His Beatitude Archbishop of Ochrid and Metropolitan of Skopje Jovan, on January 16th, in the afternoon hours, was transferred from the prison reception section to the closed section of the prison.
Although the procedure of deciding whether he should be allowed a retrial and be released free pending trial is still not finished, the prison authorities decided to put Archbishop Jovan in the section where the sanctions with strictest treatment are executed.
The sentence that Archbishop Jovan received in the court process in which he was sentenced in his absence is two years and 6 months imprisonment, which is not at all a sentence deserving the strictest closed treatment, since other prisoners, sentenced to much longer prison terms, are receiving the open, or the semi-open treatment.
According to the information reaching the public, that decision is the result of the demands of the schismatic Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC) which insisted Archbishop Jovan be confined under most strict prison conditions, and make all communications outside the prison more difficult for him.
From the Office of the Archbishopric of Ohrid and Metropolitanate of Skopje.