SCOBA hierarchs call for release of Archbishop Jovan

NEW YORK, NY [OCA Communications] — His Beatitude, Metropolitan Herman was among the hierarchs of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas [SCOBA] to issue a statement calling for the release of His Eminence, Archbishop Jovan of Ochrid.

Dated December 19, 2006, the statement expresses the SCOBA hierarchs’ “bond of brotherly love” for the Archbishop, who was recently imprisoned for the second time by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [FYROM].

“We continue to be grieved by the imprisonment of this hierarch of the Orthodox Church, the disregard for his physical maladies, and the violation of his human rights, with negative implications for the faithful of his Archdiocese,” the SCOBA hierarchs wrote. “It is well known that Archbishop Jovan was previously acquitted of the charges against him. Nevertheless, he is imprisoned again.

“We, the hierarchs of SCOBA, justifiably expect the appropriate authorities of FYROM to take the steps necessary to free Archbishop Jovan from prison,”
the statement concludes. “We also call upon our government of the United States of America to facilitate the implementation of his release.”

On December 1, 2006, Metropolitan Herman sent a letter to FYROM Prime Minister Nikola Gruevsky calling for Archbishop Jovan’s release, the text of which is posted on the OCA web site at https://www.oca.org/news.asp?ID=1118&SID=19.

In the 1960s, the Orthodox Church in the Macedonian Republic unilaterally declared itself autocephalous, thereby breaking communion with the Serbian Patriarchate and the world’s Orthodox sister Churches. The schismatic Macedonian Church has maintained a bitter dispute with the Serbian Church over the patriarchate’s presence in the republic.

The patriarchate’s Archbishop Jovan, who broke ties with the schismatic Church in Macedonia and returned to the patriarchate a several years ago, has been the target of anti-patriarchate parties and civil authorities. He was first arrested in July 2005 and sentenced to 18 months in prison in Skopje for allegedly “inciting national, racial, and religious hatred, schism, and intolerance.” He was subsequently released until his most recent imprisonment.