Information Service of
the Serbian Orthodox Church
June 21, 2002

His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle addressed yesterday a paternal appeal to the hierarchs, priests and the faithful of the Republic of Macedonia, asking each of them individually to take the responsibility before the Living God and before His Holy Church, both as individuals and as Orthodox Christians, and make their utmost efforts so that the schism in our Orthodox Church be overcome and the wounds of disunity and discord between us be healed, all to the final end of triumph of fraternal love over evil spirits and passions - in the glory of God's name, the profession of truth of the Holy Orthodoxy in today's agitated world and to the spiritual benefit and deliverance of their souls.

His Eminence Jovan, the Metropolitan of Veles and Povardarje, has today responded to the appeal of His Holiness Pavle Serbian Patriarch. Due to the enormous importance of this text showing great awareness of the unity of the Lord's Church, we present it in its integral form:

Being invited by God's love into unity with Him unto ages, and being invited through Your Holiness to join one, catholic and apostolic Church - which is nothing else but the very Body of the Embodied and Resurrected Christ, We, the Metropolitan of Veles and Povardarje, with all the clergymen, monastics and the faithful of Our Holy Metropolitanate, responding to the fraternal appeal of Your Holiness addressed to the hieararchs and the faithful of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Macedonia, would like to inform You that We truly, freely and responsibly accept the proposed liturgical and canonical unity with the Serbian Orthodox Church and thus with the whole Orthodox oikoumene which is in liturgical unity with the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The unity of the Church is not an addendum but the very essence of the existence in the Church. The Church is one, since the Lord and the Saviour is one and everybody who believes in Him and in the Kingdom of the Lord which He promised should be in liturgical and canonical unity with the entire Orthodox Church throughout the world. We think that it is Our duty as Metropolitan to experience this unity Ourselves, but also to teach Our faithful that the true life is only in the unity with the God and with those who are in unity with Him. Those who stubbornly remain disunited for any reason, but mostly for etnophylotistic reasons, have already been condemned at the Constantinople local council, and will be finally condemned after the Second Christ’s coming since they believed in lies more than in truth and since they replaced personal God with human nature.

Addressing the hieararchs, clergymen and the faithful in the Republic of Macedonia, You, Your Holiness, pointed out that the Orthodox Church in Serbia “does not act for the reasons of the national exclusiveness” and that you have “no pretensions, neither national nor territorial” to Macedonia. That is completely sufficient to anyone who is reasonable, but also benevolent, to be convinced that the unity will bring no national humiliation to the ones who united. Just the opposite, the true valuation of the nationality is only possible in the unity with all the peoples who form the Body of Christ.

Since entrance into liturgical-canonical unity equals with “unconditional fraternal love”, meaning that you ask nothing to be changed in the present liturgical and canonical practice, except, naturally, what is required by the canonical order of the Orthodox Church – that you cannot accept “the clergyman, of whatever rank he may be, who has been hindered by canonical or moral reasons to perform priest duties”, We undertake not to serve together with His Eminence Kiril, the Metropolitan of Polos and Kumanovo, since his unsuitability for the entrance into whatever hieararchal rank has been already known to the Serbian Orthodox Church and could be seen in the document SynNo. 2438, dated August 3, 1965. On the other side, the Holy Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church forbade him to perform priesthood by the Decision no. 125, dated August 7, 1990, not cancelled till present.

Your Holiness, let Us recommend Ourselves to Your holy prayers and ask You mention Us at the holy Prosthesis. We hope that, as of today, We are not in disunity with the Serbian Orthodox Church, and consequently with the whole Orthodox oiekoumene. We would like to ask You to inform other sister Orthodox Churches that the Metropolitanate of Veles and Povardarje is now in unity with the Ecumenical Orthodox Church.

Your brother in Christ