Essays on Orthodox Christianity and Church History
Christian Philosophy in the Patristic and Byzantine Tradition
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On the threshold of the third millennium it is legitimate to reflect
on the past of Orthodoxy in North America and to think about the future.
Taking a systematic survey of the past is certainly outside the scope
of our article. Several studies have been made on this subject but since
there is an historical continuity, it would be impossible to speak of
the future without alluding to the events which have actually led to the
present situation. Some very significant data have to be taken into consideration!
Originally, the Orthodox Faith was implanted in America among the
indigenous population of Alaska by missionaries coming from Russia and
in 1840 a diocese was established, its first bishop, now canonized was
St. Innocent. The next stage began when this diocese extended its pastoral
care to the immigrants of various nationalities settled in California.
An event which can be considered as a decisive landmark in the development
of Orthodoxy in America was the return to their ancestral Faith of a large
segment of Uniates in the last decade of the nineteenth century.
In 1890 the name of the diocese was changed and became the "Diocese
of the Aleutian Islands and North America." The ruling bishop and
the clergy had to care for the increasing number of immigrants coming
from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In that context, Archimandrite
Raphael Hawaweeny, an Arab by birth, was elevated to the Episcopal rank
by the Ruling Synod of St. Petersburg and put in charge as auxiliary bishop
in order to care for the Arab speaking communities of the diocese (1904).
We can notice that at that time both the ecclesiological requirements
of territorial unity and the need of taking into account the linguistic
and cultural diversity were harmoniously conciliated. Then Archbishop
Tikhon, later Patriarch of Moscow, envisioned for the near future the
establishment of a status of autocephaly for the Church of America encompassing
of course all the Orthodox of the country. Soon after, however, a series
of partly connected events modified profoundly the ecclesiastical situation.
As a consequence of the Bolshevik Revolution the relations between the
Church in Russia and America were perturbed and the material support from
Russia was terminated. During the decades following the end of the first
World War, the immigration of Orthodox continued under the influence of
political and economic factors. Among those new immigrants, there was
a majority of Greeks. Although now in regression, this afflux of Orthodox
Greeks has thenceforth never ceased and they constitute the largest and
the most socially prominent component among Orthodox Christians in the
United States.
Albeit highly damaging, the process of jurisdictional fragmentation
was almost inevitable, more especially as we should bear in mind that
before the First World War such a trend had begun to surface among some
ethnic groups. The extension of Communist domination over Eastern Europe
after the Second World War led to more jurisdictional fragmentation in
America because of differences of opinions about the possibility of maintaining
allegiance to Mother Churches in countries dominated by Communism. The
establishment of the "Standing Conference of Canonical Bishops of
the Americas" (SCOBA) in 1960 was a positive endeavor. It brought
about a framework for inter-Orthodox consultation in order to formulate
some common answers on social issues and it contributed to manifesting
a certain consensus in dialogue with other Confessions.
In 1970 the Orthodox Church in America, which had been known as
the Russian Metropolia, regularized its canonical relation with the Moscow
Patriarchate and was granted the status of autocephaly. The official document
(Tomos) contained some strictures in order to avoid the idea that the
jurisdictional authority exercised by other Patriarchates was irregular
(13 Section 3). However, the granting of autocephaly to the OCA raised
some negative reactions especially in Constantinople, but in America eventually
it did not fundamentally alter the inter-Orthodox relations.
With respect to the implementation of canonical unity in America,
we should notice a change in the attitude of the Metropolia, subsequently
the OCA, before and after the sixties. When in the thirties a substantial
group of Uniats from Carpatho-Russian origin approached the Metropolia
to be accepted into its bosom under the condition it constitute a diocesan
unit, the episcopate of the Metropolia rejected this request precisely
because of that condition. In the late fifties Metropolitan Andrei, head
of the Bulgarian diocese in America, petitioned to be received into the
Metropolia with the same provision, his request was not accepted, in all
likelihood for the same reason. However, soon thereafter the Metropolia
did not stick to such a canonical strictness. Thus Romanians in 1960,
Albanians in 1971 and Bulgarians in 1976 were united to the Metropolia--OCA
and were allowed to keep their own diocesan structures. This organizational
model is roughly similar, albeit not completely identical, to that followed
by the See of Constantinople for America.
As we have seen, the model of Church administration responding
to the demand of Orthodox Ecclesiology was broken toward the very beginning
of the twenties as a direct result of the new political order in Russia
but, as we have noted above, other factors were also at work. Be that
as it may, the aspiration to canonical unity never completely disappeared
and recently has been clearly affirmed by an overwhelming majority of
the episcopate in America (1994). Nevertheless, it would not be realistic
to ignore that reconstituting full canonical order comes against serious
difficulties, and here we can only mention some of them. In the hierarchy,
clergy and people, we can sometimes find the opinion that, by and large,
the present status quo is satisfying since the unity of Faith is absolutely
preserved and sacramental communion is the usual practice. Furthermore,
the following argument is frequently put forward: The existing situation
allows the possibility to maintain a close spiritual and, in some cases
material, connection with the Mother Churches overseas. This situation,
too, preserves the specific cultural and national heritage of various
jurisdictional groups.
Actually, those concerns deserve consideration, but the premises
of this reasoning are questionable. One cannot reduce Orthodoxy to a mere
attribute of national identities; moreover, one cannot ignore the fact
that a larger majority of the faithful in our country have reached a high
level of acculturation. Must they be regarded as second-class Orthodox?
We should, however, clearly state that canonical unity does not at all
entail a cultural leveling which could imply either the renunciation of
cultural legacy or of legitimate variants in ritual traditions. We do
not expect that the full regularization of the proper canonical order
required by Orthodox Ecclesiology can be achieved immediately, but this
process comprehending several steps cannot be continuously postponed.
In a future article, we shall suggest some realistic ways to attain the
ultimate goal.
From
Jacob's Well
Winter
1997
Newspaper
of the Diocese of New York and New Jersey
Orthodox
Church in America
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