox Church. Since we are concluding a pastoral failure, under question is put their canonicity as well, and also their reasoning and all else. If someone among the Serbian high clergy who has done this thinks he will have a peaceful conscience and a blessing from God by installing in R. Macedonia some hundred people headed by some canonical hierarchy and by representing them everywhere as a recognised Church, and at the same time, accidentally or not, leaving out of a visible liturgical communion two and a half millions Orthodox Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia and in the Diaspora, thus bringing harm to the overall testimony of the Orthodox unity in the world, this one is wrong a lot. While on this subject, I have not heard that anyone has officially recognised this schism, but I know several Local Churches that do not agree with it at all. As I already pointed out, the problem is not in the autocephaly, the problem is pastoral and concerns the name ‘Macedonian Orthodox Church’. Simply we cannot approach the Orthodox Macedonian people without this. Let no one foster a false hope, this hierarchy, especially without the name Macedonian Orthodox Church, even if it acquires autocephaly, will not be accepted by anyone, because it has already missed pastorally this people and this people knows it has been betrayed by them, and this is hard to forget. Do you know where the true problem is and what I am afraid of? What will happen with them if one day the Serbian Orthodox Church formulates and accepts the agreed upon in Niš as ‘independence’ and accepts our constitutional name ‘Macedonian Orthodox Church’? If this day comes soon, then we will have a real problem with the so called canonical hierarchy: how will the people accept them back? The schism is created fast, but is hard to heal. Do you know how many times the self-organised Orthodox Church of Montenegro has asked us to help it for ordinations, studies, renewal of monasteries etc.? Until now, we have not even thought about doing this. Four monasteries with around thirty monks and nuns have already moved under the jurisdiction of the autonomous Ohrid archdiocese. There are rumours in the public about an announced transfer of few other monasteries. What do you plan to do to prevent the transfer of the remaining ones? Their number is not thirty but up to twenty, half of whom are novices. They have no monasteries since they left them of their own free will, taking the goods from them many days before, which has been neatly recorded. Most of them are my monastics. These young people as early as in the beginning of their monastic life were counselled to grow spiritually and intellectually, to reach the priestly ideal: mind-and-heart prayer, that is, standing of the mind before the altar of the heart, without which no one can be called a true monastic and a true priest, and if one day God wills it and they enter into the Holy Synod of Hierarchs of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, then from inside, as good pastors, with much patience to change what has been distorted for centuries due to the negligence of the foreign hirelings. But nothing. They wished before time to become pastors and to run their own monasteries, as to lose in the end completely the feeling and the identity of a pastor, losing the real touch with a whole people. For a pastor has to know the spiritual growth and strength and the needs of his flock in order to guide it properly and feed it in time. It is after this care that the flock recognises its Pastor. I am the good Shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own (John A propos, there will be no other moves, and soon the remaining two of the three empty monastery objects will be inhabited by new monastics. Here is the statement of the other abbots and abbesses: We, the monastic brotherhoods and sisterhoods in the monasteries of the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC): St. Naum of Ohrid, St. John the Baptist (Bigorski monastery), St. George - in Rajčica, The Most Holy Mother of God - Matka, St. Nicolas - Ljubanci, St. Gabriel of Lesnovo, The Most Holy Mother of God and The Holy Archangel Michael in Berovo, St. Leontius in Vodoča, St. Joachim of Osogovo, The Most Holy Mother of God in Veljusa, The Holy Forty Martyrs in Bansko, St. Mary Magdalene in Dojran, St. George in Kučkovo, Holy Transfiguration in Zrze, The Holy Archangel Michael in Varoš, St. Athanasius in Žurče, St. John the Theologian in Slepče, The Most Holy Mother of God in Kališta, All Saints in Debarca, The Most Holy Mother of God - The Most Pure of Kičevo, Holy Saviour in Skopje and other – state that we remain faithful to the Macedonian Orthodox Church, the Church in which we have been baptised, have grown spiritually and have been tonsured and ordained into hiero-monastic orders, in which we receive Communion and to which we have freely given vows to serve. As monastics we deeply feel and live the truth that we are offspring of our ancient Holy Church and that we are a fruit of the repentance of the Macedonian Orthodox people and we shall never fail our monastic and pastoral responsibility for its guidance towards Christ our Lord, remaining obedient to the diocesan hierarchs and the Holy Synod of Hierarchs of our Macedonian Orthodox Church. Christ is born! We have information that in the Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church the possibility has been considered for retirement of Metropolitan Kiril of Polog and Kumanovo and Metropolitan Gorazd of Metropolitan Kiril of Polog and Kumanovo and Metropolitan Gorazd of Europe will retire when they think it is necessary themselves. Certainly, they are not in the least an obstacle to the realisation of a canonical and liturgical unity with the Serbian Orthodox Church. I will repeat once again: in essence, almost everything that concerns the purely church content of our disagreement was brought into line in Niš, we want this canonical and liturgical unity, our Archbishop always at the Holy Liturgy mentions the names of all heads of the And it is good that we brought into line the church content of the Niš working document, because now the whole absurd is visible of our disagreement: what we the Orthodox waste time with to a great offence of all people and to great harm of the testimony, in power, of our Lord Jesus Christ. If it came to that at all, would you negotiate on the surpassing of the schism with the Serbian Orthodox Church or with the autonomous Ohrid archdiocese, in view of the canons prescribing it to be done with the latter? The Macedonian Orthodox Church has legally been registered under the name ‘Ohrid Archdiocese’ and this name we neither wish nor can ever renounce. Other Church under this name cannot appear neither here nor abroad since that would be illegal, false presentation. Personally I think that after all we should let certain period pass during which the state of affairs should still without anyone at this trying to stir passions again. I also think that the election of a new Patriarch in I hope we will succeed. I hope that the healthy powers will prevail on both sides. I hope we will not let the devil laugh at us, for what divides us is ridiculous, and what unites us is Christ. I am grateful to you for allowing our voice, too, to reach the Episcopacy, clergy, and devout laity of the Serbian Orthodox Church. I wish, in the end, to ask forgiveness from all the readers of the interview, which I finished on the Day of Forgiveness, 2004.
