MACEDONIA

MACEDONIA. Today the ancient territory of Macedonia is divided between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of that name. Its southern (today Greek) regions were evangelized by the apostle Paul, notably Philippi (near modern Kavala) and Thessalonica (q.v.). Its northern parts, particularly the city of Ochrid, provided the base for one of the earliest of the Slav Orthodox rulers, the 10th c. Tsar Samuel, and a center for the translation of Greek liturgical and patristic texts into Church Slavic. Constantine-Cyril and Methodius (qq.v.) were themselves from Thessalonica, and it is from the southern Macedonian dialect that they created the first written language of the Slavs. Incorporated into the Ottoman Empire (q.v.) during the course of the 14th c., Macedonia became an arena of competing nationalities during the 1800s in particular. Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbians all laid claim to it; and this is not to count the Albanians, Romanians (Vlachs), and Turks who also lived there. The Balkan Wars concluding in 1912 were fought over it, with Greece and Serbia dividing up the lion’s share. Under Tito’s dictatorship, the Orthodox in Macedonia, as an expression of the local nationalisms fostered by the regime, were encouraged to set up the “Macedonian Orthodox Church” and sever relations with the Serbian Church (q.v.). Both the national and ecclesiastical future of this republic continue to be, as of this writing, highly uncertain.