Many Orthodox Croats put in the public space the question, “whether Archbishop of the Croatian Orthodox Church Aleksandar Radoev Ivanov is a canonical bishop and whether everything he says to the faithful is true”.
After doing research on the matter, here is the answer.
One of the things that Alexander Radoev Ivanov preaches and misleads the faithful is that “Croatian Orthodox Church” will receive autocephaly on the model of the Archdiocese of Ohrid. He says this in order to reassure people and manipulate them that perhaps the Ecumenical Patriarchate gives out autocephalies easily and “Croatian Orthodox Church” will also receive autocephaly.
The case of the Archdiocese of Ohrid is different, because the bishops there, although they were in schism for 55 years, their ordinations are canonical, they have apostolic succession. While the ordination of Alexander Radoev Ivanov is non-canonical.
The self-proclaimed “archbishop” of the so-called “Croatian Orthodox Church” Alexander Radoev Ivanov, born in Bulgaria, is not a canonically ordained cleric – neither a deacon, nor a presbyter, nor a bishop.
This person has never been a cleric in a canonical local Orthodox Church. His biography is an absolute enigma with no mention of important information about his past, so as not to reveal that he is actually not only a false bishop, but not even a cleric at all.
This man, taking advantage of the patriotic feeling and desire of the Orthodox Croats who do not want to be part of the Serbian Orthodox Church, realizing that once 80 years ago there was a canonical Croatian Orthodox Church, decided to proclaim himself “archbishop” of a church with name “Croatian Orthodox Church” and to organize no more than 250-300 people around him.
Even his “church” has not received official registration with the Ministry of Justice of Croatia as a “church”, but is registered as a religious organization, as many are.
Orthodox Croats do not want to be members of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia, which has five dioceses on the territory of the country – Eparchy of Osječko polje and Baranja, Eparchy of Slavonia, Metropolis of Zagreb and Ljubljana, Eparchy of Gornji Karlovac and Eparchy of Dalmatia. They don’t want to because the Serbian Church has long since become a chauvinist religious organization used as a tool by Belgrade to influence the masses and Serbize all Orthodox Christians in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
According to Belgrade and the Serbian Church, if you are an Orthodox Christian in the former Yugoslavia, you are a Serb, and accordingly the churches where you should pray are churches of the Serbian Church.
The Bulgarian Alexander Radoev Ivanov realized that he had a “niche market” in religious terms and began to do business with people’s faith, deceiving them that they worship in canonical churches and that they partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. Of course, there is also a lot of money floating around him, which has been given to him by gullible people, whom he manipulates and misleads, the sources stated.
To be a canonical archbishop, Alexander Radoev Ivanov must first be ordained as a canonical deacon, then as a presbyter and then as a bishop, so that he can perform canonical divine services and to provide pastoral care to Orthodox Croats.
Alexander and his “Croatian Orthodox Church” have nothing to do with the old Croatian Orthodox Church of 1942, where Metropolitan Hermogen and Bishop Spyridon were canonically ordained. Alexander Radoev Ivanov only took the name “Croatian Orthodox Church” in order to mislead and attract churchgoers Croats to himself.
The church of Alexander Radoev Ivanov is part of the illegitimate “Orthodox Patriarchate of the Nations” led by the false “Patriarch” Nicholas, born in France on March 30, 1952.
This so-called “Patriarch” Nicholas also has no canonical ordination.
Even the “Patriarch” Nicholas himself during his services mixes different rites – Armenian, Byzantine, Latin, depending on what kind of concert the faithful guests will order.
In the non-churched business organization “Orthodox Patriarchate of Nations” there is not a single canonical bishop and cleric. Most of them were ordained by the non-canonical “Patriarch” Nicholas.
See you soon, in the so-called “Orthodox Patriarchate of Nations” self-proclaimed Alexander Radoev Ivanov is known as “Bishop of Zadar Alexander“, who was the representative in Croatia of this non-canonical and having nothing to do with Christianity and the apostolic tradition “Patriarchate”.
For the Orthodox Church, Alexander Radoev Ivanov is a civil person. There is not even any information on whether he has a canonical Baptism, given that he himself is capable of being a non-canonical bishop.
It should be noted that Orthodox Christians also raise the question that Alexander might be living with a wife. If this is true, there is no way a bishop should live with a wife.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Doxologia Infonews.