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Religions of Macedonia


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Orthodox Christianity is the majority faith of the Republic of Macedonia making up 64.7% of the population, the vast majority of which belong to the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Various other Christian denominations account for 0.37% of the population. Muslims comprise 33.3% of the population; Macedonia has the fifth-highest proportion of Muslims in Europe, after those of Turkey (96%), Kosovo (90%), Albania (82%), and Bosnia-Herzegovina (48%). Most Muslims are Albanians, Turks, or Roma, although some are Macedonian Muslims. The remaining 1.63% is recorded as "unspecified" in the 2002 national census.

Altogether, there are 1,842 churches and 580 mosques in the country. The Orthodox and Islamic religious communities have secondary religion schools in Skopje. There is an Orthodox theological college in the capital. The Macedonian Orthodox Church has jurisdiction over 10 provinces (seven in the country and three abroad), has 10 bishops and about 350 priests. A total of 30,000 people are baptised in all the provinces every year.

There is a tension between the Macedonian and Serbian Orthodox Churches which arose from the former's separation and self-declared autocephaly in 1967. However, the Archbishop's Council of the Serbian Orthodox Church, with Decision No. 06/1959, has recognised the autonomy (self-dependence) of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. After the negotiations between the two churches were suspended, the Serbian Orthodox Church recognised a group led by Zoran Vraniškovski (also known as Archbishop Jovan of Ohrid, a former Macedonian church bishop, as the Archbishop of Ohrid.

The reaction of the Macedonian Orthodox Church was to cut off all relations with the new Ohrid Archbishopric and to prevent bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church from entering Macedonia. Bishop Jovan was jailed for 18 months for "defaming the Macedonian Orthodox church and harming the religious feelings of local citizens" by distributing Serbian Orthodox church
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