page_title: Religion in North Macedonia
section_title: Eastern Orthodoxy
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in North Macedonia / Christianity / Eastern Orthodoxy
caption_attribution_description: This file was uploaded with Commonist. Saint Sophia Church in Ohrid, Macedonia
context_page_description: In North Macedonia, the most common religion is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, practiced by most of the ethnic Macedonians. The vast majority of the Eastern Orthodox in the country belong to the Macedonian Orthodox Church, which declared autocephaly from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1967.
  Muslims are the second-largest religious group with almost one-third of the population adhering to Islam, mainly from the country's Albanian, Roma and Turkish minorities. There are also many other religious groups in North Macedonia, including the Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism.
  In 2011, through a survey carried out by Ipsos MORI, the religious composition of North Macedonia was found to be 70.7% Christian, divided in 69.6% Eastern Orthodox and 0.4% Catholics and Protestants, and 28.6% Muslim, with unaffiliated Muslims making up the 25.6%.
context_section_description: Eastern Orthodoxy has had a long history in North Macedonia, and remains the majority religion.  In 1019 the Archbishopric of Ohrid was established. In 1767 on order of the Sultan, the Archbishopric was abolished by the Turkish authorities and annexed to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries there was an effort to reinstate the Archbishopric of Ohrid. The Macedonian Orthodox Church gained autonomy from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1959 and declared the restoration of the Archbishopric of Ohrid. On July 19, 1967, the Macedonian Orthodox Church declared autocephaly from the Serbian Orthodox Church. Most Macedonians belong to the Orthodox faith. In 2001 the Church had about 1,350,000 adherents in North Macedonia.
  The Serbian Orthodox Church operates among the Serbians in North Macedonia's North. The number of adherents corresponds with the number of Serbs at 36,000.
caption: Church of St.Sophia in Ohrid.
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