A brief historical overview of the Evangelical Church in Macedonia

The beginnings of the Evangelical Church in Macedonia date back to the 80s, when several people in the cities of Skopje and Shtip, who in different contexts, listening to the message of the Gospel, believed in Jesus and began to gather at informal gatherings. Sometime in 1988, while the Republic of Macedonia was still part of SFR Yugoslavia, two married couples of missionaries from Serbia came to Skopje and Stip, to help those small existing groups of believers and with that the official services and registrations of those communities began, as part of the Pentecostal Church of Christ in Yugoslavia. Dimitrije and Cveta Papadić became leaders of the Skopje church, and Budimir and Asteria Jakić became leaders of the Stip church.

In 1991, the churches in Skopje and Shtip bought houses, which with adaptation became used as church buildings, and then the official name of the church was changed to “Evangelical Church in the Republic of Macedonia”, with headquarters in Skopje, at “Franklin Roosevelt”str. no. 16.

The strategy of the church leaders was to send young believers and young married couples to study theology, mostly at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia, or at other faculties in Serbia, Bulgaria, England, Canada and other places, in order to train new leaders of the local churches in Macedonia. After the departure of Dimitrije and Cveta Popadic, soon after in 1994 year, Mircho Andreev took the pastoral role of the Evangelical Church in Skopje, who also becomes the president of the Evangelical Church in the Republic of Macedonia.

In the next thirty years of independent Macedonia, more than thirty new Evangelical churches and mission stations were founded all over the country. Most of those churches today have ordained pastors who have completed the appropriate theological education.

In 2020, Mircho Andreev died, after which Petre Petrov, who is the pastor of the Evangelical Church in Shtip, was elected as the new president of the Evangelical Church, and with the new constitution and the change of the name of the country, the new official name of the denomination became “Evangelical Church in Macedonia”. The main decision-making body of the denomination is the Council of Pastors, which currently has 22 pastors, and the denomination also has its own Executive Team and Vice President.

During all the years of the existence of the Evangelical Church in Macedonia, the church was active in founding new churches, buying or building new church buildings, publishing Christian literature, various evangelism events, lectures, forums, debates, concerts , conferences, seminars, camps, children and youth meetings, women's and men's gatherings, programs for addicts, etc.

An extremely important aspect in the activities of the Evangelical Church were the humanitarian activities of the humanitarian organization AGAPE (founded by Evangelical Church) and many other individual humanitarian actions and projects. Today, the Evangelical Church has in its ranks: doctors, masters and graduated theologians, men and women, involved in various activities of the church, and it also has its own theological faculty ETIK - Evangelical Theological Institute Kumanovo, for theological training of new Christian workers. The Evangelical churches in various cities throughout Macedonia are led by local people from Macedonia, but the Evangelical Church has always nurtured fruitful interdenominational and international connections and cooperation at the partnership level with various Christian churches and organizations from the country and abroad.