For seven years, the party of ethnic Macedonians in Greece “Rainbow” has been waiting for a response from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to their letter requesting that services be introduced in Macedonian in some churches in northern Greece.
The letter was sent on March 6, 2019. Macedonians in Greece are demanding that services be held in modern Macedonian in some churches in northern Greece.
Pavle Voskopulos-Filipov, one of the leaders of the Macedonians in Greece, reminded about the letter on his Facebook profile.
“As Orthodox Christians, ethnic Macedonians in Greece, we demand that our native modern Macedonian language, which belongs to the wider family of South Slavic languages, whose alphabet was invented in the 9th century in Thessaloniki, by Saints Cyril and Methodius, be used in our churches,” reads the letter sent by the “Rainbow” party of Macedonians in Greece, to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.
The rainbow recalls the Greek repression from the beginning of the last century in terms of renaming Macedonian villages, persecutions, the forced change of personal names, the demolition of Macedonian Orthodox churches, the destruction of Cyrillic inscriptions, etc.
“After the ratification of the Prespa Agreement between the Republic of Greece and the Republic of N. Macedonia, we believe that the time has come to put an end to the injustice against the indigenous Macedonian minority, Macedonian Orthodox Christians, ethnic Macedonians on the territory of Greece, so that we can perform our religious duties in our language… We want our people to be able to sing and listen to prayers in our native modern Macedonian language and to baptize our children with our traditional names – Zora, Sofka, Stojanka, Boris, Zlatan, Dora, Stojko, Tome, Borka, Goce, Velika, Kiril, Slave, Trajko, Stojan, Petko, Cveta, Trajcho, Trajanka, Risto, Petko, etc.”, reads the party’s letter to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.
