Archbishop Stephen of Macedonia meets Patriarch Neophyte of Bulgaria : Attends Divine Liturgy 

Kisha D Dorado (OCP Delegate of Belgrade, Serbia & the Balkans)
17/5/15

Sofia-Bulgaria: His Beatitude Stephan –  Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia- Metropolitan of Skopje, and Primate of the partially recognized Macedonian Orthodox Church met with His Holiness Neophyte – Patriarch of Bulgaria at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia. The meeting took place on 11th May 2015, on the feast day of Saints Cyril and Methodius – equal to the Apostles.

Archbishop Stephen was invited by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to the country. The Primate was accompanied by Debar-Bishop Timotej and Metropolitan Hilarion of Bregalnishkiya .

The Liturgy and prayers were also attended by the graduate students of  St. Ivan Rilski Seminary. 

The Macedonian Orthodox Church remains in schism with the Serbian Orthodox Church and thereby rest of the Eastern Orthodox Communion and remains partially recognized by the Orthodox world.

Recently, there have been a lot of efforts from the part of Russian Orthodox Patriarchate to solve the schism. This led to the release of His Beatitude Jovan VI – Archbishop  of Ohrid of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate from prison and was moved to Russia for medical treatment. Also Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate held high level talks with the Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski to seek opportunity to resolve the crisis.

Pics:

Source:
OCP News Service