The Macedonian Orthodox Church - Ohrid Archbishopric (MOC-OA), its status in the Orthodox world, internal situation, relations with the state and the issue of trust among believers is the topic of the latest public opinion poll within the project "Republic of North Macedonia as a multi-confessional society", which is conducted by the Institute for Political Research-Skopje (IPIS) and the internet portal Religija.mk, with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS).
This is the first, comprehensive specialized research of public opinion related on the position of the MOC-OA in society, seen through the prism of the perception of its members, ie believers on the essential issues it faces.
This research is especially important, because it includes a representative sample of respondents who are directly related to the Orthodox Church, which gives it a much greater weight of credibility and objectivity. In other words, the assessments and opinions are given by its believers, who have identified themselves as members of Orthodox Christianity, in the case of the MOC-OA, or some other Orthodox church.
The main focus was to detect the opinion of the citizens on the central topic, and that is the issue of recognizing the Autocephaly of the MOC-OA, a process that is forthcoming. The research comes at a time when the Ecumenical Patriarchate is facing the request for appeal submitted by the MOC-OA, but also after written correspondence with the Ecumenical Patriarchate including the state leadership, the President and the Prime Minister.
The research is structured on three interrelated aspects aiming to give a complete picture of the profile of the Orthodox believer in North Macedonia, through his trust in the church to which he belongs, through approval or not for essential issues that MOC-OA faces, up to the assessment of the role of the state in the church-state relations.
This public opinion poll gives an important picture of the perception of the believers of MOC-OA, and it can be a strategically important roadmap for the church hierarchy to detect the points to focus on strengthening the capacity for unity of its membership.
At the same time, it is an excellent opportunity for the institutions of the system, scientific and media spheres to have a starting base of information on the basic position of the members of the Orthodox Church in terms of their personal relationship with the church as an institution, to their opinion on the strategic steps of the church.
The research was conducted by telephone on a representative sample of 1015 respondents of Orthodox faith older than 18 years. The marginal error is between +/- 3.2% with a 95% confidence interval.