Persecution of Archbishop John VI of FYROM Escalates

credit MacedoniaHellenicLand.Eu

The Court of Appeal recently reestablished the alleged guilt of Archbishop John VI, the leader of the Ohrid Orthodox Archdiocese, for the alleged embezzlement of 200.000 Euros, property of the FYROM Orthodox Church, which was established by Yugoslav Communists in 1967, in order to cultivate Pseudomacedonism. Together with him, 18 clerics of the  POA (Pravoslavna Ohridska Arhiepiskopija - Orthodox Archdiocese of Ohrid) got suspended sentences of 2 years imprisonment. Archbishop John himself was sentenced to three years of imprisonment, without any delay.

Vladislav Perunovic
MacedoniaHellenicLand.Eu

Although Archbishop John was often absent during the past  years, he has dealt with occasional arrests and prison punishment. Archbishop John, whose lay name is Zoran Vraniskovski, has a reputation of being a radical Philhellenist and reverent to the Hellenic Orthodox Christian Church. At various times, he provided liturgies  in the Greek language together with the Serbo-Bulgarian language of the FYROM.

Furthermore, he has occasionally defended the Greekness of Macedonia through erudite elaboration of the fact that Greek was the local language of Christian Macedonia. It must be noted that he was and is still shunned by the major Media for accepting the Serbian Orthodox Church and the creation of part of the POA.

Extremely negative media imprint upon Archbishop John of Ohrid are in contrast with his stoic readiness to
voluntarily appear in Court, although he could ask for refuge as a politically persecuted person. This is concluded even by the greatest foes of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the FYROM, namely Bulgarians who refused to hand him over to the FYROM police on the basis of political persecution after brief detention.

The latest show-case only fortifies the perseverance of the relatively small, but growing number of believers. It is also a grave reminder to people of other religious and philosophical convictions how the FYROM justice system is extending its ruling into politics under Nikola Gruevski's VMRO-DPMNE.