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Macedonian
Agenda
The Macedonian Orthodox Church: Its Role In The Moulding And Maintenance Of Ethnic Identity In AustraliaBy Dr Christopher Popov and Michael Radin This paper was first published in Religion and Ethnic Identity: An Australian Study, Volume 3, 1989. Historical Retrospective The struggle for recognition and independence of the Macedonian Orthodox
Church has closely paralleled the struggle for national self-determination
of the Macedonian people. It is perhaps one of history's great ironies
that the Church, having made a considerable impact and contribution
to every aspect of Macedonian life prior to 1767, only achieved its
appropriate legitimacy in modern times with the creation of the Socialist
Republic of Macedonia as an autonomous and self-determining national
unit within the federation of Yugoslavia. However, it is equally important to note that an independent Macedonian
church, with its seat at Ohrid, now a large town in the Macedonian Republic,
had existed for a millennium until 1767, and that through its stature,
Macedonians had at various times established some de facto national
independence. The Macedonian Orthodox Church, particularly in medieval and late feudal
times, as the most learned and conscious element of the developing Macedonian
national psyche, had inspired a cultural and artistic renaissance amongst
the Macedonian people which dated right back to the legacy of the Macedonian
educators of the ninth century, the brothers Cyril and Methodius of
Solun (now known as Thessaloniki in Greek), the former capital of Macedonia.
This cultural renaissance was always closely linked with religious identification.
For example, the Macedonian church was responsible for the tradition
of medieval painting, as well as the famous icons and frescoes which
decorated the churches and monasteries themselves. The nexus between national and religious struggle was further made
paramount during the era of the "national re-awakening" in
the eighteenth century, when the Church protected and promulgated the
embryonic ideas of an independent Macedonia free from Ottoman Turkish
rule. After the Turks abolished the Ohrid Archbishopric in 1767, concerted
efforts were made by the Macedonian people over the course of the next
century to seek its reinstatement. These attempts proved long, arduous
and fruitless, yet they were determined nonetheless. This struggle however,
significantly honed the spiritual fabric of the independence movements
which produced, over generations, patriotic ideals which manifested
themselves in times of crisis as a resistance ethic. It was with great alacrity therefore that the Macedonian Orthodox Church
pronounced itself autocephalous in 1967, having formally re-established
itself in 1958 in the Macedonian Republic, exactly two hundred years
after its abolition.(1) However, problems have remained, the most fundamental of which has
been the failure of the other Eastern Orthodox Churches to recognize
the autocephalous status of the Church. Yet the beginnings for the Macedonian Orthodox Church were far less
auspicious. The settlement of Macedonia by Slavonic tribes in the late
fifth and the sixth centuries A.D. reached its zenith by the early part
of the seventh century, when the entire area of Macedonia had been covered
by the tribes. These tribes however, were polytheistic, and initially
this brought them into conflict with the local population, who were
governed under the Archbishopric of Justinian the First. Over the course
of the next century and a half, however, the tribes began to develop
Christian characteristics, mostly due to the influences of the Byzantine
state and its ecclesiastical organs. During the eighth century, an eparchate
was established in Macedonia, which was presided over by the Metropolitan
of Salonica. There were principally two reasons why the Macedonian population was
initially resistant to Christianity. The first was their long held pagan
beliefs, and the second was the Macedonians' inability to understand
the Greek language, in which the Balkan Christian culture was taught
and disseminated at that time. The development of the first Macedonian alphabet therefore by Cyril,
based upon the orthography of the local Macedonian population of Solun,
proved to be an historical watershed for the Macedonians and for all
of the Slavonic peoples of Europe. Liturgical works were then subsequently
translated into Old Church Slavonic, which achieved the status of a
"civilized" language (along with Greek, Latin and Hebrew)
over the following century. It is important to note that the first religious
books to be written in Old Church Slavonic were in the language of the
Macedonians, as this was the language used by Cyril and Methodius and
a significant element of the population of their birthplace, Solun.(2) The Macedonian brothers, accompanied by their disciples, then embarked
upon their "civilizing mission" amongst the Slavonic peoples
in Europe, being noted most for their teaching in Moravia (now in the
Czech Republic). In the year 885 A.D., the Cyrillic disciple Clement returned to Macedonia
and continued his teaching in Ohrid, in the Macedonian language. Thereafter,
in the following decades, hundreds of pupils graduated from his "University",
being taught not only in theology, but also in other subjects such as
history, science, art, medicine, languages and philosophy. This body
of knowledge disseminated from Clement's Ohrid school, when embodied
in literature, constituted an entirely new literary culture which gradually
spread to all of the Slavonic peoples.(3) In addition to his teaching, Clement studiously undertook the organization
of the Macedonian Church in Ohrid. Appointing and teaching priests and
deacons, and organizing and establishing parishes, he laid the groundwork
for the establishment of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as a specifically
Macedonian church (This ultimately saw the light of day during the reign
of the Macedonian King, Tsar Samuel). This great work was, in succeeding
years, completed by Naum, who also based himself in Ohrid after having
taught for many years in Bulgaria. In the tenth century A.D., what became known as the "Bogomil"
movement saw its origins in Macedonia. The founder of this movement,
the priest Father Bogomil, designed it as a rebellion against the official
orthodoxy of the Church, which he saw as being subservient to the Bulgarian
State and oligarchy, which at that time politically dominated Macedonia.
The philosophies of Bogomil ultimately penetrated Western Europe, and
held a modicum of influence there for almost five hundred years. Following the defeat of Tsar Samuel in 1018 A.D., and the incorporation
of Macedonia into Bulgaria's medieval Empire, the Patriarchate of Ohrid
was co-opted into the service of the Bulgarian Court. In fact, the Patriarchate
was once again demoted to an archbishopric, although it retained the
status of an independent church. The independence of the Church was maintained even through the twelfth
century disintegration of the Byzantine Empire, which witnessed numerous
wars, many of them taking place on Macedonian territory. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, most of Macedonia's
territory was incorporated into the Serbian State, and indeed during
the reign of Tsar Dushan (1331-1335), all of Macedonia was part of the
Serbian realm. Yet even during this period, the independence of the
Macedonian Church was preserved, and the Serbian state maintained two
archbishoprics, that of Serbia and that of Ohrid. This period witnessed
a flourishing of medieval religious art, with the establishment of many
new churches and monasteries of considerable architectural character,
adorned by impressive frescoes. In 1392 A.D., the modern Macedonian capital, Skopje, was captured by
the Ottoman Turkish armies. Subsequently, Ohrid was overrun in 1408
A.D. This was the start of five centuries of Turkish domination, the
longest and most significant period of foreign rule in Macedonia's history.
However, the fate of the Macedonian Church under this rule varied. Initially,
with the consolidation of Turkish power across the Balkans, the Archbishopric
of Ohrid retained and indeed increased its influence as one of four
autocephalous Churches in European Turkey, the others being at Constantinople,
Trnovo and Pech. However, as the feudal system was consolidated in Macedonia, heavy
financial burdens were placed upon the Church and the Christian population
in general. This produced a series of sporadic upheavals against the
Empire, which responded with an active campaign of Islamization of the
Christian population. The Macedonian Church, already heavily in debt,
was unable to resist the tide of compulsory conversion and consequently
lost considerable influence. As a result, many thousands of Macedonians,
particularly in the western districts of the country, converted to Islam.
Unfortunately, the Turks also demolished many Macedonian churches,
whilst others were converted into mosques. The legacies of this campaign
are still readily visible in Macedonia today. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Macedonian Church
found itself coming under increasing pressure from the Greek Patriarch
of Constantinople. This era had witnessed in general a marked increase
in the Patriarch's drive to hellenize the southern Balkan lands, and
the Macedonian Church at Ohrid had proved a constant irritant in this
mission. The Patriarch initiated a campaign aimed at the Sultanate which
responded by abolishing the Ohrid archbishopric in 1767 A.D.(4) The ecclesiastical organs of the Macedonian Church were subsequently
taken over by the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and bishops and priests
of Greek origin were despatched to Macedonia, with the express instruction
to take over control of education within the parishes. Schools were
established in an attempt to hellenize the Macedonian population. In 1870, the Ottoman Court agreed to the re-establishment of the Bulgarian
Church, which itself embarked upon a campaign of proselytization of
the Macedonian people. This ushered in a most destructive era of religious
warfare between the two dominant foreign churches on the territory of
Macedonia. In this battle, the Macedonian population most often chose
to align itself with the Bulgarian church, as it was a case of this
church being "the lesser of two evils". The absence of an independent Macedonian Church during this period
was a critical factor in determining the impact of the independence
movement. The Macedonian Church could theoretically have provided the
national focus within a religious guise for the intelligentsia to rally
and integrate the subjective revolutionary forces towards national emancipation.
Its absence in any cogent and coherent form during this era meant that
the external forces which destabilized the Macedonian population, principally
through their churches and schools, were unable to be effectively challenged,
and this of course impacted negatively upon the consciousness and preparedness
of the independence movement in the 1890s and the first decade of the
1900s. The demoralization suffered by all sections of the Macedonian people
after the heavy defeat by Turkey at "Ilinden" (1903) was compounded
by further successive national disasters in 1912-13 (Balkan Wars), the
division of Macedonia between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria in August
1913, the First World War (Versailles Peace Treaty) and two decades
of harsh denationalization, fascism and the Second World War. In this,
the Macedonian Church suffered in much the same way as the Macedonian
people. Religious identification with the Macedonian Church, and Christian
worship as a form of subjective national and ethno-cultural expression,
was outlawed in Greece (Aegean Macedonia), Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonia)
and Yugoslavia (Vardar Macedonia). This has remained the situation in
both Greece and Bulgaria to the present day. Albania, which has a small
Macedonian minority, allows the entry of Macedonian Orthodox priests
from the Republic of Macedonia. During the fascist occupation of Yugoslavia, a guiding committee to
organize church affairs in Macedonia was established in October 1944,
and following the liberation of Skopje, this guiding committee held
the First Macedonian Popular Church Assembly in that city in March 1945.
The Assembly passed a unanimous resolution calling for the re-establishment
of the Archbishopric of Ohrid as an autocephalous Macedonian Church.
In October 1958, the guiding committee held its Second National Church
Assembly at Ohrid. Here, the Congress voted historically to restore
the Ohrid Archbishopric. Though resolving to maintain canonical links
with the intransigent Serbian Patriarchate, the guiding committee had
bravely decided to "go it alone". On the 5th of October, Archbishop
Dositej was formally enthroned as the head of the restored Church, although
nominally he remained subservient to the Serbian patriarch. And, on the 17th of July 1967, the Third National Church Assembly was held at Ohrid, and on the following day, a resolution was passed unanimously proclaiming the Macedonian Orthodox Church autocephalous.(5) The Macedonian Orthodox Church in Australia: An Overview Although the first Macedonian settlers in Australia are widely believed
to have migrated to these shores in the 1890s and very early part of
this century, it was not until the period immediately following the
Second World War that this immigration took on a mass character. Charles
Price has estimated that there were no more than 2,000 Macedonians in
Australia in 1947. Certainly, even allowing for the rudimentary nature
of these statistics, there were no more than 5,000. The great preponderance
of these early settlers were either from the Lerin and Kostur districts
of Aegean Macedonia (Greece), or from the region of Bitola in the Republic
of Macedonia.(6) As the numbers began to increase dramatically in the 1940s and early
1950s, with the itinerant male workers deciding to stay permanently
and bring out their families, and joined subsequently by the political
and economic refugees from Macedonia, community organizations were formed
across all States. Initially, their orientation was towards the provision
of settlement assistance and support services, although once the organizational
infrastructures had been consolidated, their activities diversified
considerably to include cultural and linguistic maintenance, social
functions and celebrations, sport, politics, and of course, the establishment
of churches to meet the spiritual needs of their members.(7) Currently, there are 18 Macedonian churches around Australia. Perth Melbourne Geelong Sydney Newcastle Wollongong Port Kembla Queanbeyan Canberra Brisbane Gold Coast Adelaide It is also of interest to note that many Macedonians in Australia,
of the Muslim faith, regularly worship in Islamic mosques. Further,
a small Macedonian Baptist Community exists in Melbourne, having been
established in 1973, together with a Macedonian Uniting Church parish
in Preston, Melbourne, which has canonical relations with the Methodist
Church in Macedonia.(8) The Orthodox churches together form the Australian Diocese of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, with the seat of the eparchate based in Melbourne where its activities are governed by a ruling Executive Committee, elected every two years by the Diocesan Conference, comprising delegates and parish priests from all the Churches and headed by the Deputy to the Bishop. The Bishop incidentally, wearing the jurisdictional title of Metropolitan (of Australia) resides in Ohrid, in the Republic of Macedonia, although moves are afoot to have him permanently based in Melbourne. Interestingly enough, the Diocese is not registered pursuant to Australian law, although the individual churches have disparate registration within each state. The older churches, established either prior to or contemporaneously with the modern Macedonian Orthodox Church, have independent constitutions, whilst the newer ones have all adopted the uniform constitution of the Diocese. The Macedonian Orthodox Church in Victoria and South Australia: A Descriptive Analysis The modern historical period has witnessed the development of a rather
pragmatic attitude amongst Macedonians towards Orthodoxy and its institutions.
This attitude was in large measure transferred to Australia where it
was significantly strengthened by each succeeding wave of Macedonian
immigration, which was forced to make the socio-psychological transition
from a predominantly agrarian to a modern industrial society, and thus
increasingly came to imbibe the more secular, materialistic values of
contemporary Australian society. Consequently, the 200,000 strong Macedonian
community in Australia does not display the same fervency of religious
beliefs as would some other Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christian communities.
Religious worship and the institution of the Church, as we have indicated
above, have historically been seen as serving the purpose of affirming
the cause of national self-determination and recognition. The reason
for this lack of religious fervour can in large part be traced to that
period from 1767 to 1958 (especially up until 1944 when the Socialist
Republic of Macedonia was constituted within Federal Yugoslavia), during
which an independent Macedonian Church did not exist. During this period the Orthodox Macedonian population (only a small
number of Macedonians having been islamized during Turkish rule) was
forced to express its religious devotion within the confines of the
aggressively nationalistic Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian Orthodox Churches
which worked hand in hand with their respective national states to dismember
Macedonia (1912-1913) and denationalize the Macedonian people. The defeat in 1949 of the Democratic Army of Greece, in which many
Macedonians had fought in the hope of winning at the very least national
rights within a Communist Greece, was deeply felt by Australia's Macedonian
community. With their hopes for the national liberation of the homeland
dashed and the denial of Macedonian ethno-specificity by the Greek and
Bulgarian states, Macedonians expected the campaign to deny their identity
to be transferred and stepped up in Australia as well. The worst fears of the progressive Macedonians were quickly realized
in 1950 with the arrival in Melbourne from New York of the Metropolitan
of the then "Free" Bulgarian Church, Andreja Velichky. The
Metropolitan had been invited by a group of Macedonians (mainly from
Aegean Macedonia) to constitute a local church and appoint a parish
priest.(9) These Macedonians were characterized by their longer residence
in Australia and a sympathy for the Bulgarian Church which dovetailed
with their conviction that the Church in Bulgaria in the immediate post-war
years was repressed and subservient to the Communist regime. However,
they were by no means fervent anti-communists. By skilfully manipulating the fears, religious convictions and misplaced
national identification of these Macedonians, Velichky in 1950 managed
to set up a Bulgarian-Macedonian Orthodox Church in Young St, Fitzroy,
Saints Cyril & Methodius. However, due to the efforts of the Macedonian
Australian People's League (MANS), Velichky failed to set up similar
"Bulgarian" churches in other major cities in Australia, save
in Queanbeyan, NSW (this church was subsequently to come under the aegis
of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, soon after its establishment in Australia).(10) In the mid 1980s the congregation of Saints Cyril & Methodius (which was now located in a former Anglican Cathedral in Northcote, Melbourne, and which had in the early 1960s passed under the jurisdiction of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church of Sofia) resolved to defect to the Australian Diocese of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, and their application was accepted by the Metropolitan in Skopje. A dispute subsequently ensured over title to the Northcote church, with the Victorian Supreme Court ruling in 1986 that the property remained vested in the Bulgarian Archdiocese, despite the judge's considerable sympathy for the feelings of the Macedonian parishioners. The Macedonian Orthodox Church St George, Melbourne, Victoria It was precisely the desire for national self-affirmation through the
medium of the Church that informed the decision to set up the first
Macedonian Orthodox Church in Australia and in fact in the Western world,
St George, in Young St, Fitzroy, Melbourne. After long consultations within the ranks of MANS, in May 1956 the
Macedonian Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria was formed.
A constitution was drafted in English and steps taken to register the
Community as a legal Australian institution.(11) The prime movers in
the establishment of the Community were the well known activists, Stojan
Sarbinov, Vane Nedelkovksi, Dane Trpkov, Risto Altin, Atanas and Done
Filipov. A campaign was soon launched to collect funds for the building of a
church. In 1956 the site of the intended Church was bought, 52-54 Young
Street, Fitzroy where the MANS club was then located and where MANS'
newspaper Makedonska Iskra (Macedonian Spark) was produced until its
discontinuation in January 1957.(12) On the 3rd of August 1958, on the occasion of Macedonian National Day,
Ilinden, a dinner dance was held at which 6000 pounds - a large sum
in those days - was collected for the building of the church. This astounding
success immediately provoked the ire of the Serbian, Greek and Bulgarian
church authorities and the age-old argument was once again employed:
"Permission cannot be given for such a church to be built as a
Macedonian people and nation does not exist, therefore it would be ludicrous
to have a "Macedonian Church"."(13) Such "argumentation" succeeded in convincing the municipal
authorities to withdraw the building permit, which in reality left the
Community (which was determined to assert its national and religious
identity) with no choice but to challenge that decision in the Victorian
Supreme Court. This case was decided in favour of the Macedonian Orthodox
Community and people, who were deemed to be a distinct ethnic group
with the same rights to their own national church and religious freedom
as other Australian citizens.(14) After this historic Supreme Court case the construction of the Church
was begun with renewed enthusiasm and passion. In February 1959 the
Community's constitution was given official approval.(15) The Church was finally consecrated and officially opened on the 7th
of August 1960 by the Archbishop of the Zletovo-Strumica region of Macedonia,
the Right Reverend Naum, accompanied by the secretary to the Metropolitan,
Archpriest Nestor Popovski, and Father Georgi Angelovski who was to
become St. George's first priest. The special edition of Makedonski
Tsrkoven Bulletin (Macedonian Church Bulletin) was to proudly proclaim
in its July 1960 edition: "MACEDONIANS: THE CHURCH "ST GEORGE" WILL BE INAUGURATED
ON ILINDEN! THE CONSECRATION WILL BE CARRIED OUT BY A MACEDONIAN ARCHBISHOP.
The priest and the Archbishop are arriving from Skopje by plane ...
The day has finally come when we can quite positively inform you that
the Church St George has been completed and that we have selected the
day of the glorious Ilinden Uprising as the day on which the first Macedonian
Orthodox Church in Australia - let us allow ourselves to state - the
first such church in the whole world for the Macedonian people, since
this church was begun and completed on a purely religious-national basis,
is to be consecrated".(16) There was a massive Macedonian presence at the consecration of the
church and at the dinner held that same evening at Fitzroy Town Hall.
Melbourne television news had widely covered the arrival of the delegation
at Essendon Airport.(17) From this period onwards Macedonians in Melbourne
began to develop a cohesive socio-religious life which affirmed their
presence and visibility in Australia. On the other hand, activities
in the social political spheres aimed to consolidate the Macedonian
Orthodox Church in Australia in order to preserve its role in promoting
national unity and identity. The role of the fourth priest to serve at St George, Archpriest and
Bishop's Deputy Metodija Gogov (now Archbishop Mihail, newly elected
head of the Church in Macedonia), in furthering the social and religious
life of the Macedonian community deserves special mention. For he did
not only serve his flock conscientiously and compassionately in Melbourne,
but contributed to the socio-religious life of Macedonians in all Australia.
He played a significant role in helping to develop churches and an active
community life in Perth, Adelaide, Queanbeyan, Newcastle, Port Kembla
and Sydney. He ensured that the organ of the Macedonian Orthodox Church
Diocese of Australia, "Makedonski Vesnik" (Macedonian Newspaper)
was published more frequently and he enriched its contents significantly.
He was instrumental in improving the cultural and intellectual life of Macedonian youth through the creation of ethnic schools which taught in both English and Macedonian. In addition, his excellent knowledge of English enabled him to represent the Macedonian Orthodox Church throughout Australia in a worthy and dignified manner, as well as to advance his life-long goal of achieving a true ecumenical unity amongst all Christian Churches.(18) The Macedonian Orthodox Church St Naum, Adelaide, South Australia The strength and vitality of Macedonian church life as embodied in
the socio-religious, cultural and political activity of the Macedonian
Church Community "St George" provided a basis for the establishment
of Macedonian Orthodox Church communities in other parts of Australia.
Such a development was given added impetus in the late 1960s and early
1970s by the immigration to Australia of ever increasing numbers of
Macedonians from the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. These two factors contributed to the upsurge of religious activity
amongst the Macedonian community in Adelaide, South Australia. The Macedonian
Orthodox Community of Adelaide and South Australia Inc (the Association
was then known as "Alexander the Great") was established in
1947, its first president being Vasil Apostol. The organization grew
rapidly with the influence of young refugees and their families, predominantly
from Aegean Macedonia (Greece), during the 1950s. In late 1967, a Community
Hall was erected, and in the following year a decision was made to conduct
religious service in the Macedonian language at the rear of the Community
quarters. Leading roles in developing these initiatives were played
by Kosta Radin, Risto Yankov, Kosta Papas, Kosta Kiossev and Pandil
Phillipov. The first major initiative of the Community's management
was to invite the parish priest of the Macedonian Orthodox Church St
George in Melbourne, Father Metodija Gogov, to conduct the first service,
to which hundreds of Macedonians flocked. The second significant decision
involved an application to the Church in the Republic for a parish priest.
In 1969, Father George Kacarski arrived from Skopje to commence duties
with the parish, and he remained until 1975 when he was promoted and
moved to Melbourne. He was replaced briefly by Father Temelko Velkovski. In the interim, the Community had resolved to prepare plans for the
erection of a new Orthodox Church on a block adjacent to the Community
Hall. These plans were initially drawn in 1974, with a further four
years elapsing before the Community resolved to adopt St Naum as its
patron saint. On the 1st of May 1981, a foundation stone was laid and blessed by
the then Metropolitan of Australia, Bishop Kiril. Work commenced soon
after. Almost three years of voluntary labour was expended by Community
members, and an associated cost (labour free) of $120,000 before the
new edifice was completed.(19) Prior to its opening, the new parish priest, Father Jordan Tasev, arrived
from the Republic to take up his duties in December 1983. Subsequently,
on the 29th of April 1984, the new Church was consecrated by the Metropolitan
of Australia, Bishop Timotej, in the presence of the President of the
Macedonian Emigrants Council of the Republic of Macedonia and distinguished
South Australian guests. The design concept of the new church, praised as one of the most impressive Macedonian churches in this country, was commissioned from a leading Australian-Macedonian architect, Jim Petre, of Adelaide. Today the church has a regular parish of over six hundred. Religious Leaders, Cultural Maintenance and Sectarian Affiliation As we have stated above, the struggle for the recognition and independence
of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, both in its Balkan homeland and in
Australia, has been intimately intertwined with the overall struggle
of the Macedonian people for national liberation and self-determination.
This ineluctable fact has consequently informed the approach and philosophical
outlook of not only the boards of management of the respective church
communities throughout Australia, but also to a large extent of those
priests who serve the spiritual needs of their parishioners. To that
extent, the strength and cohesion of the various church communities
has tended to coincide with progress being made on the socio-cultural
and political front for Macedonians in Australia. Likewise, the disunity
and internecine fighting which has frequently erupted between church
communities and their secular and religious leaderships has been mirrored
in a general disarray and lack of orientation within the wider Macedonian
community. This is not to say that the Macedonian Orthodox Church is the only
force in the community which is capable of giving general political,
cultural and social direction, nor that it is the most significant.
In fact, in recent years bodies such as FOMAV (Federation of Macedonian
Associations of Victoria), the Australian Macedonian Human Rights Committee,
its various state committees for Macedonian Human Rights, the Australian
Macedonian Progressive Society (AMPS), the Australian Macedonian Society
and the Ilinden Foundation, the Association of Former Refugee Children,
the Aegean Macedonian Association of Australia, the Macedonian Teachers'
Society of Victoria, Welfare Councils, literary societies, professional
and artistic groups, educational and studies foundations, school and
student bodies, the Macedonian Communities of Western Australia and
South Australia, the Australian-Macedonian Weekly and other media, and
of late the Macedonian Councils, among others, have made the running
on vital political, social and cultural issues confronting the community. The activities of such organizations have had the goal of complementing
the general community actions of the church boards of management, by
focusing on areas and issues where specialist skills and expertise (traditionally
lacking on the church boards) are needed for progress to be made. The
fact that most of these organizations are led or significantly influenced
by the younger, better-educated generation of Macedonians of both sexes
has been wrongly perceived as a threat by some patriarchal secular church
leaders (especially in Victoria and NSW), who feel that activity in
the community is extending beyond the boundaries that they had traditionally
determined and into areas which they feel ill-prepared to tackle in
modern Australian society. However, having said that, it must be stated that the activities of
such progressive organizations are significantly advanced, or hindered,
in proportion to the degree of support, or opposition, emanating from
the ranks of separate church communities and in particular from the
Diocese's Executive Committee. Such a statement is eloquent testimony
to the influence of the Macedonian Orthodox Church and its religious
and secular bodies in moulding Macedonian public opinion. The religious and socio-cultural activity of the Macedonian Orthodox
Church in Australia has undoubtedly fostered a sense of Macedonian ethno-specificity
and uniqueness, as evidenced by the tenacity with which it fought to
establish the first Macedonian church in the Western world, St George,
in Melbourne in 1960, and by its contribution to the fund-raising for
the trip to Europe in May 1989 by the international Macedonian Human
Rights delegation. Its role in resisting the chauvinist denials of the
Macedonian people's ethno-specificity in recent years in Australia is
also noteworthy (the contributions of St George, St Dimitrija and St
Nikola of Melbourne, St John of Geelong, St Naum of Adelaide and St
Nikola of Perth being of particular significance). Its emphasis on cultural maintenance is evidenced by the widespread
network of Macedonian language schools that it has established within
its confines and apparent from even a cursory examination of church
bulletins, newspaper etc. (viz Makedonski Vesnik, Makedonski Tsrkoven
Bulletin of St George's, Melbourne). Yet, paradoxically, the emphasis placed by the Macedonian Orthodox
Church on maintaining Macedonian ethno-specificity has led to an appreciable
lessening of the significant role which it could be expected to have
in such maintenance. Such a development is a result of the means by
which "Macedonian identity" is promoted within the Church
by the majority of church committees and boards of management in this
country. For the promotion of Macedonian culture borrows heavily from
traditional agrarian society with its attendant conservative and patriarchal
values and, as such, the cultural model presented has come to be perceived
as ossified and irrelevant to the needs of younger Macedonian-Australians
seeking their place in modern society. The relative lack of representation
of younger members of the community - and especially of young women
- on church boards of management has tended to compound this problem.
At the same time such an approach has tended to militate against successful
integration into the social, cultural and political mainstream by postulating
a Macedonian identity rooted in pre-migration Balkan homeland conditions
rather than one which attempts to marry the Balkan experience with the
positive values of modern Australia. It must be stated unequivocally
that the Church, to its credit, has always stressed the need for first
generation Macedonian migrants to learn English adequately (a perusal
of the pages of Makedonski Vesnik in the 1960s and 70s would bear this
out) as a means of empowerment and progress within Australia. However, those members of that same first generation who, due to their
deeper religiosity, imbibed the model of cultural identity promoted
until recently by the Church, have experienced significant problems
in adapting to the demands of life in their second homeland even after
40-50 years in this country. Consequently, their role as conveyors of
a socially relevant Macedonian culture to their children (apart from
obvious barriers such as age and radically different conditioning in
formative years) has not been as effective as it could have been. The
upshot is that Australian-born Macedonian youth has until recently been
reluctant to promote Macedonian culture as an integral part of this
country's multicultural fabric, although the emergence of a tight nucleus
of young intellectuals during the last few years has worked to redress
the situation. The question of creating a Macedonian cultural model more relevant
to the needs of the community in general has perhaps been most successfully
tackled by those Macedonian Orthodox Churches which form part of an
umbrella community structure rather than exist as parishes in their
own right. In Perth, Western Australia, the Church St Nikola exists
as a constituent organization of the umbrella body, Macedonian Community
of Western Australia Incorporated. Whilst the church has its own board
of management and is entitled to three members on the 40 member Community
Executive Committee, decisions regarding its operation are taken by
the Community Executive Committee, which in 1989 was led by young progressive
Macedonians, namely Chris Angelkov (President) and Trajan Andonovski
(Secretary), who managed to shift the focus of community life to issues
more relevant to the lives of "Macedonian-Australians" rather
than to "Macedonians in Australia". Likewise, the Macedonian Orthodox Church of Adelaide, St Naum, forms
part of the wider community body, The Macedonian Orthodox Community
of Adelaide and South Australia Incorporated (MOCASA). This organization
has managed to raise the profile of Macedonians in South Australia by
working hard at developing links with both governmental and broader
ethnic organizations, such that it has managed to obtain significant
state funding for its multifarious activities. The image of St Naum
has thereby been improved amongst second generation Macedonian-Australians
through its membership of the wider community body. Interestingly, the long-serving president of MOCASA, Kosta Radin, stood
down from his post in 1984 in order to make way for "younger blood"
so as to ensure the vitality and continuity of Macedonian community
life in South Australia. It was envisaged that the Macedonian Orthodox Community of Melbourne
and Victoria (MOCMV) would grow into a wider umbrella body, with the
other four churches in Victoria together with St George eventually forming
part of the same structure. However, these four remaining churches have
constituted themselves as separate parishes and as such community cohesion
in general has been weakened. In 1989 the only other organization affiliated
with MOCMV is "Svetlost", the youth folkloric dance troupe,
which throughout the 1960s and 1970s was ably led by Ana Vasileva. The
inescapable fact remains however that an infusion of new blood into
existing church structures would give them broader community appeal
and strengthen their role and profile amongst Macedonians in Australia.
In keeping with trends which would cut across most ethnic communities in Australia, the children of the first generation Macedonian migrants hold significantly less fervent religious beliefs than those of their parents. As indicated earlier, the religious values of the first generation of adult Macedonians in Australia were rather more pragmatic than those of their Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters, due to a host of historical and political factors. These beliefs have been further diluted in Australian-born Macedonians who have grown up in relative affluence in a modern industrial society with its attendant secular and materialistic values. Yet, this is not to say that their sense of being Macedonian has decreased in corresponding degree. If anything, their identification as Macedonian-Australians has been heightened by the activities over the last five years of younger Macedonian intellectual circles who have been instrumental in creating an identity more suited to local conditions, and in raising the question of the denial of basic human rights for their country folk in those parts of the homeland which now form part of the Balkan states of Greece, Bulgaria and Albania. Conclusion The Macedonian Orthodox Church in Australia has by no means lost its relevance in inspiring a sense of ethnic identity in the broader community. The huge attendance of young and old at especially the Easter and Christmas services is testimony to its continuing attraction. What is certain is that the determination with which Macedonians in the late 1950s in Melbourne fought in order to establish their national Church in this country - in the form of St George - was of enormous significance in building the impetus which led to the mother Church in Macedonia taking the decisive step and proclaiming its autocephalous and independent status in 1967. The challenge lying ahead for the Macedonian Orthodox Church in Australia is for it to cement its rightful role in the maintenance of Macedonian culture by linking up with progressive circles in the community and the social, political, cultural, welfare and structural initiatives that they are taking.
1. D Ilievski, The Macedonian Orthodox Church, Macedonian Review,
Skopje, 1973, pp7-9. 2. Op cit p16. 3. Op cit p17. 4. Op cit pp30-31. 5. Op cit pp92-95. 6. V Andonov, Makedoncite vo Australija, Kultura, Skopje, 1973, pp17-18. 7. P Hill, "Macedonians" in Encyclopedia of the Australian
People, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1988, p689. 8. Ibid 9. S Sarbinov, Kako i Zosto Se Dojde Do Izgradbata na Makedonskite
Pravoslavni Crkvi vo Australia, Paper prepared in December 1988, Melbourne,
p14. 10. S Sarbinov, Makedoncite vo Australia: 1940-1988, Paper presented
by author at the Australian Macedonian National Conference, April 1989,
Melbourne University, pp5-6. 11. S. Sarbinov "Kako i Zosto ...", p15. 12. Ibid 13. Ibid 14. S Sarbinov, Kako i Zosto ..., pp15-16. 15. S Sarbinov, Makedoncite vo Australija ..., p6. 16. Makedonski Tsrkoven Bulletin, A Melbourne Orthodox Community Publication,
Vol 3, No 4, Melbourne, July 1960, p1. 17. S. Sarbinov, Kako i Zosto ..., p17. 18. Makedonski Vesnik, Publication of the Macedonian Orthodox Community
of Melbourne and Victoria, July 1970, p3, p10. 19. Iskra, Macedonian Cultural Society, Adelaide, No 4, 1986.
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