Formerly known as [[w:Vardar Banovina|Vardarska Banovina]] (Province of the river Vardar), in March 1945, the People's Republic of Macedonia was created, as one of the republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, governed by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. In Skopje, a resolution to create the Macedonian Orthodox Church was submitted to the Serbian patriarchate, which had since 1919 exercised sole jurisdiction in the area. This resolution was rejected. During World War II there was also an initiative to create an Armenian-Macedonian Church in the territory of occupied Greece, but this plan was supported only by few ethnic Armenians and Aegean Macedonians in the zone of Kastoria. After the war another resolution, submitted in 1958, proposing the Ohrid Archdiocese of St. [[Clement of Ochrid|Clement]] as a Macedonian Orthodox Church, was accepted ([[June 17]], 1959) under strong pressure from the Communist authorities. Dositej Stojković, auxiliary bishop of the Serbian patriarch, left Belgrade and was proclaimed the first Metropolitan of Skopje. In order to prevent schism, the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church granted autonomy to three Dioceses in Macedonia. A Macedonian was consecrated bishop. But The two of them soon consecrated new bishops who were without the proper qualifications. Soon Macedonians started to organize churches in diaspora without approval of the Patriarch and bishops who were responsible for the dioceses in diaspora. During the so-called Third Clergy and Laity Assembly on [[July 19]], 1967, in Ohrid, the Macedonian Orthodox Church was proclaimed as autocephalous with strong public support.