A former Peace Corps volunteer in Macedonia, Carol Partridge now is involved in leadership development and activities for women, children and youth, including camps and language training for women.
Methodists make for small but visible group in Macedonia
July 8, 2002 News media contact: Linda Bloom· (212) 870-3803· New York {287}
NOTE: This report is a sidebar to UMNS story #286.
By United Methodist News Service
Statistically, United Methodists comprise a tiny percentage of a Macedonian population where the majority is Orthodox, followed by a strong Muslim minority.
Through 13 churches and a charge conference, the denomination serves a constituency of about 6,000 people. But the church’s social service work and most prominent layman, Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski, make it known outside its membership.
Because the churches are not in the northern section of the country, where last year’s conflict with Albanian rebels took place, they were not in the line of fire, according to the Rev. Peter Siegfried, an executive with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, who most recently visited Macedonia in May. "But they welcomed a number of refugees and also Albanians who had to flee the area," he said.
The center of Methodism in Macedonia, according to Siegfried, is in Strumica. One of the church’s few ordained elders, the Rev. Milhail Cekov, is based there, and his wife, Christina, is the national leader for United Methodist women’s work. The new building for the United Methodist Church in Strumica, built in the 1980s, draws 100 to 150 people to worship each Sunday and serves a constituency of more than 1,000 people.
When Macedonia gained its independence in 1991, the Strumica church was able to renew its social and humanitarian work. After three years of negotiations with the local government over the return of property, the church received a piece of land. A social center, financed by the Austrian government, was completed on that land in 2000 to house the church’s various activities. The newest programs include a "Meals on Wheels" service, delivering a hot meal to 50 elderly and poor people five days a week, and a ministry with disabled children and their parents.
The new social center is named after Ellen Stone, a former missionary in the area. She was part of a group of women referred to as "Bible Women," Siegfried explained, because they distributed Bibles. But the women also were involved in social work, particularly in literacy programs for Macedonian women who did not attend school.
A missionary from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, Carol Partridge, also is based in Strumica. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Macedonia, she now is involved in leadership development and activities for women, children and youth, including camps and language training for women.
In the nearby village of Murtino, one-third of the population – 167 households, representing roughly 1,000 people – is affiliated with the United Methodist congregation. The church building, in the center of the village next to the Orthodox church, was constructed during the communist regime. The Rev. Salvco Asmanov told Siegfried that many of those who join the church are children and young people.
As in other villages and cities, the congregation has its own cemetery because the Orthodox did not allow "heretics" to be buried in its graveyards.
A young couple, Uliana and Georgi Mileski, serve as lay preachers for the United Methodist Church in Monospitova, which draws about 100 on Sunday mornings. Siegfried said their goal is to reach out to neighboring villages as well.
The United Methodist congregation in Kolecino, which averages a weekly worship attendance of 120 to 150 people, is unusual in that most of the worshippers are men, he added. In the Orthodox Church, for example, women make up the majority of congregants.
United Methodists also have two churches in Skopje, the capital
