The Bulgarian Orthodox Church will have to recognize the Macedonian as one of the many Orthodox churches across the globe, not as the only one that it has direct common history with, church analyst and historian Goran Blagoev told BNR, MIA reports from Sofia.

He believes that almost no one in the Orthodox world will be impressed by Bulgaria’s claims for the name Ohrid Archbishopric.

Blagoev believes that in recent years the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has shown very low authority in the family of Orthodox churches. And, if the Holy Synod of the BOC considered that there was a reason, it could react immediately with a message to all local Orthodox churches, to defend their historical rights in this name. If he does not do so, the Orthodox world will accept what the Patriarch of Constantinople dictates and determines.

In the church, as well as in politics, things do not always happen the way we want, says Blagoev. What happened to the MOC, according to him, is expected, especially after the Bulgarian Orthodox Church refused to commit to supporting the resolution of the Macedonian church case in 2019. Since the Bulgarian Synod had neither the authority nor the potential to do so, things naturally came to what happened yesterday, Serbian Patriarch Porfirij in Skopje announced that the SOC was giving autocephaly to the MOC-OA.

Blagoev also commented that “a Macedonian church was established as anti-Serbian, but unfortunately, Tito’s authorities very quickly turned it into an instrument of anti-Bulgarian behavior.”

According to him, Bulgaria’s approach and attitude towards this issue should be very delicate, because Sofia has already embittered enough people in Macedonia with the blockade of the country’s entry into the EU.