Macedonian Church Dispute in Australia

[aleksandrov]

Ozimak,

You are regurgitating up malicious and defamatory myths perpetuated by Petar and his uneducated or deceitful cheering squad, which have been dispelled on this and other forums many times in the past.

Have you checked any of the title deeds to the church properties in Australia?

Have you checked any authoritative legal definition of a corporate body?

Have you checked what it means to register a non-profit organization in Australia?

Are you aware of the difference between a profit-making company with shareholders and a non-profit company with no shareholders?

There are NO church properties in Australia that Petar has even attempted to transfer to the name of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in Macedonia, as a legal entity in its own right.

The church properties in Australia that are registered in the names of private individuals are in fact owned by Petar Karevski and associates of his.

All of the Macedonian Orthodox communities that Petar is in dispute with are registered as non-profit organizations (either as PUBLIC companies limited by guarantee under federal legislation, or as incorporated associations under state legislation), with no shareholders, but voluntary membership that constantly changes. All of the properties they operate are legally held by the organizations in their own names. None of the members of those organizations have any private individual rights over the properties whatsoever.

Here is an elementary introduction to the forms of registration for non-profit organizations (including religious organizations) in Australia that you should familiarize yourself with before you attempt to draw any credible conclusions:

http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byheadline/Registering+not-for-profit+or+charitable+organisations?openDocument

[fyrOM]

As I prefaced my post this is a topic I have no real knowledge of and hence do not support neither one position nor another. As I said this is the dumbed down version explained to me by someone. I am not quick to believe anything and only mentioned this as that there obviously is a conflict in the community yet no clear core why. This dumbed down version as explained to me sounded like the why. It may not be the case.

The point made to me then was that non direct ownership via organisations does not mean no profit can be extracted by eg administration fees and as some rumour to be the case syphoning of funds. As to any validity I have no idea and do not purport to any. The fact remains the conflict is there.

It is strange to have a conflict over nothing. If it were all above board then it should be simply to quash. The ultimate proof in the pudding as in any organisation is the money trail including fees wages if any how appropriate they are. That is are there any padded expenses.

The other accusation people ruder about is because the revenue is in the form of cash and without any receipt eg people leaving money on icons - don’t get me wrong im not saying there should be receipts - are people diverting funds before they are recorded and what mechanisms are in place to ensure this is not happening.

With open records these issues should be easy to quash and the churches should not stand for any false accusations. If propriety has been proven the a record must exist and people should be told to shut up. It is strange there is any conflict.

[Risto the Great]

OziMak, you did preface your contribution by saying you had no knowledge on the matter. But then went on to talk about issues relating to verifiability and transparency etc. Which equally applies if the church owned all of these assets. It could then be a case of suggesting priests were not following the paper trail and stealing money etc. In other words, the problems you suggest are equally applicable in both instances. But I will be honest, I would find it very difficult to hand over community assets to the Macedonian Orthodox Church. I would find it EVEN MORE difficult to understand why the community centre etc was being demanded to be handed over.

I have genuinely never received an answer as to how such a claim could be justified. MP_MK was quite forthright about his community (pro-Vladika) and their justification for the schism. Yet he does not know the Vladika's actions or policies. The battle is against blind faith I would imagine. This is very difficult to beat or debate about.

Aleksandrov discussed (again) the issue of ownership via associations and still many simply choose to ignore these simple and transparent explanations of legal structures. I suspect they feel justified that they will definitely go to heaven if they facilitate a transfer of community assets. I also suspect that those that contributed the least have little to lose and could not care less about the "old school" who walk around like they own the place (and who maintain the place I might add).

I suggest the young group forming that Daniel described should play a game of Monopoly together and have the MOC in the top right hand corner (Actually, introduce the MOC later in the game for realism). Once enough assets are accumulated by this new group, the MOC scoops them up and sends everyone who complains to jail (or HELL for realism) without passing GO. The game should last about 50 years to give it a bit of "realism". Could you imagine any players getting attached to the playing group's assets? What about the members of the playing (I initially typed "paying" in an extraordinary typo) group who joined the game in year 49? They might say "oh c'mon, the MOC knows what they are doing with it .... hand it over". Seriously, the game would be a good idea.

[Daniel]

I suggest the young group forming that Daniel described should play a game of Monopoly together and have the MOC in the top right hand corner (Actually, introduce the MOC later in the game for realism). Once enough assets are accumulated by this new group, the MOC scoops them up and sends everyone who complains to jail (or HELL for realism) without passing GO. The game should last about 50 years to give it a bit of "realism". Could you imagine any players getting attached to the playing group's assets? What about the members of the playing (I initially typed "paying" in an extraordinary typo) group who joined the game in year 49? They might say "oh c'mon, the MOC knows what they are doing with it .... hand it over". Seriously, the game would be a good idea.

I must stress that this is not a new community forming, however, it does seem a fun and interesting way to educate those countless people my age without a clue. Maybe you would like to patent the idea and send a copy to all Macedonian families?

[aleksandrov]

As I prefaced my post this is a topic I have no real knowledge of and hence do not support neither one position nor another. As I said this is the dumbed down version explained to me by someone. I am not quick to believe anything and only mentioned this as that there obviously is a conflict in the community yet no clear core why. This dumbed down version as explained to me sounded like the why. It may not be the case.

The point made to me then was that non direct ownership via organisations does not mean no profit can be extracted by eg administration fees and as some rumour to be the case syphoning of funds. As to any validity I have no idea and do not purport to any. The fact remains the conflict is there.

It is strange to have a conflict over nothing. If it were all above board then it should be simply to quash. The ultimate proof in the pudding as in any organisation is the money trail including fees wages if any how appropriate they are. That is are there any padded expenses.

The other accusation people ruder about is because the revenue is in the form of cash and without any receipt eg people leaving money on icons - don’t get me wrong im not saying there should be receipts - are people diverting funds before they are recorded and what mechanisms are in place to ensure this is not happening.

With open records these issues should be easy to quash and the churches should not stand for any false accusations. If propriety has been proven the a record must exist and people should be told to shut up. It is strange there is any conflict.

'Prefacing' things and saying that somebody else said them doesn't give you a moral right to continue spreading false and defamatory insinuations and speculations. If you want to be taken seriously, don't publish things under your pseudonym that you wouldn't dare publish under your real name.

What you are insinuating or speculating is way too serious to say without ANY EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER. Misappropriation of money from a non-profit and charitable organization is a serious crime. If there was any basis for your insinuations and speculations, Petar and his supporters would have used them to at least initiate civil, if not criminal proceedings. They have NEVER done so (they have only sued to take over properties from lawfully registered and operational non-profit organizations, based on alleged hierarchical laws from 1,000 years ago, when transparency and accountability before the public were non-existent concepts). So why are you spreading their false and defamatory insinuations publicly? Do you feel like you or this forum are more competent to deal with them than the appropriate authorities?

Yes, of course there are real reasons for the ongoing dispute. But if you really want to find out what they are, at least do some elementary factual research, rather than just buying and re-selling malicious 'charshiski muabeti', and thereby (deliberately or inadvertently) serving those who deceitfully perpetuate division, hatred, intolerance and distractions from just causes.

[makedonche]

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.

Rogi
Thanks for your input, I agree with your sentiments, now that the thread has started and is underway, the best way to prevent it deteriorating is to contribute positive feeback and suggestions. I don't agree that it needs heavy moderation, I think it needs heavier encouragements for people to tell of their experiences and divulge the truth about whats happening and their feelings. This issue is paramount to the Macedonian Cause and the Macedonian people as a culture and identity! Unity comes from many places but unity of a lasting kind can only occur if the "foundations" are solid. The purpose of the thread is to seek to establish a solid foundation to work from, to that end I ask that you and other senior members and administrators take an active role here!

[makedonche]

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.

Daniel,
Many thanks for re-posting here, it is important that people know the truth and history and how we got to this point in time. It is even more critical that younger people get actively involved and I urge you to participate and post the feelings and thoughts of the younger generation, so that we can take steps toward cementing the Macedonian Cause and unify Macedonians any way we can. I am particularly interested in any initiatives to bring the communities back together again.

[makedonche]

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!

Mikail
Many thanks for this information and your input, it shows the divise nature and the seriously damaging effect some people are having on the Macedonian population. What is frightening is that people are repeating misinformation to discredit hardworking and true Macedonians, without even knowing the truth! I urge you to discover more truths from people and post them here, also post suggetions and opinions on how we can overcome this cancer eating away at our people!

[makedonche]

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.

Alexandrov
Thank you so much for your detailed and noteworthy response, I know you are extremely busy and I appreciate your input. I too have witnessed on too many occasions this "slave mentality" and concur that these types should be mentally freed and if not then certainly marginalised - you can see the effects of blindly following or believing someone or some organisation without questioning the "idealoogy/beliefs/methodology" of these people or institutions, the evidence is amongst our people. Please continue with your input and feel free to add/question/criticise anything I may post on here, with my blessing! those who fear or reject criticism or other opinions are truly questionable in their motives!

[makedonche]

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.

OziMak,
Thanks for your input, I trust Aleksadrov and RTG have shed some light on your comments. Don't take it personally, this is a highly charged issue and myself,RTG & Alexandrov have contributed greatly to the Macedonian cause and considerably more to defending it! The state of Macedonian communities in Australia woul be far more advanced and co-herrent if more time and energy was put into growing and unifying the communities instead of having to defend and protect them from attacks within the communities. These attacks have been many and varied, the most damaging is the series of legal proceedings to take over churches. The amount of money and resources and ill feelings these proceedings have caused is measurable in the division of the communities and needs to be addressed immediately. I am hoping this thread will lead to some positive/sustainable action in the long run, it cannot be done without contribution from all Macedonians!

[Prolet]

Risto, Anything thats bought with the church ie community hall,apartments,schools,gyms etc if its tied to the church then its owned by the church. Do you know how much Crkovno zemjiste is there in Stari Kraj where nobody can touch it and it must be given back through denacionalizacija.

Aleksandrov, Do you believe in Hierarchy? Bishop Petar is not going to be around forever so when he is gone the structure will still be the same, i dont expect the titles to be under his name or to some other Bishop but it has to be done in someway so that its under the control of MPC.

The sad story is that we dont even have nursing homes,kindergartens etc Bishop Petar should not have tried to use force and make threats against the people, he should have brought up ideas so that our people have all those things. He comes to Australia once a year and expects everything to be done his way.

[sf.]

The root of all our divisions and weaknesses: too many chiefs, not enough indians.

[aleksandrov]

Furthermore:

...
It is strange to have a conflict over nothing. If it were all above board then it should be simply to quash. The ultimate proof in the pudding as in any organisation is the money trail including fees wages if any how appropriate they are. That is are there any padded expenses.

The other accusation people ruder about is because the revenue is in the form of cash and without any receipt eg people leaving money on icons - don’t get me wrong im not saying there should be receipts - are people diverting funds before they are recorded and what mechanisms are in place to ensure this is not happening.

With open records these issues should be easy to quash and the churches should not stand for any false accusations. If propriety has been proven the a record must exist and people should be told to shut up. It is strange there is any conflict.

If you are really interested in the controls that some of us are putting in place to reduce opportunities for misappropriation, I can tell you the following about the Macedonian Orthodox Community of Sydney:

1. We ask people to place any donations for candles or icons directly into large money boxes which have three padlocks on them and the keys for each padlock are held by a different person (on some minor days only two padlocks are used, due to the reduced presence of volunteers). At the end of the day, all three (or sometimes two) people open up the boxes together, in front of other parishioners, count the money together, and co-sign a statement of how much money was collected. An authorized person then has a duty to deposit all of the collections into the Community's bank account. The bank deposit records can be cross-referenced against the signed statements from the people who open the boxes and count the money.

2. We have a long-standing rule to not give change for candles or any other merchandise because that requires individuals to handle cash on our behalf. We insist on parishioners bringing exact change for the donation they want to make, or, if they don't have it, we allow them to take whatever they want and make their donation at their next church visit. Unfortunately, too many people out there complain that we are inconveniencing them by not providing change. Some of them even insinuate that not giving change is our way of inducing people to put more money into the boxes than they otherwise would (they ignore the fact that we allow them to give less or nothing at all when they don't have the correct amount). We are forced to put up with these unreasonable and inconsiderate criticisms in order to eliminate any basis for insinuations about misappropriation of the cash (but that's obviously not stopping people from making such insinuations with no basis whatsoever). Paradoxically, the people who complain about allegedly uncontrolled handling of cash and the people who resist our attempts to reduce the handling of cash are usually the same people. They often put cash on top of he icons when they are told that they should put the icon money in the boxes, and they often pressure our volunteers into handling cash for change contrary to official instructions, which causes conflict between authorized officers and temporary volunteers who might show up on the day.

3. I have recently personally introduced a regulation that completely prohibits the use of cash from the income of the churches to pay for any expenses whatsoever, so as to ensure a tighter and more transparent money trail. All of our expenses are now paid by online banking, directly from our account to the accounts of the people or institutions receiving the payments or reimbursements. There are minor exceptions where we issue cheques for labour provided by people who have an unreasonable distrust of anything to do with the internet, but we are hoping to eliminate that in the near future. It is much easier to trace the details of internet transactions, including who authorized the payment, what it was for, and where the money went, than it is with cheques.

4. I have personally introduced a regulation that prohibits the collection of church taxes for christenings and marriage ceremonies in the form of cash. We now require anybody booking a christening or marriage ceremony to pay the church tax by bank cheque or money order made out to the Macedonian Orthodox Community of Sydney, to avoid arguments and conflicting information about whether the church tax has been paid, by whom, to whom, and where the money ended up. Unfortunately, we get unreasonable and inconsiderate parishioners complaining about this too. Apparently they are more concerned with their personal inconvenience of having to go to a bank or post office than they are with improved financial control and transparency in the Community. We hope to reduce their inconvenience in future by providing for online payment of the church taxes, through our new website, which is currently under development.


5. Our quarterly Business Activity Statements and yearly financial reports are prepared by a certified accountant. The accountant gathers and inspects all records of income and outgoings before submitting the Business Activity Statements to the Australian Taxation Office, and before preparing the yearly financial report. Precisely because we are a public company limited by guarantee, we are obliged to also have our yearly reports audited by an accredited independent auditor before they are submitted to ASIC (the Government body responsible for policing the legislative and regulatory compliance of non-profit and charitable companies) and to all of our members. If ASIC receives any credible indications or reports of misappropriation, its own agents can audit all of our financial records.

Now please find out what transparent financial controls Petar's churches have in place, so we can discuss further who it is that wants to keep things 'above board' and who 'below board'.

[aleksandrov]

Aleksandrov, Do you believe in Hierarchy? Bishop Petar is not going to be around forever so when he is gone the structure will still be the same, i dont expect the titles to be under his name or to some other Bishop but it has to be done in someway so that its under the control of MPC....

The fact that the ruler cannot be in place forever and that he/she will eventually be replaced by somebody different (possibly a person of lesser integrity) is reason enough not to grant anybody absolute power based on his/her formal title, even if that person is most righteous (and Petar is as far from righteous as anybody). Add to that the tendency of power to corrupt and of absolute power to corrupt absolutely, and you will realize that absolute hierarchical power is an evil in itself, regardless of who holds it on the day.

Goni gi upravnicite, mrazi gi i vostanuvaj protiv sekoj vlastelin. - Goce Delchev

Liberty has never come from the government [church governments are no different]. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance [do some research on Jesus' resistance against the religious hierarchy of his day if you want a church example]. ~ Woodrow Wilson

[Risto the Great]

From a professional capacity, please allow me to say that the practices described above by the Macedonian Orthodox Community of Sydney are without a doubt as transparent as humanly possible and probably represent the highest benchmark that other communities can measure themselves by.

Well done Sydney!