The Holy Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church is scheduled to meet today to decide on unification with the POA splinter church.

The POA, which stands for Orthodox Archbishopric of Ohrid, was formed by former MOC bishop Jovan of Veles (Zoran Vraniskovski), who decided to take the Serbian side in the long running church dispute for which he was defrocked and even faced fraud and hate speech charges and served five and a half years in prison. This attempt by the Serbian church to divide MOC and Vraniskovski’s arrest greatly worsened relations between the two churches.

The Serbian church finally relented last year, faced with an initiative to have the Macedonian church recognized through the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, and recognized MOC as equal. Part of the agreement appears to be to have the MOC unify with the POA and have a number of pro-Serbian bishops appointed to positions in the now unified church.

It’s expected that four bishops of the POA, which was dividing bishop titles even though it has negligible following in Macedonia, will become part of the Holy Synod of the Macedonian church, and will hold mostly symbolic offices.