VMRO-DPMNE President Hristijan Mickoski issued a statement on the decision by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to admit the Macedonian Orthodox Church in canonical unity. According to Mickoski, this move acknowledges the existence of th Macedonian nation and its centuries of history and tradition and will serve against the Bulgarian attempts to reduce it to a recently created entity.

With this, the Bulgarian position that we are a nation created in 1945 falls through, as does their position on a Second Bulgarian Kingdom that is based on the denial of the Macedonian identity. Accepting the centuries old tradition and history of the Ohrid Archbishopric confirms the Macedonian Orthodox identity as separate from the Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek and the other nations, with which we are now in canonical unity. As for the name, I would emphasize that the Russian Church is also called the Patriarchy of Moscow, Mickoski said.