Building the National Identity through the Religious Identity in R. Macedonia

After getting independence, in R. Macedonia the national sense of identity is followed by the religious sense of identity. The religion is classically sacral: “love all other nations as you love your own”. We will emphasize that in fact a nation is an act of faith and believing. Through faith persons better understand characteristics of their own nation.  Therefore in R. Macedonia, as a rule, representatives of one nation follow one faith (almost with no exception each ethnic Macedonian is Orthodox, such as every ethnic Albanian is member of Islam). But, there are a few cases when representatives of different ethnic communities follow the same faith.  For example most of the ethnic Macedonians are Orthodox, but still there are ethnic Macedonians who are Muslims. Typical examples for this are Torbeshi who are ethnic Macedonians who follow the Islam religion. But most of them on the last census declared themselves as ethnic Albanians, even though they don’t know the Albanian language. This proves the fact that the religious identity is a key factor in forming an ethnic identity. The appearance of such strong ethnic emotions can be expressed only if the religious feelings are weakened. That is what’s happening in the Macedonian state, despite the influence of its basic religious institutions (Macedonian Orthodox Church). The Orthodox Church has the main role in preserving the national identity of the Macedonian people in their entire history. It kept and secured the Macedonian identity in the most difficult moments. It seems that in 1991 it was forgotten and suddenly everybody in R. Macedonia was proud of being a subject of the Macedonian ethnic community. In that moment the Macedonian state as a world institution took the leading role from MOC, as a sacral institution.