Macedonian Church Dispute in Australia

[indigen]

SOM, Theres more then one person thats named Zivko Apostolovski, we are giving this guy more publicity then he's worth. Shto ima napraveno toj za nashata zaednica??

Well, I posted links and info that I am aware of from Internet. You have had other pretenders here, e.g. NikodimMK", that have been banned and you will continue to get them. He is using a REAL persons id that is not his own and that is all that matters. Slavko (Mango) used to be a target for many such attacks when he was active on Usenet, and mostly from Bugaromani (and it is still my suspicion that this fraud is one of them).

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[makedonche]

Prolet,
I was actively involved at the highest level for several years with this issue and still have contacts who update me when needed. The hatchet is not buried it is merely set aside and an uneasy peace of tolerance from both parties exists with the expectation/hope that a new vladika is introduced to vastly improve matters both in WA and the rest of Aust.

[Brygian Seed]

The situation with Petar has been a long and sad story for the Macedonian Orthodox in Australia. Unfortunately, the higher up one progresses within the church hierarchy the less one seems to serve the people and focus on ones own situation. I am sure they would have got rid of Petar, however it seems he knows where the 'bodies are buried' so has some serious power within the Church.

Hopefully, the Macedonian Orthodox christians are sent someone who will empower, unite and enrich the community. 'Bog da ni e na pomos'

[Prolet]

Lazo Naumoski was interviewed on Ico's radio he is one of the people who was against the Vladika. He explains in detail about the church dispute in Perth, Western Australia.

He did confirm that an agreement was in place with the Bishop.

[makedonche]

Lazo Naumoski was interviewed on Ico's radio he is one of the people who was against the Vladika. He explains in detail about the church dispute in Perth, Western Australia.

He did confirm that an agreement was in place with the Bishop.

Prolet,
I hope there is an agreement in place with the Vladika, nothing would make me happier to see the commencement of the cessation of animosity between our people. If such agreement exists - 1/. is it in writing? 2/. can you get a copy? 3/. can you post it on this forum - after all this forum is the Macedoniantruth forum - where else would you post the truth about Macedonians!

[Prolet]

Good point Makedonche,

This needs to be raised with the church communities, to listen to the interview with Lazo Naumoski tune into 3zzz radio on www.3zzz.com.au and choose the Tuesday edition you will need real player to listen to it. This is a breakthrough no doubt about it and hopefully it will set the example to the other states.

Just to inform our forum readers here, there are two churches called Sveti Nikola in Perth within 500 meters away from eachother and that now needs to be sorted out because you cant have two churches with the same svetec in the same city much like Sveta Bogorodica in Sydenham in Melbourne.

[makedonche]

Prolet,
Find out if it's in writing and see if you can get acopy of it!

[Prolet]

Bishop Petar Kicks out entire Church Committee at Sveta Bogorodica in Sydenham?

Can anybody confirm this?? This was stated on Ico's radio, he didnt disclose the details however the Committee was made up of 12 members.

[makedonche]

Divided Communities - SA

I would like to hear from members about why our Communities are divided, not just in SA but all over Australia. I'm also seeking opinions on how to heal these wounds and in the words of the famous "SoM" start with a 'solid foundation'! Alexandrov -you may be able to shed some light on this and the means by which we move forward!
I'll check in later to see if there are any responses!

[Daniel]

I wrote this in the other thread, but considering that it is currently locked, i shall repeat it verbatim.


Considering that there has been some misinformation on this forum concerning the communities that make up the Adelaide Macedonian diaspora, I have decided to give a brief overview of the schisms. I am sure the people like RTG will agree with my description.

The VMRO-DPMNE group was the first to cede from the original community in the early 90’s. This might not have been their original plan, although, considering that the constitution of the community specifically states that it cannot be politically aligned, it was the obvious outcome. Although, considering that original community was the only one with a church, dance group, school etc. the members of VMRO would still frequent the original community for these reasons.

When Petar came in 97, he almost immediately said that the properties of the community (not just the church) should be under the control of the synod and that he should have the titles. Obviously, the members of the community were not content, as they had built everything on their own. The priest of the time was then asked to give the list of members of the comity of the church over to Petar. If he did do this, he was guaranteed a job for life at the community; however, he refused and stated that there was no comity chosen.

Not long after this event, some Macedonians gathered at an Anglican church (I believe that is correct) near Sv. Naum to chose another comity. The one chosen was mainly made of, if not completely of members of the VMRO community.

So I do not agree that anyone was kicked out pre say, it was more an intentional exodus.

Might i also add, that the VMRO community now uses the church that is under Petar, also known as soborot na Presveta Bogorodica, although endeavor to have their own events. For example, they hire out a hall every sunday for those small amount of people willing to come; and for this reason, are a separate community, which only uses the assets of the others.

[Rogi]

This is a difficult topic that should be looked at from various angles.

Everyone has such a strong opinion on the matters that will undoubtedly be raised in this thread and opposing perspectives are largely ignored and strongly opposed, so it always tends to degenerate into a pointless discussion, rather than a progressive thread.

We all seem to miss the forest for the tree's when we get into this discussion.

I would love to see plausible and well thought out suggestions on the solutions for our community's existing and long standing divisions.

But this will need to be a heavily moderated thread to prevent emotions running high, if there's to be an intellectual debate with solutions proposed.

[Daniel]

When it comes to what is being done about this. Within the South Australian community, an organisation known as Macedonian Community Education and Support Services (MCESS) has just be registered, and has a board comprising of members from both of the churches, and has people volunteering from all communities.

This organisation is being used as a vehicle to bring the communities together for at least social events and services, as we can see that political tension is denying us anything more.

Considering that most Macedonians in my age bracket are unaware of the internal politics of the Macedonian diaspora in Adelaide, they see this as a great movement, and a lot of youth have shown interest in participating in MCESS run events, and even volunteering to organise these events.

[Mikail]

Daniel, you have got what happened in Adelaide in the 90's down to a tee. The DPNE movement was formed to bring back into the Macedonian fold, those Macedonians who's loyalties lay with Bratsvo Idinstvo.

That being said, I recently headed up North and can shed some light on some issues I believe still exist from the 90's and are being exaggerated by Bishop Petar and his supporters.

On my holidays in January, I spent some time in Sydney and Queensland.

While in Sydney, I met a gentleman who was a member of the church community in Liverpool. This gentleman asked me if I was going to stay in Sydney for Bozik? I advised him we couldn't as we were headed for Qheensland and that my wife wanted to attend the Macedonian church at the Gold Coast for Bozik. Well, to say I had just said the wrong thing to the wrong person is an understatement!

His manner changed. His tone changed. His overall attitude changed.

"Why are you going to go there?" he snapped.

"Because that's where my wife wants to go" I replied.

"That's not a church", I was told, "that's a private company. You will have to pay an entry fee to get in."

Herein lies the problem with this statement. I will add, I was totally unaware this gentleman was loyal to Petar and I was in now way out to be confrontational. This guy let fly with several more absurd statements. I told him what he was saying was not true and that I never had to pay an "entry fee" as he put it to get into a church.

He kept hammering me with the "private company" propaganda So I told him about a little fact about a church under Petars synod who has turned its back on its members and community so it may "PROFIT".

Sv. Ilia in Footscray now rents its community hall to the Chinese community. Macedonians of that community today do not have the right to use their own community hall. The dancing group needs to run fund raising events so it can pay rent for its practice sessions elsewhere.

"That's a lie" he exclaimed.

"No it isn't" I told him. "This is what Petar is doing in Melbourne".

"If you can prove it to me I will spit on him" he says.

"No need for spitting on anyone" I tell him. "We need to start to respect one another and not have a Vladika who takes from us and separate us"

The conversation ended shortly after as he left.

In Queensland, MKUD Ilinden performed. The dance group from Footscray. They were there at the invitation of the Church group from Brisbane. Turns out this group is loyal to Petar and hence the invite to Sv Ilia' MKUD Ilinden.

Brisbane retracts the invite as Ilinden says, we will pay our own airfare and accommodation but you should hire a bus to get us around. They didn't want to pay the, let's say $2000.00 for the bus so they canceled. Many families had already booked the airfare and accommodation, so the MKUD Ilinden comity went ahead with the QLD trip and hired a hall on the Gold Coast to hold a dance / performance for the families and Macedonians from QLD.

It all went well, as it turned out, no one from Brisbane came to support them.

I told some of the groups members that we had mentioned it to a few of the locals at SV Nedela GC and they had no idea it was going to be on. They told me they hadn't contacted the Gold Coast community to attend. When I asked them why, I was to "we were warned not to".

It is important we all know about instances like this.

This whole division rubbish shits me to no end. It does exist and Petar is entwined in the whole bloody mess of it all.

Oh, and did I end up havingto pay an "entry fee" at Gold Coasts Sv Nedela? The answer would be an emphatic, NO!

[aleksandrov]

Makedonche,

The schism we are experiencing is essentially between those who want us to be a self-empowered and self-sufficient community, driven by free will and an uncompromising pursuit of justice and preservation and affirmation of the indigenous Macedonian identity and cultural heritage, and those who equate being Macedonian with blindly following and supporting the formal state and church institutions in the Republic of Macedonia, no matter how unjust, corrupt, incompetent, self-serving, subservient to foreign powers or openly anti-Macedonian the current rulers of those institutions may be. I am pretty sure the schism will continue in one form or another at least for the duration of my lifetime (as it has at least since the 19th century), but I will nevertheless continue to do all I can to contribute towards the elimination of the slave mentality which I believe is the root of all of the Macedonian people's problems.

While completely overcoming the schism may not be possible in the foreseeable future, I am more optimistic about the prospects of further exposing the malicious lies and deceptions that the proponents of the slave mentality have perpetuated to cover their true motives and intentions. If we can enlighten the misled and misguided members of their flock (as opposed to the ones who consciously choose to be vassals or slaves), they'll be reduced to the marginal fringe group they really ought to be, at least in a relatively emancipated society like Australia.

[fyrOM]

I’m not knowledgeable at all on this topic but someone once explained it to me in a dumbed down way which made sense. The church in Macedonia is an organisation and the properties it owns are not the private property of any individual either directly or indirectly via ownership in another organisation which owns the first. That is to say its owned by no one and everyone at the same time.

On the contrary many churches in Australia are owned by individuals who in the past purchased the houses or land on which the churches now stand. Then they forme a corporate entity to run the church by which they have direct or indirect ownership of. After all they work for the properties now being used by the church. That is they are in a sense a private church. Then they rallied the community to donate for both construction and any loans the church has. Many people had the mindset the church is a communal thing and did donate. Also people left money on the icons saying this is our tradition. It is a church with a real priest and these our our traditions and beliefs. Where are we supposed to do them. What is not made to public is that these churches are directly or indirectly in private ownership.

The church organisation in Macedonia now wants incorporate ownership of these churches to the Macedonian church. The people running and owning the churches here in Australia refused to give up the titles and hence the argument. In a nutshell the owners of the church made an investment and expect to get a return as well as an ongoing return whereas the church of Macedonia wants to in a sense nationalise them and therefore ownership and any future revenue belong to the church of Macedonia.

Does any of this ring true. Who owns the churches and who owns the organisations that own the churches. In the simplest form private verses public ownership. That is why supposedly the Macedonian church tried to remove prelists and restrict their activities with relation to these private churches.