MACEDONIAN’S CHRISTIAN HISTORY
Macedonia
has a rich history of Christianity, starting when the Apostle Paul had a
vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to
Macedonia and help us.” (Acts 16:9) Paul obeyed the “Macedonian Call”
when he sailed for Philippi. However, with time, Christianity became
stagnant because the Scriptures were never translated into the language
of the Slavic common people. It wasn’t until the ninth century that
Cyril and Methodius of Thessaloniki undertook the challenge of meeting
this need among Slavic peoples when they started a Bible school to train
Slavs in their own language. After the death of Cyril and Methodius,
two of their students, Clement and Naum of Macedonia, returned to
Macedonia in the city of Ohrid and continued the work by creating a new
Slavic alphabet, called Cyrillic, in
honor of their teacher Cyril. Clement translated the Scriptures into
the language of the Macedonian Slavs and founded the Ohrid University.
About 3,500 students were educated at Ohrid University. Many of them
were ordained priests, deacons, and arch-deacons; and many were sent on
missions among the Slavic peoples on the Balkan Peninsula, and even
further abroad. A large number of them also reached far away Russia.
At the end of the fourteenth century the Ottoman Turks invaded the
Balkans and brought about 500 years of Muslim rule. Afterwards,
Macedonia was under several decades of Communism during its time in the
former Yugoslavia. In 1992, Macedonia became an independent Republic.
However, as a people, they have lost most of their rich spiritual
heritage.
MACEDONIA TODAY
Today,
about two thirds of Macedonia’s population is Slavic Macedonian. They
consider themselves Orthodox Christian but most of these are nominal in
their beliefs and practices. The Orthodox Church is seen as the
national church. To become a member of any other church (such as
Protestant or Evangelical) is seen as unpatriotic, and these churches
are even called “sects” or “cults”. The members are considered traitors
to their homeland because to be Macedonian is to be “Orthodox”. Even
though many of the people rarely attend Orthodox services, many converts
to other churches face severe persecution and are ostracized by family
and friends, and in a country that values family, this can be a burden
hard to bear.
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Pray for Orthodox Macedonians to go beyond following traditions but to
have saving faith, becoming true believers and having a relationship
with the God they try to serve.
The
other third of Macedonia’s population is Muslim. Most of Macedonia’s
Muslims are Albanian, making up about one fourth of Macedonia’s
population. The rest are Muslim Turks and Gypsies (Roma). Most Muslims
in Macedonia maintain a high identity as a Muslim but do not follow
most of the practices of Islam. Just as with the Macedonians, to be
Albanian is to be "Muslim". Though several churches have been planted
among the Muslim Roma population, the Muslim Albanians and Muslim Turks
remain essentially unreached.
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Pray for Muslim Albanians and Muslim Turks to have a revelation of
Jesus Christ and to come into the Kingdom of God with saving faith as
true believers.
Less
than 0.5% of Macedonia’s population is Protestant/Evangelical
Christian. Most smaller cities and villages do not even have a group of
true believers meeting together. As a result of previous missionaries,
most Protestant/Evangelical Christians place more emphasis on structure
and knowledge from a Bible college than on godly character and
spiritual giftings. This has caused a lack of good leadership within
the churches and has made it difficult for churches to grow and
reproduce throughout the country.
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Pray for Protestant/Evangelical Christians to return to their first
love, not trying to control the work of God but letting it multiply
through their love and good works.
There
is a historic tension between the Orthodox Macedonians and the Muslim
Albanians. These tensions are rooted in various things: political,
cultural, religious, etc. Also, Macedonia has historic tensions with
its surrounding neighboring countries: Greece does not recognize
Macedonia's name, Bulgaria claims that the Macedonian language is just a
dialect of Bulgarian, the Serbian Orthodox church does not recognize
the Macedonian Orthodox church, Albania wants to increase its borders
with the Albanian populated part of Macedonia.
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Pray for peace in Macedonia and the Balkans. Come against spiritual
strongholds of religiosity and pride, lies and deception, division and
disunity, greed and corruption, and gossip and slander.
My prayer for today: Lord, each corner of the world brings a unique culture, and each authentic church expression of that culture adds a dimension of richness to Your body that we cannot experience without it. It's so easy to see that Macedonian believers add much to our understanding of joy in the body of Christ. We thank You for that, and ask You to teach us from their joy. We thank You for their outward-focused ministry and the growth of the church as it reaches across ethnic lines. We pray for all of Macedonia to hear the Gospel and follow You. We pray for evangelical churches to be humble and find favor with the government. We pray for Your Spirit to move through the Orthodox church and breathe new life. We pray for all those who have only attended Orthodox churches and never heard the Gospel in their own language to find true lasting joy when they heard the Gospel for the first time. We pray for leadership and vision for the churches. We pray for those missionaries working in the land and ask You to give them wisdom and humility to work alongside national believers. Thank You for the church You are building in Macedonia. In Jesus' name, amen.
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