Archbishop Stefan today sanctified the foundations of the belltower that will be built north of Skopje, near the small Smilkovsko lake. This is the site where, in 2012, before Good Friday, a group of Albanian Islamists killed four Macedonian youngsters and one man, in an attack apparently meant to spark a civil war.

Events from our difficult history are repeating themselves. Unfortunately, we saw that, even as we now live free, we still suffered new victims from our ranks, Archbishop Stefan said during the ceremony in honor of the killed Filip Slavkovski, Aleksandar Nakevski, Cvetanco Ackovski, Kire Trickovski and Borce Stevkovski.

The belltower will be built by the municipalities of Butel and Gazi Baba, with the help of an association of citizens. The two mayors, VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski, Interior Minister Pance Toskovski and a number of other party officials attended the ceremony.