Theologian Cyril Hovorun calls Bartholomew's decision to recognize the Church of Ohrid historical

"On May 9, the Ecumenical Patriarchate made a historic decision on the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia. Both Moscow and Belgrade played political games around this problem but to no avail. And Constantinople solved it gracefully and in a pastoral way (although there is also an element of politics in this decision)", Cyril Hovorun wrote.

According to the theologian, this solution is similar to the solution of the “Ukrainian problem”:

"On the issue of ordinations, Constantinople used the right to accept appeals and the principle of oicononomy – as well as on the ordinations of the UOC-KP and UAOC. And the very concern for this church justified its historical origin in the Middle Ages from the Church of Constantinople – as in the case of its Kyiv Metropolia. Constantinople has reserved some vague form of care for this church for itself for the future.

However, as in the case of Ukraine, Constantinople left the church itself to determine its future canonical status – however, together with the Serbian Church.

In my opinion, there is a slim chance that Skopje and Belgrade manage to agree on something in the near future. Therefore, in fact, we are talking about the actual recognition of the Ohrid autocephaly by Constantinople. However, so far without Tomos. The document issued by Constantinople is called “Praxis”, that is, “acts”. It has the status of “Patriarchal and synodal”, that is, signed by the patriarch and adopted by the majority of Synod members. The status of this document is lower than that of the Tomos, but it was enough to return from the schism. It cannot be ruled out that in the future there will also be a Tomos for the Church of Ohrid,” the theologian concluded.

As RISU has reported, the recognition of the Archdiocese of Ohrid was granted on May 9 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate during a meeting of the Holy Synod and after a detailed discussion. The Ecumenical Patriarchate has announced that it is accepting "the hierarchy, clergy and people of this church under the leadership of Archbishop Stephen".