of a Bulgarian church in the region separate from the Greek Patriarchate, and in 1870 the Bulgarian Exarchate was created. The Christian population of the bishoprics of Skopje and Ohrid voted in 1874 overwhelmingly in favour of joining the exarchate, and the Bulgarian Exarchate became in control of most of the Macedonian region. There were also unsuccessful attempts made by some to specifically restore the Ohrid Archbishopric itself, most notably by Theodosius of Skopje. Following Vardar Macedonia's incorporation into Serbia in 1913, several of the Bulgarian Exarchate's dioceses were forcefully taken over by the Serbian Orthodox Church. While the region was occupied by Bulgaria during World War I and World War II, the local dioceses temporarily came under the control of the Bulgarian Exarchate. The first modern assembly of Macedonian clergy was held in the village of Izdeglavje near Ohrid in 1943. In October 1944, an initiative board for the organization of the Macedonian Orthodox Church was officially formed. In 1945, the first clergy and people's synod met and adopted a resolution for the restoration of the Ohrid Archbishopric as a Macedonian Orthodox Church. It was submitted to the Serbian Orthodox Church, which since 1919 had been the sole church in Vardar Macedonia. The resolution was rejected, but a later one, submitted in 1958 at the second synod, was accepted on June 17, 1959, by the Serbian Orthodox Church under pressure from the Socialist authorities. Dimitrija Stojkovski, a Macedonian, was appointed the first archbishop of Ohrid and Metropolitan of Macedonia under the name Dositheus II. Self-proclaimed autocephaly At its third synod in 1967, on the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of the Archbishopric of Ohrid, the Macedonian Church proclaimed its autocephaly (full administrative independence). Serbian Church bishops denounced the decision and condemned the clergy as schismatic. For all the subsequent efforts to gain recognition, the autocephaly of the Macedonian Church was not recognized by other canonical Eastern Orthodox churches, due to opposition from the SOC. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia (the 1990s), the Serbian Patriarchate had sought to restore its control over the Macedonian Church. The later chain of events turned into a vicious circle of mutual accusations and incidents involving the Serbian Orthodox Church and, partly, the Serbian government on one side, and the MOC, backed by the Macedonian government on the other. The Macedonian side regarded Jovan as a traitor and Serbian puppet. Jovan complained of a new