Macedonian Church Dispute in Australia

[Vangelovski]

Gossip....!!!!....A maco priest being in jail for number of days is a gossip!!!! Its a fact id say. Maybe one of the posters can confirm or deny that as it seems he was involved to some extend in this story.
You missing the point here, its not that he has been shagging some elses wife, (i dont believe that is agaisnt the law in Oz) id say good luck to him, its the fact as a so called priest he hasnt been able to resolve the problem, prior to him landing in jail....that is the true essence out of the text.....Luckly when i was getting married one of those biggots was telling how to be faithful....

If you thought it was so important, why didn't you start a new thread? You can do that you know? This is a very specific thread about the Church dispute which you have already highjacked.

[Vangelovski]

Vangelovski, No its not the thread is called "Macedonian Church dispute in Australia"

So this includes all parties involved including the popoj.

And what does this particular incident have to do with the Church dispute? Prolet, if you don't stop posting all your garbage, I'm going to start a one man campaign to have your nonsense deleted out of the most important threads. All you do is highjack them with aboslute garbage.

[Prolet]

Vangelovski, I love it how you think so if somebody doesnt agree with you they are your enemy. There is more to it then land titles in this church dispute.

State all your arguments, defend what you believe in but dont make threats if somebody has a different opinion to you.

Now Vangelovski i stood by you through thick and thin in the Maknews forum when everybody ganged up against you. I was even called your slave by Maknews but i still stood by you even though i didnt agree with everything of what you had to say but in my opinion you have your right to an opinion just like anybody else even though most people accused you of having a hidden agenda.

This is a public forum not a parliamentarian session, the least you can do is show some respect instead of making threats.

[Warrior]

If you thought it was so important, why didn't you start a new thread? You can do that you know? This is a very specific thread about the Church dispute which you have already highjacked.

Do you think the popoj have an input in the dispute??? Do you think the people selecting the popoj have a say in the dispute??
If so, a pop allegedly conducting himself in such a manner will have some kind of impact on the onlookers in this dispute? Dont you think?
So i say it is relevent, let the people make a judgement, why get so worked up!!!!

Petar and the other side dont give a hoot about religion and the people. Its all about money. We know churches attract lot of people and now days are run like business. There is a fee for services that traditionally have always been for free. What does it tell you? If religion/faith/love was used as an approach to the issue, both sides as honorable people would have settled the matter..Thats what i thouhg churches were about.. I wouldnt know much as i go extremely rare. (Xmas and Easter and that is if i am in Oz at the time).Maybe we should take a leaf of other natinalities and how they run their churches and that might be a solution, but i am sure a compromise is not in the interest for both sides and that is a FACT!!! They want to see a Winner and a Loser!!! It wont happen and they will drain money, whilst others are profiteering.

So chill buddy........

[aleksandrov]

...I think people/organisations concerned with this issue should have been monitoring for such moves by PK and raised the ALERT much earlier and should also have had a plan of ACTION in place for countering such a move. It all comes down to (or lack of) organisation in how effective opposition to the Bill will be, IMHO!

Indigen,

We have indeed been monitoring these moves since Petar originally tried to sneak in such a Bill in 1998, when it came in the form of a Government Bill. We reacted immediately after the Bill was passed in the lower house without notice to the community. The Government then withdrew the Bill and promised not to reintroduce anything similar until the ongoing Supreme Court proceedings against MOCC St. Petka are resolved, unless an appropriate level of community support could be reached.

The current Independent Member's Bill was originally introduced by Fred Nile last year. We immediately made representations to him. He asked us to come up with amendments that would be acceptable to both us and the Bishop, but that was not possible because the Bishop just doesn't want the properties to be subject to ANY transparent and democratic control by local communities. Despite this, Fred Nile has pushed ahead. We do not know the full nature of his relationship with bishop Petar, but we do know two things:

1. Two of Petar's representatives in Sydney, Boris Petrusev and reverend Mitko Mitrev, have been repeatedly seen visiting Fred Nile's parliamentary office since around 2006;

2. Since 2003, Reverend Mitko Mitrev, under Petar's instruction, has performed "Orthodox" services at a Uniting Church parish in Kogarah, and then another Uniting Church parish in Rockdale, to which he has unscrupulously tried to divert parishioners from the established Macedonian Orthodox churches in Rockdale and Rosebery. Apart from being a member of parliament, Fred Nile has been ordained as a Minister (priest) of the Uniting Church of Australia. "In 2003 Nile resigned from the Uniting Church in Australia ... He was recently elected to become the president of the Fellowship of Congregational Churches, a group of Australian Congregationalists who declined to join the Uniting Church in 1977"(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Nile ).

Bishop Petar has now undertaken a new campaign to persuade members of parliament that he has widespread support for the Bill, through letters signed by purported representatives of organizations that I have not heard of before, as well as over a dozen letters from his own priests, who have no democratic mandate from the communities they purport to represent. He has even asked Gruevski's Government and some NGOs in Macedonia to send letters of support. That is why I have called on all concerned Macedonian Australians to make direct contacts with all NSW MPs and counter the deceptive representations about whether this Bill enjoys broad support among the Macedonian community.

If you can contribute to a better organized and more effective opposition to this deceitful injustice against the Macedonian Australian community and the Macedonian Orthodox Church generally (the one that is supposed to belong to the Macedonian Orthodox people), I invite you and anybody else who is genuinely interested, to get directly involved with the relevant Macedonian organizations, and show some practical solidarity with activists who have been struggling against great odds for over 14 years, while the Macedonian state and Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church have either facilitated Petar's anti-Macedonian campaign or played neutral.

[aleksandrov]

How is it Spam Indigen? This is a priest in a Macedonian Church.

Its breaking news actually

We'll see what happens from here on.

Indigen, Why didnt Ico announce this news on his radio station yesterday?? He says every izjava that Bishop Petar gives out but he's kept quiet about this. Wheres the Pravdina?



So its ok to mention Bishop Petar but its not OK to talk about the Popoj?

What news are you talking about exactly, Prolet? What are the charges? Has the court made a judgment? Or is Nikola Stavreski a more reliable judge than the Australian courts?

I am happy to explain the background to this current lynching of a Petar opponent in another thread, if you want to start one. I am also happy to talk about the PROVEN moral standing of Petar and some of his other priests, as well as that of the author of the malicious article cited above, which become very relevant when they throw stones at others. But don't use this to detract attention from a topic that has very direct, permanent and widespread effect on the Macedonian Orthodox Church and Macedonian Orthodox communities in Australia.

As far as the Warrior who suggests there is something immoral about charging people a tax for services they receive at community churches, I appeal to him and others like him to volunteer to maintain the churches as they are free of charge, or to pay for the maintenance costs, for insurances, for professional contractors' (accountants, lawyers etc) costs, for feeding the families of people who work for the churches full-time, for improving and growing the churches and the communities that operate them etc. Or perhaps he can establish a new church from which inconsiderate people can receive services without making contributions?

[aleksandrov]

.. how about you post the titles of who owns the church that are not part of the MOC??....

ALL of the title searches posted at the start of this thread are for properties that ARE NOT legally part of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in Macedonia, as is clear from the text in the title searches. The Macedonian Orthodox Church Property Trust Bill 2010 also does not envisage titles to property being in the name of "the Macedonian Orthodox Church", but in the name of a new CORPORATION consisting of Bishop Petar and a handful of appointees, which would have unfettered control over property that it will allegedly hold ON BEHALF OF the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Under that Bill, Petar would have the power to himself decide that he is suddenly holding the property on behalf of some other Church. This is the same Petar who led the delegation that signed the Nish Agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church, by which the national identity of the MOC is to be abolished in favor of the territorial "Ohridska Arhiepiskopija" distinction, and that Ohridska Arhiepiskopija is to fall under Serbian jurisdiction.

What other churches do you have in mind and who do you suggest owns the titles to them?

Are you suggesting that any of the churches that are in opposition to Petar's despotic and anti-Macedonian rule have title deeds that are not in the name of incorporated, non-profit organizations of the Macedonian community? Be clear about your suggestions and I will be happy to provide you with any counter-evidence I have.

[indigen]

How is it Spam Indigen? This is a priest in a Macedonian Church.

Please do NOT (try to) SPAM this thread with off-topic nonsense, this especially applies to you, Prolet!

Topic is "Macedonian Church dispute in Australia", which is essentially about ownership and control of Macedonian Community Church and other property assets. Thus your (and that of W.'s) post is off-topic i n this thread, IMO! It is up to MTO Admins to keep things in order and all I can do is raise the issue. Furthermore, I did not say that you should not post it, in fact I suggested a new thread be started for such a topic, but, as I see it, it bears no relation to the topic at hand!

Its breaking news actually
We'll see what happens from here on.

It is not anything "extraordinary" and the case is not finished and I suggest you wait for the verdict before passing judgement.

Indigen, Why didn't Ico announce this news on his radio station yesterday?? He says every izjava that Bishop Petar gives out but he's kept quiet about this. Wheres the Pravdina?

I don't live in Melbourne and it is a matter unrelated to this MTO thread.

So its ok to mention Bishop Petar but its not OK to talk about the Popoj?

You are talking nonsense here and is unrelated to what I posted. Talk all you want, as long as you use facts and not rumours and post in a relevant thread.

[Prolet]

Aleksandrov, If you look at it that way the Nish Accord has nothing to do with the Church Dispute in Australia so why bring it up then?? Why not open up another topic on it and discuss it there??

Come on this is ridiculous and you know it, its not up to me to judge anybody and we are talking about a Macedonian Priest here which has everything to do with the Church Dispute in Australia since that Priest was excommunicated years ago.

Aleksandrov, Why dont you state your claim here on this thread instead of opening up other threads? The priest served a 6 day jail sentence, is this true or is the Informator website making a false claim.

[Vangelovski]

Vangelovski, I love it how you think so if somebody doesnt agree with you they are your enemy. There is more to it then land titles in this church dispute.

State all your arguments, defend what you believe in but dont make threats if somebody has a different opinion to you.

Now Vangelovski i stood by you through thick and thin in the Maknews forum when everybody ganged up against you. I was even called your slave by Maknews but i still stood by you even though i didnt agree with everything of what you had to say but in my opinion you have your right to an opinion just like anybody else even though most people accused you of having a hidden agenda.

This is a public forum not a parliamentarian session, the least you can do is show some respect instead of making threats.

I'm not talking about your opinions, I'm talking about your spam posts.

[Soldier of Macedon]

Prolet, do you agree that the deeds of Macedonian Churches should be in Petar's name? It certainly isn't considered a mistake by Petar, so what can this action be described as, in your opinion? Looks like a step towards thievery if you ask me.

Why have you been making reference to informator so much lately?

[makedonche]

Quote:
"Come on this is ridiculous and you know it, its not up to me to judge anybody and we are talking about a Macedonian Priest here which has everything to do with the Church Dispute in Australia since that Priest was excommunicated years ago."

Proletche
Not to get on your back or anything, but in your quote it says "that priest was excommunicated years ago" - therefore he is no longer a priest, correct?
If he is no longer a priest(having been excommunicated) then he is an ordinary citizen, if he is an ordinary citizen then why are we posting his information here as news? Why care what happens to him?
As you can see I am being respectful, despite being an off topic subject, so I would like you to be respectful and answer my questions in full!

[Prolet]

See why cant we have a civil discussion without threats and insults?

Spolaj Ti for your question SOM

SOM, Bishop Petar is not allowed to to sell or transfer any assets to another party, he is a senior Bishop in MPC which means he is trustworthy enough. MPC is the only governing body who have the power to do anything about it, this is why im interested to hear what the other bishops have to say on this matter. MPC should be reformed and change some of its laws that date back to ancient history, the Catholic Churches seem to be doing it so whats the problem here? They dont have the same problems in North America and Europe, its only in Australia.

As for the Informator website i didnt post the article and its been quite a while since i posted an article from there. You dont like the Informator Website?

[Prolet]

Quote:
"Come on this is ridiculous and you know it, its not up to me to judge anybody and we are talking about a Macedonian Priest here which has everything to do with the Church Dispute in Australia since that Priest was excommunicated years ago."

Proletche
Not to get on your back or anything, but in your quote it says "that priest was excommunicated years ago" - therefore he is no longer a priest, correct?
If he is no longer a priest(having been excommunicated) then he is an ordinary citizen, if he is an ordinary citizen then why are we posting his information here as news? Why care what happens to him?
As you can see I am being respectful, despite being an off topic subject, so I would like you to be respectful and answer my questions in full!

Makedonche, Its not off topic at all, this priest serves the Macedonian people in the Roseberry church in Sydney. Its no different to being a lawyer or a doctor and working without a license. You cant drive a car with a suspended license.

If he is an ordinary citizen he wouldnt be serving the people in church then would he?

[aleksandrov]

Vangelovski, I love it how you think so if somebody doesnt agree with you they are your enemy. There is more to it then land titles in this church dispute. ...

What in the malicious article on Nikola Stavreski's blog is relevant to this dispute, Prolet?

Here's an interesting story for you:

The dispute with Petar over property and political control dates back to 1996. Reverend Zoran Aleksovski came to Australia as an appointee of Bishop Petar in 2004. Until that time he was serving in the Skopje Diocese of the Archbishop of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in Macedonia. Petar used the MOCC Sv. Petka in Rockdale, which he is suing for its properties, to guarantee Aleksovski's visa, based on the promise that Aleksovski would serve at Sv. Petka as a 'neutral' priest, pending the outcome of legal proceedings. Yet as soon as Aleksovski arrived, Petar barred him from serving at Sv. Petka and sent him to one of his own churches.

Petar insists that Mitko Mitrev should serve at Sv Petka, even though he has totally lost the confidence of the parishioners there, having been sacked in 1997 because he took thousands of dollars from the church without authorization from the Community that runs it, and without accounting to the Community. He said that he was doing so on behalf of his bishop, Petar, who did not recognize the authority of the Community that was the legal owner of the church and was until that time responsible for financial control.

To blackmail the Sv. Petka Community into submission in his claims over its property, Petar sent both Aleksovski and Mitko Mitrev to serve at a Uniting Church parish around the corner from Sv Petka.

When Aleksovski started raising questions about some financial transactions that Mitrev was responsible for at the Uniting Church parish, he was told by Petar to go back to Macedonia. When Aleksovski resisted, Petar decided to defrock him because his wife had previously had an abortion, and even to excommunicate and deny Holy Communion to Aleksovski's two underage daughters. Aleksovski tried to pursue justice through the ecclesiastical courts of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in Macedonia for over two years, but nobody from the Synod could maintain the integrity or courage to stand in Petar's way, even after the Archiepiscopal Church Court (the highest Court within the MOC) twice overruled Petar's decision to defrock Aleksovski. In those two years, Aleksovski was invited by the Antiochian Orthodox Church (which is widely recognized in the Orthodox world) to serve Macedonian Orthodox parishioners, in the Macedonian language, in one of its own parishes in Bankstown.

When Aleksovski finally realized what a sham the internal justice system of the Macedonian Orthodox Church is, he came to serve at the oldest Macedonian Orthodox church in NSW, Sv. Kiril in Metodi in Rosebery, which has been owned by the Macedonian Orthodox Community of Sydney Ltd. since its establishment in 1971, and was considered a CATHEDRAL by all Macedonian Orthodox bishops responsible for Australia before Petar.

Now that Aleksovski is serving a church that Petar hasn't managed to usurp, a single woman named Olivera Bejatovic (who is a colleague of Aleksovski’s wife and the two have been feuding at work), suddenly comes up making allegations that she had a 12y affair with Aleksovski and that she wants nothing more to do with him, but he is too obsessive to let go. She applies for an Apprehended Violence Order (which IS NOT a judgment or conviction) to prohibit him from contacting or coming near her. Aleksovski notifies the Court that he will challenge the application because he disputes the premise on which it is made. Pending a final hearing about the application, Aleksovski voluntarily agrees to an INTERIM ORDER, which she then repeatedly sets him up to breach.

She has approached me personally asking me to set up a meeting between them, but I refused, on the basis that I would not facilitate a violation of the interim order. So she reported me to the police for allegedly pressuring her to withdraw the application for an AVO, but the police didn’t fall for it. I have kept good records of her approaches to me.

In the meantime, she makes direct contact with Aleksovski telling him that she wants to withdraw the application, but has to speak to him about how to go about it. She gets into his car and goes with him to the car park next to her place of work, where Aleksovski’s wife also works. There they discuss a settlement. A couple of days later she reports him for pressuring her to withdraw the application for an AVO, so he is charged with a violation of the interim order.

On another occasion, she reports him for violating the interim order by allegedly looking at her from across the street on one day and then a couple of days later telling her “I love you" FROM A DISTANCE, at a car park next to her place of work, WHILE WAITING TO PICK UP HIS OWN WIFE FROM WORK. Not one independent witness to this alleged incident IN A PUBLIC CAR PARK has been produced.

On a third occasion, she reports him for allegedly following her around a supermarket car park with his car and then approaching her car to try and kiss her, IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, IN A SUPERMARKET CAR PARK. Again, not one independent witness to this bizarre alleged incident.

Upon each report of a breach of the interim order, the police arrest and charge him, leaving it to the courts to decide who is telling the truth. Perhaps they should have just left it to Nikola Stavreski and other Petar disciples?

On another occasion, Bejatovic is seen sitting in a car in the driveway of Aleksovski's unit block, with another man, named Nikola Ristevski (I have a prior SMS from her telling me that her and Nikola have jointly "decided to get a barrister and go all the way in Court", suggesting that he is one of the architects of her actions). Aleksovski informs the police of this incident. Some time later, Bejatovic reports him to the police for violating the interim order by having looked at her and approached her car in the driveway of his unit block. The police do nothing about it, given Aleksovski’s prior report of the incident and the fact that she couldn’t reasonably explain what she was doing waiting in a car in the driveway of HIS unit block. Pretty strange conduct for a woman who is allegedly scared of Aleksovski and doesn't want him coming anywhere near her?

She later contacts Aleksovski by telephone, again claiming that she wants to settle the matter out of Court, but somebody else is pressuring her and she is scared that she will be charged for making false charges. Aleksovski naively falls for her trap for a second time, by merely speaking to her in good faith. She reports him for violating the interim order again, and uses Nikola Ristevski as a witness that Aleksovski telephoned her. The police arrest him again. He is initially refused bail, because of the number of times he has allegedly breached the interim order.

However, several days later, Aleksovski's barrister makes an application for bail and provides an affidavit from his daughter who says she was in Aleksovski's presence when Bejatovic called him and he replied that he would not meet with her. The Magistrate grants bail. Hearings for judgment as to whether the AVO application should be granted and alleged breaches of the INTERIM ORDER are put off until August 2010. In the meantime, Petar's servants detract attention from his outrageous Property Trust Bill by misleading the public as to the context and nature of the charges and making it out as if Aleksovski has already served a sentence, which is completely false. He has never been convicted of any crime, so he cannot have served a sentence. He has only been temporarily detained pending court hearings about the merits of the charges. He is currently on holidays in Macedonia, WITH HIS WIFE.

The most interesting part, which I have left until last, is that after being challenged by proper legal representation on behalf of Aleksovski, Bejatovic is suddenly represented by the same solicitor who is representing bishop Petar Karevski and Mitko Mitrev, in their property claims against the MOCC St. Petka. Joining him in court appearances is a shady figure named Mile Petrov, who has stated on TV that he is appointed by Petar to personally represent him in relations with his lawyers in the St. Petka matter (even though he lives in the very distant Port Kembla and has never been a member or parishioner of St. Petka).

The same Mile Petrov is consistently in Court and in attempted settlement negotiation conferences regarding Petar’s legal disputes, providing instructions to Petar's and now Olivera Bejatovic's solicitor. He has the same role in another matter, in which the Macedonian Orthodox Community of Sydney and several priests are suing Petar, Mitko Mitrev and some others from the Diocese for defamation. Mile Petrov is himself currently the subject of a defamation claim for calling the Sv. Petka committee members ‘thieves’ in a cheap TV documentary from Macedonia, commissioned by Bishop Petar. When our process server attended his registered address to serve Petrov with Court documents, he was told that Petrov hasn't been there for months and that police have also been around looking for him. This is in our process server's report.

Mile Petrov's extracurricular activities include threatening and abusing elderly men and women who attend court hearings to support the Sv. Petka community. On one occasion, he walked passed me in the corridor of the Supreme Court of NSW, with Petar following him one foot behind, and in a threatening tone said "ke ti ja e**m majkata jas tebe". I won't say what my immediate response to him was at that time, since I am not proud of the language I was provoked to use, but I can assure everyone that it didn't involve a reference to any member of his family or anybody else except him. Bishop Petar was a witness to this vulgar, lowlife curse and threat by Mile Petrov, but has chosen to keep him as his personal representative in his legal battles in NSW.

Other people who have Court appearances to cheer for Olivera Bejatovic and ridicule and harass Aleksovski’s wife and daughters, are longtime Petar soldiers Nikola Stavreski (the owner of ‘Informator’ and author of the article about Petar), Mile Andonovski and some associate of theirs who was so keen to get there in time that he still had his dirty work clothes on.

If Petar and his advocates are so confident that Bejatovic is telling the truth, and if they want to claim a moral high ground over Aleksovski, then what are they doing providing such direct 'moral' and possibly financial (for legal fees) support to a woman who herself claims to have participated in the sin they apparently condemn?

Considering the credibility and moral standards of the people behind Aleksovski’s accuser, considering that she is yet to provide any credible evidence of her accusations (she claims she is saving it for the hearing), considering that Aleksovski strongly denies her claims about an affair and physical intimidation, and considering that his wife and two daughters are fully supporting him, the Macedonian Orthodox Community of Sydney has no option but to wait for a Court decision about the conflicting accounts, before deciding what action to take. So far, the only thing he is definitely guilty of is extreme naivety, but we had an idea of that from how long and how many bad experiences it took him to realize what a sham the internal justice system of the Macedonian Orthodox Church - Ohrid Archdiocese is. His failure to learn from the grief his naivety has caused so far may well make him unsuitable to serve a parish that is at the forefront of the Macedonian Australian community's resistance to Petar's unscrupulous campaign, but we'll have to let that point rest until the Court has made determinations on the more serious allegations.

In the meantime, let's look at some things that we already know for a fact. For example, Bishop Petar has in his ranks a priest who has admitted before a Western Australian court to shoplifting (screwdrivers worth $5). A report of this admission was published in a credible Western Australian mainstream newspaper. We have asked the Bishop, through the Macedonian newspaper Today Denes, to explain what measures if any his Church has taken to rehabilitate the shoplifting priest or to protect our churches from him, but received no reply. We have repeatedly asked bishop Petar to explain the signed decision by former Archbishop Gavril to defrock him on charges of collusion with a hostile Serbian church and financial impropriety. He has failed to provide such explanation, except to question the Archbishop's authority to sign it. Petar says that the Canons require 12 Orthodox bishops to defrock a bishop, but since the Macedonian Orthodox Church has never had 12 bishops, we can only guess which foreign Orthodox bishops he would invite for such a determination.

We have asked him to explain why he signed the anti-Macedonian Nish Agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church, but he has failed to provide any direct explanation.

And now we have this very Bishop trying to force a political decision to form a CORPORATION in NSW consisting of only himself and his appointees, to hold properties on behalf of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, when there are perfectly good avenues for that Church to hold property in its own name. The CORPORATION he seeks to head would give him unfettered control as to how those properties are used, including the ability to let other denominations/religions (guess which?) use them or to put them under a new trust, to be held on behalf of some other church (guess which?).

Come to think of it, I guess the public lynching of Reverend Aleksovski and his family by Petar's advocates and cheerleaders does have some underlying relevance to this discussion. It is one of many disturbing indicators of what kind of people are seeking to take over Macedonian Orthodox Church and Macedonian Australian community assets.