A senior bishop in the Serbian Orthodox Church has been charged in Macedonia with disseminating “national, racial and religious hatred.”
Bishop Jovan, or Zoran Vraniskovski, was arrested this weekend with 11 other people during a religious service in his father’s apartment in the Macedonian town of Bitolj.
He was released after spending 24 hours in custody.
The move represents the latest blow in a decades-old dispute between the Macedonian and Serbian branches of the Orthodox Church.
The arrests came after Bishop Jovan announced that the Ohrid archdiocese, which he was appointed to lead last year by the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, had reached a deal with four Macedonian monasteries on canonical unity.
The Macedonian Church, which does not recognise the Ohrid archdiocese, immediately dismissed the 30 monks of the four monasteries.
A spokesman for the Macedonian Orthodox Church Synod told media that though the monks had the right to join the Serbian church, the monasteries remained the property of the Macedonian church.
The fallout between the two Churches dates back to 1967, when the Macedonian Orthodox Church sought independence.
Bishop Jovan was given a two-year suspended sentence in 2003 for holding services outside official Church facilities.