Support
The Church has support from a number of likewise non-canon, unrecognized Eastern Orthodox Churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kievan Patriarchate, the Bulgarian Alternative Orthodox Church (founded by patriarch Pimen), and its Italian-based branch, the Orthodox Church in Italy.
The MOC also has support of the pro-Ustasha Croatian Orthodox Community NGO, which aims at creating an autocephalous Croatian Orthodox Church for the Republic of Croatia, or rather reviving the one from the Axis Independent State of Croatia, an act which the MOC came up to as the first supporter. The MOC had original support of the unrecognized Macedonian Orthodox Church, which was latter withdrawn as the Macedonian Church entered negotiations for restoration into communion. It also had support of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia during its uncanonical period, which was lost some time before it finished the successful negotiations for restoration into communion by 2007.
In all official Orthodox theological circles (such as the Russian Orthodox Church or the Ecumenical Patriarchate), MOC is seen as a schismatic group and a political fabrication, similar to the churches that supported it.
MOC also has support from abroad, and it has managed to build several shrines in North America, South America, Australia, Western Europe all home to important Montenegrin émigré communities, most of whom also support the Montenegrin Orthodox Church. Eleven ex-Yugoslav émigrés from the US and Canada have together donated US$670 and Can$270 for the Montenegrin Orthodox Church.
MOC supporters present an excerpt from the 1911 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica as one of the proofs of legitimacy:
- "The Montenegrin Church is an autocephalous branch of the Eastern Orthodox communion. In 1894 it formally vindicated its independence against the claims of the Russian synod".
The remainder of the article refers to Montenegro as a Serb nation-state, which contradicts with the Church's basic beliefs of a distinct Montenegrin nation. The Catalogue of Tzarigrad Patriarchy (April 1855), Athens Sintagma, letter of Tzarigrad Patriarch Grigorius to St. Petar I Petrovic Njegos (dated 29 January 1798), and against the claims of other documents, see here and here (a list of historical documents; external links are in Serbian) are interpreted by the MOC that the Church of Montenegro was independent and autocephalous until Yugoslav regent Alexander I of Yugoslavia abolished it and incorporated, by the decree of 17 (30) June 1920, with Serb-Orthodox churches into a Serbian Orthodox Church, an act which received subsequently canonical recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. However, although initially voicing his opposition, the dethroned King Nicholas I Petrovic-Njegos, in late 1920, recognized the unification of the Serbian Orthodox Church for the "benefit" of "all the Serbian people".
MOC followers also present foreign early-20th-century travelogues as supposed proofs of the church's legitimacy. In that vein they claim that in pre-Yugoslavia times, the independence of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church has been confirmed as late as 1905, by one of the best-known and well-traveled Balkan experts from the early 20th century, Mary Edith Durham. In her book The Burden of the Balkans, published in London in 1905, Durham explained: "Montenegro alone kept a free and independent Slav Church, which survives to this day"
Political parties in Montenegro that so far officially stated support of the MOC are: the Liberal Alliance of Montenegro and minor Roman Catholic Croatian Civic Initiative, officially proposing it to be mentioned in Montenegro's new Constitution, which eventually did not mention it with its adoption in late 2007. The Initiative invited representatives of both the Montenegrin and Serbian churches to a special municipal meeting in Tivat, sparking a boycott among local Serbian politicians.
In Serbia, the church has the support of the Roman Catholic Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians which believes it should be a recognized religion in the country.
Read more about this topic: Montenegrin Orthodox Church
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