Metropolitan Tikhon Announces Recognition of Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric at AAC
Meeting in special session on May 21, 2025, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America decided, effective immediately, to recognize the canonicity of the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric and to affirm our full communion with its hierarchs, clergy, and faithful. This joyful news was conveyed to the Church at large by His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon in his July 15, 2025 report to the 21st All-American Council, which meets this week in Phoenix, AZ.
This decision came at the request of His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia, who, in official correspondence with His Beatitude, asked that the Orthodox Church in America, in accordance with the Tomos granted by the Serbian Orthodox Church, recognize the autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church-Ohrid Archbishopric.
The offices of Metropolitan Tikhon and His Beatitude Archbishop Stefan of Ohrid are currently planning a concelebration between the two Primates, to take place at Metropolitan Tikhon’s cathedral of Saint Nicholas in Washington, D.C. This concelebration, as Metropolitan Tikhon informed the All-American Council, will be crowned with a formal recognition of the autocephaly of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, which takes its place alongside the Orthodox Church in America as a fully autocephalous local Orthodox Church.