Zoran Vraniškovski

Zoran Vraniškovski or Archbishop Jovan (John) VI ( _mk. Архиепископ Јован Вранишковски) (born 28 February, 1966 in Bitola, Republic of Macedonia) is an orthodox Macedonian cleric and head of the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric, an autonomous church organisation opposed to the Macedonian Orthodox Church that is officially recognised by the Macedonian state.

Vraniškovski studied at the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Skopje in 1990 and enrolled in the faculty of theology in Belgrade the same year. He graduated in June, 1995 and then started his master’s studies. As of 2008, he has also been studying for a doctoral degree, working on a doctoral dissertation on "The Unity of the Church and the Contemporary Ecclesiological Problems." Vraniškovski became a monk in February 1998 and in July 1998 was promoted into a bishop. In March 2000, he was elected the Bishop of the diocese of Veles.

In 2002, negotiations ended in failure between the Macedonian Orthodox Church (which had declared itself autocephalous in 1967 with the endorsement of the then communist authorities, but lacks recognition from other orthodox churches), and the Serbian Orthodox Church. Vraniškovski then became the elected archbishop of a new autonomous church movement, the Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric, which gained Serbian recognition and placed itself under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć as an autonomous church. It regards itself as the only canonically lawful orthodox church in the Republic of Macedonia and has severed ties with the clergy of the official state-recognised Macedonian Orthodox Church.

The Macedonian State Religion Commission has denied the group registration as a religious group stating that only one group may be registered for each confession and that the name was not sufficiently distinct from that of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. In 2007, Vraniškovski was put on trial under charges of misuse of church funds. He pleaded innocent, but was jailed for 18 months for embezzling 325,000 euros of funds from the Macedonian Orthodox Church. [http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2007/01/10/feature-03]

External links

* [http://www.poa-info.org/frameset.php?l=en&r=archbishop&g=2006 Biography of Archbishop Jovan of Ohrid on oficial site of Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric (in English)]
* [http://freearchbishop.com/ Petition for releasing Archbishop John from prison]
* [http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2007/01/10/feature-03 "Controversy in Macedonia over law on religious groups", SETimes.com, 10 January 2007]