Macedonia

MACEDONIA. - A south-central region of the Balkan peninsula, until 1912 included in European Turkey and divided among Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. It corresponds approximately to the depression lying between the Rhodope massif, the lower course of the Mesta and the Pindus range, widening toward the south, where it opens onto the Gulf of Salonica. It comprises the basins of the rivers Bistritsa, Vardar, Struma and Mesta and extends over approximately 67,000 sq km, with a population of approximately two and a half million inhabitants, distributed over the vast territory of which 51% belongs to Greece, 39% to Yugoslavia, 10% to Bulgaria.

I. GEOGRAPHY

Geologically, Macedonia has no characteristics of its own, being composed, in its various parts, of crystalline schists, granites, sandstones, serpentines and limestones. Morphologically it presents a characteristic fragmentation of the relief into numerous basins (river and lake basins) of tectonic origin. The climate in the Aegean region is typically Mediterranean, with dry summers and mild winters; in the interior, however, it takes on increasingly continental characteristics. The most important centers of Greek Macedonia are Salonica, Kavala, Drama, Serres, Skopje and Monastir. The foundations of economic life are agriculture and pastoralism: wheat, barley, rye, maize and rice are cultivated with greater intensity; among industrial plants, tobacco is important, absorbing about half of agricultural production. There are mineral resources, given by the presence in the subsoil of chromite, pyrite, zinc, magnesite, etc. Tobacco, cocoons, flours, hides and opium are exported; textiles, timber, paper, machinery and chemical products are imported. The port of Salonica, the southern outlet for Central Europe, is rather a regional port: moreover, all internal and foreign trade is not sufficiently developed, owing to the instability of political life.

Gastone Imbrighi

II. ECCLESIASTICAL AND CIVIL HISTORY

The first organized mission to Europe of which there is documented record is the one that St. Paul conducted in Macedonia around the year 50. The decision to go there was taken after clear and repeated signs of the divine will (Acts 16:9). When the Apostle arrived, Macedonia, already a Roman province for two centuries, but for many years troubled by invasions of Thracians, Bessi, and Scordisci, and later thrown into disorder by the gathering there of the large armies of Brutus and Cassius and of Antony before Actium, had finally found a period of peace and prosperity. Once the Danube had been reached as the frontier of the Roman state, Macedonia could, under the Augustan order, be left to the administration of the Senate, as one of the pacatae et inermes provinces. The population, fundamentally Greek (even if Isocrates and Demosthenes had never wished to recognize it as such), had been increased by many elements of other peoples, thanks especially to the many colonies of veterans settled there by the triumvirs and by Augustus, who found in Macedonia precisely the large armies to be discharged of the murderers of Caesar and of his avengers.

With Paul, Silas and Luke went to Macedonia; the latter, when he comes to speak of this journey, suddenly changes the verb from the third to the first person plural (Acts 16:10). Having passed from the Troad to Samothrace and then landed at Neapolis (today Kavala), they reached the nearby Philippi (v.), which had received an important settlement of Roman colonists, and also had a group of Jews, to whom Paul addressed himself on a Sabbath, when they had gathered outside the city, near the river. There was no lack of conversions and persecutions. Having freed a possessed woman, they accused the missionaries as Jewish troublemakers before the magistrates, who had them beaten with rods and thrown into prison. Paul declined his status as a Roman citizen, and received apologies and the request to leave. Passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, the Apostle and his companions went to Thessalonica (v.), which had been declared a free city and was at the same time the seat of the governor of the province. It therefore bore the titles of πρώτη Μακεδόνων and μητρόπολις, and thanks to its good harbor and the construction of the Via Egnatia enjoyed notable prosperity. The Jewish colony there must have been numerous and wealthy; in the synagogue, for three consecutive Sabbaths, Paul spoke, commenting on the Scriptures and announcing the coming and the Resurrection of Christ. Many were converted, both among the Jews and among the Gentiles. But the zealous Jews accused the missionaries before the authorities as rebels against Caesar, and these, not having found them, brought Jason, who had hosted them, to court. Once the other faithful were informed of these things, at night they sent Paul and Silas away to Beroea (today Verria), where a synagogue also existed, in which the Christian preaching was heard with much interest and with the fruit of conversions. However, the obstinate Jews of Thessalonica, having learned of the continuation of Paul's work, came to Beroea, stirring up hostility and disturbances, so that the faithful sent Paul away, and he traveled as far as Athens, having however left Silas and Timothy at Beroea, who later rejoined him at Corinth (Acts 22:13 and 18:5). Although so opposed, the Christian communities that arose from this preaching lived and flourished, and St. Paul always remembered them with satisfaction and affection, as his two Epistles to the Thessalonians (v.) demonstrate, which are the oldest of his, and the Epistle to the Philippians (v.). The latter, written by the Apostle during the first of his imprisonments in Rome, knows of a Church already fully constituted with bishop and deacons. Paul wishes to see again the brothers of Philippi who were faithful to him at the beginnings of his preaching; he will send Timothy to them as soon as possible; he has sent Epaphroditus, of whom he has so much to praise. Aristarchus of Thessalonica accompanies Paul on the last journey to Rome, of which Acts 27:2 gives an account. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians was written during Paul's second stay in Macedonia, after the hostile demonstration that forced him to leave Ephesus (II Cor. 1:16). He was accompanied by the Macedonians Sopater of Beroea, Aristarchus and Secundus of Thessalonica, and Gaius, who here is said to be of Derbe, and who shortly afterward (ibid. 19:29) is said to be a Macedonian. To the Corinthians Paul praises the Macedonians, especially for their generosity in alms, even though they were poor.

There is much reason to doubt the missions in Macedonia of St. Matthew and St. Andrew, recorded by Isidore (De vita et morte sanctorum, 67). Of the further history of the Church of Macedonia not much is known. In the Greek Menaia and in the historical Martyrologies the following figure as the first Macedonian bishops: Aristarchus at Thessalonica, Epaphroditus at Philippi, Onesimus at Beroea. There is a letter to the Philippians by St. Polycarp of Smyrna (v.), which gives good testimony of the vitality of the Church of Philippi. In a passage of the Apology of Melito of Sardis addressed to Marcus Aurelius, reported by Eusebius (Hist. eccl., IV, 26, 10), it is said that Antoninus Pius wrote to various cities, and among these to Thessalonica, so that they would not stir up riots against the Christians. From 253 onward, incursions of Goths begin and are repeated; they defeat and kill the emperor Valens in the great battle of Adrianople (378) and do not cease until the emperor Zeno succeeds in driving away Theodoric and his Ostrogoths, unloading them into Italy.

The persecutions had also made victims in Macedonia. The Acts are handed down of the martyrdom suffered at Thessalonica in the persecution of Diocletian by a man, Agathon, and by six women, as well as by the great martyr Demetrius, formerly governor of Achaea. Presences of Macedonian bishops are recorded in almost all the major councils, beginning with that of Nicaea, and councils were held at Thessalonica itself.

In the division of the Empire into four praetorian prefectures by Constantine, Macedonia was part of the prefecture of Illyricum, whose capital was at first Sirmium, but later for some time Thessalonica, where the emperor Theodosius I several times resided, and where he received Baptism on the occasion of a serious illness.

When with the sons of Theodosius the division of the Eastern Empire from the Western became definitive, the dependence of the prefecture of Illyricum on one or the other Empire naturally became a cause of disputes. As regards ecclesiastical organization, Rome very energetically defended its own jurisdiction over the Churches of Illyricum, and evidently in order to exercise it more effectively Pope Siricius entrusted to the bishop of Thessalonica, Anysius, the functions of his vicar, which were more than once confirmed by subsequent popes. This dependence on Rome, naturally viewed with disfavor by the patriarch of Constantinople, was cut short around 730 by the emperor Leo III the Isaurian.

Of Macedonian Christian writers, only Paulinus of Pella is remembered, who however lived in Gaul between the end of the 4th century and the middle of the 5th, and wrote verses in Latin.

Roberto Paribeni

Meanwhile, profound ethnic changes in M. are recorded with the immigration of numerous Slavic peoples, which began in the time of the emperor Justin (518-27) and lasted until well into the 7th century. After the destruction of the rich city of Sirmium (581) by the Avars, the masses of Slavs led by them besiege Thessalonica without success (611), and settle in its surroundings, destroy Stobi, capital of the Roman M. Salutaris (today Pusto Gradsko on the Vardar), and Justiniana Prima (built in 536 by the emperor Justinian as capital of the diocese of Dacia and as an autocephalous metropolis, but already from 543 subject to the papal vicar of Thessalonica), colonize the entire interior of the Balkans including the Peloponnese, and in 623 even go so far as to plunder Crete. The Greek populations withdraw into the cities and onto the narrow coastal strip still free, while the Latin ones, composed of Roman colonists and of Thraco-Illyrian natives only superficially Latinized, withdraw onto the mountains as semi-nomadic shepherds. Their descendants in M. are still called today "Aromanians" or "Aromuns," while others call them "Vlachs," "Kutsovlachs," "Tzintzars" or "Morlachs" (from Maurovlachs). The Slavic tribes (Sagudites and Dragovites or Dragovici around Thessalonica, Strumljani on the Struma, Bersjaci around Ochrida, Versiti in the north, etc.) do not form an organized State in M., indicated by contemporary Greek writers simply as "Slatinija," until the Turkic tribe of the Bulgars imposed upon them its own name, dominion and state organizer, receiving from them in turn the language and culture.

With the occupation of the Greek city of Sardica (809), even the last remnant of M. passes under the Bulgars, who with the baptism of their duke Boris, in 865, are definitively Slavicized (v. BULGARIA). To defend national and state independence from Constantinople, Boris temporarily draws close to the Church of Rome, and munificently welcomes, after their expulsion from Moravia in 886, the disciples of the Apostles of the Slavs, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who were Greeks from Thessalonica, the capital of M. (v. CIRILLO e METODIO). They bring to completion the work of Christianization of the Slavs of M. already previously begun.

The most famous among these, venerated by the people as saints, are Clement of Ochrida (v. CLEMENTE DA SCATIA) and Naum, who made the city of Ochrida, on the charming lake of the same name, not only a hierarchical center of great importance (v. ACRIDA), but also a famous cultural hearth of the Old Slavic language, which at bottom is nothing other than the dialect of a tribe from the surroundings of Thessalonica, raised to the dignity of ecclesiastical-literary language of the Slavs. The Bulgarian emperor Simeon appointed Clement in 893 bishop of Velitsa, within whose boundaries Ochrida lay. There he was also buried in the church named after him, discovered in recent excavations (1950), while Naum was buried in the important monastery founded by him on the southern shores of Lake Ochrida.

After the fall of the Danubian Bulgarian Empire under the Greeks in 971, Ochrida reaches its greatest splendor under the emperor Samuel not only as the western Bulgarian capital, but also as the heir of the autonomous patriarchate of Trnovo. But the emperor Basil II, the Bulgar-slayer, destroys the two-centuries-long Bulgarian domination in M. in a sea of blood by occupying Ochrida in 1018. He leaves there the seat of the autocephalous metropolis with some thirty suffragan dioceses, which no longer appeals to the succession of the Bulgarian patriarchate of Trnovo, but rather to the privileges of the Roman metropolis of Justiniana Prima.

M. remains in Byzantine power despite many insurrections and rebellions of the Slavs, to which the emperors respond with punitive measures by deporting many of them to Asia Minor. The renewed Bulgarian State under the emperor Kaloyan, crowned at Trnovo by the papal legate in 1204, gradually takes possession of all of M., except Thessalonica, where the Latin Empire of the same name arises (1204-16). At this same time the monks of Mount Athos unite with the Church of Rome. In the subsequent period Bulgars, Latins and Greeks of the despotate of Epirus and of the Nicene Empire contend for M., and the latter remain masters of the country until the appearance of a new competitor from the north: Serbia. The Serbs in 1282 take possession of Skoplje, and under Stephen Dušan, the greatest Serbian king (1331-55), of all of M., Albania, Epirus and Thessaly, for which he crowns himself in 1346 at Skoplje as "emperor of the Serbs and the Greeks" (Imperator Rasciae et Romaniae). After him the State dissolves into many semi-independent counties, whose rulers become Turkish vassals, among them also King Marko (Kralj or Kraljević Marko), lord of Prilep, the principal hero and a much idealized figure of the popular poetry of all the South Slavs (d. in 1394). The Turkish dominion lasting for over 5 centuries brought new ethnic and religious changes in M. Masses of Turks immigrate from Asia Minor, especially the semi-nomadic Juruk shepherds of Konia (hence still called today Koniati). They pushed the majority of the Vlachs from the Balkan mountains beyond the Danube into present-day Romania and in a northwesterly direction into the Croatian and Serbian territories.

The Albanians, on the other hand, discreetly strengthen themselves, especially after the Islamization and the migration of the Serbs toward the north. A part of the Bulgars (Pomaks) and of the Greeks (Valachides) passes over to Islam. The remnants of the medieval Catholic colonies of the Croats (Ragusans) and of the Saxon miners were preserved until the end of the 17th century in Skoplje, Kratovo and elsewhere, at Letnica still today, administered by the bishops of Skoplje and Prizren.

In this difficult period the "ecumenical" patriarchate, taking advantage of its position of privilege in the Turkish Empire, and of the influence that the rich families of the "Phanariots" exercised at the Sublime Porte, abolishes the Slavic liturgy and burns the Slavic sacred books, while it chooses bishops and high clergy exclusively from among the Greeks. The Greek pressure in M. reaches its peak after the abolition of the autocephalous Church of Ochrida (1767). But meanwhile the Bulgarian national awakening also begins in M. Father Paisie, Macedonian by birth, who writes the first Bulgarian history (1762). Likewise the movement for the emancipation of the Bulgarian Church from the most hated Phanariots appears first at Skoplje in 1829. In the ardor of the struggle against the Phanar and the Greeks, there begins first in the city of Kukuš (Kilkis), north of Thessalonica, a strong movement for union with Rome, to which soon more than 60,000 persons adhere. Pius IX himself in 1861 consecrated the first united bishop, the hegumen Giuseppe Sokolski.

Concerned at the prospect that all the Macedonian Bulgars might return to the bosom of the Catholic Church, Russia, and alongside it England, maneuvered with the Sultan so that by his firman of 11 March 1870 he erected the Bulgarian exarchate with its seat at Constantinople, independent of the "ecumenical" patriarchate. The Synod of the Greek Church therefore excommunicated the adherents of the exarchate and condemned them as "racists" ("phyletists"). The excommunication was lifted only in 1945.

The cause of the Union suffered a serious blow in M. with the kidnapping of Bishop Sokolski, due to Russian intrigues, and of whom every trace was lost. A part of the faithful remained devoted to the Union, but was gravely scattered by the wars, by the destruction of Kukuš and by forced migrations. With this the vicariate of Thessalonica, founded in 1883 and administered by the Lazarists, practically disappeared. Today, of the faithful of the Eastern rite, of the three parts into which M. is divided, those under Bulgaria belong to the Bulgarian Catholic exarchate of Sofia (about 7,000), those under Yugoslavia to the diocese of Križevci (5 parishes with 3,000 faithful) and those under Greece to the apostolic vicariate of Greek M., erected in 1926. In the first two parts the Eucharistine sisters work, founded in 1883 by Mother Giuseppina Alleotti. The cause of the Union still enjoys widespread sympathy in M. both among the people and among intellectuals. The Catholics of the Roman rite, mostly new immigrants, have their diocese in Skopje.

Because of the numerous and bloody insurrections provoked by the Macedonians' struggle for independence, because of the racial mixture and because of the machinations of the neighboring States in this central zone of the Balkans, strategically most important, M. is considered a "volcano in eruption," the "powder keg of Europe" and the "quintessence of the near eastern question." Various solutions to this problem, hitherto unsolved, have been attempted. The unsuccessful conference between the four great European powers and Turkey for the drafting of the Bulgarian Statute of 1876, as well as the peace treaty of San Stefano in 1878, had assigned the whole of M. with Skopje, Kastoria and Ohrid to Bulgaria. The Congress of Berlin of 1878 left M. to Turkey, fearing too strong an influence of Russia over the Balkans. A solution was sought — especially after the bloody insurrection of western M. on St. Elijah's day, 2 Aug. 1903, according to the old calendar ("Blindensko vostanie") with hundreds of villages destroyed and 5,000 fighters killed — by means of internal reforms, but in vain. Both the Greeks, who in the Orthodox Macedonians stubbornly insist on seeing only "Bulgarophone Greeks," and the Serbs, who in turn present the Macedonians as "Slavs without a specified national consciousness" ready to become "Southern Serbs," see the possibility of realizing their aspirations only through a division of M. The Macedonian Bulgarians, especially after the creation of the I.M.R.O. (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization), considering the presence in the territory of numerous national minorities, want an autonomous Macedonian State organized on the model of Switzerland, that is, not on nationalist principles but on regional ones, with the motto: M. for the Macedonians. The Balkan war of 1912 did indeed drive the Turks out of M., but the new Balkan war and the peace of Bucharest in 1913 divided M. among the Greeks (1,015,000 inhabitants), Serbs (1,071,000 inhabitants) and Bulgarians (213,000), a division later confirmed by the peace of Neuilly in 1919 at further expense of the Bulgarians. The exodus and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people began, especially after the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1922.

Of the approximately 2,300,000 inhabitants before the Balkan war of 1910, there were 1,000,000 Bulgarians (no official statistics exist by nationality but only those by religion), 540,000 Turks, 250,000 Greeks, 184,000 Albanians, 78,000 Vlachs, 40,000 Gypsies, 100,000 between Jews and others.

Tito's regime in Yugoslavia recognizes Yugoslav M. as one of the 6 federal Republics of Yugoslavia and attempts to create a new "Macedonian language."

The unhappy division of M., the eternal unrest of the population and the effort that Russia makes to "liberate" and "unify" the country, still make M. today one of the most dangerous neuralgic zones of Europe. - See plate CXIX.

Stefano Draganović