Macedonian Orthodox Church
 
 
 
 
 
 

The Church is one. The Lord has not established many churches, but one. And this one Church is identified with the one Body of the one Christ. Still, since this one Church actualises, manifests and iconically portrays herself in the eucharistic community headed by an Episcope, she, in the nature of things, appears as many Churches, because it is inconceivable that there should exist a single eucharistic community for the whole world.

Jesus Christ the Saviour and Life-giver, 1384 yearWhere the faithful gather "at one place" around their Bishop to actualise the eucharistic assembly, there actualises the whole Body of Christ as well, that is, there the mystery of the Divine Economy is headed and the Kingdom of God is wholly portrayed. Therefore we speak of one Church, which comprises many local Churches. Along with this, since every local Church in which the Holy Eucharist is performed represents a whole Body of Christ, each such local Church is, ought to be and can be called an all-embracing, whole Church.

Just as the Holy Eucharist actualises the whole Christ, not only a certain part of Him, so does each local Church represent the whole Body of Christ, not only a certain part of It. Thus, according to Orthodox ecclesiology, each local episcopal Church represents a whole, catholic Church, filled with all the graceful theanthropic gifts of God necessary for salvation of people, that is, represents the whole Body of Christ, because the concept Church is based on the Holy Eucharist.

 

The unity of the Local Churches and the universal (Catholic) Church is not some 'collective unity' (where the Local Churches would constitute 'parts' of a certain bigger 'unit' ), but it is graceful unity in identity, where all the Local episcopal Churches, in the Holy Eucharist, are identified with one another and with the Body of Christ, i.e. both with that original Apostolic Church in Jerusalem and with the eschatological Church of the Day without Evening of the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 

His Beatitude Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia Stephen is the center of the catholic life and unity, just as in his local Church, the Diocese of Skopje, so also, as being the first in honor among the equal in the Holy Synod, in the entire Macedonian Orthodox Church – Archdiocese of Ohrid. He is the inevitable link in the chain of the catholic unity of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church .