THE DISPUTE OVER the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in America gives rise to some unanswered questions, suggests comments which no one seems willing to make, and recalls some historical facts worthy of mention. One day the Fathers of a future Council will resolve these issues, but until that time we must live with the situation with some understanding of what has been happening. Our Church has been labeled as an offender, our actions called non canonical, our autocephaly denounced; yet we have done nothing wrong and have nothing for which to apologize. If anything, we should be proud of what the American Church has accomplished during its 200 years╒ existence. Who will speak for us?
Those who challenge our autocephaly most often cite Canon 28, Chalcedon, which gives the Ecumenical Patriarch authority over all bishops ╥as among the barbarians╙, all those lands outside of the Roman Empire of 451 AD. (The expression is ill-advised for modern usage, implying that a select few are more civilized than the others). These lands are not named, and ╥diaspora╙ is never mentioned.
Extrapolated to today╒s world map, this would include all 35 Orthodox jurisdictions in Alaska, Canada, the United States, Mexico, and South America, plus the Churches of Japan, Australia, Uganda, and Kenya.
In 1908, the Ecumenical Patriarch, as a temporary measure, empowered the Church of Greece to look after and supervise the Orthodox communities of the diaspora in Europe and America, declaring that no other Church or Patriarchate could canonically extend their authority beyond the boundaries of their jurisdictions, apart from the Apostolic and Patriarchal Throne, giving His Holiness the seniority right to extend supreme protection to the said Churches in foreign territories. (Emphasis mine.) 1
Together, this now covers the entire Orthodox world. Is this what the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Council intended? Is this the New Rome or the Old Rome? It is a neat arrangement to wait until a Church has been built up without having helped any, and then to lay claim to it. Further, according to the world map of 451 AD, sending a bishop into Europe is sending him into the territory of the Bishop of Rome.
There is another canon worthy of mention: Canon 2, Constantinople I, this one clear and unambiguous. It states that no bishop shall establish himself in the territory of another. By his declaration of 1908, cited above, the Patriarch has assumed the authority of invalidating Canon 2.
The Greek Archdiocese has been most critical of our autocephaly, perhaps disturbed that another Church has taken the initiative which it itself was unable or unwilling to take, perhaps feeling that, because of its size and affiliation, it should have been playing a more major role in American Orthodoxy. It has published a booklet, ╥Russian Autocephaly and Orthodoxy in America╙, containing letters from Constantinople to Moscow, disputing the right of the Russian Church to grant Autocephaly to the American Church, presenting only one side of the argument. Vastly oversimplified, the problem before the Archdiocese is that it invokes one set of canons to dispute our autocephaly, and ignores another to justify its coming into the diocese of another functioning church.
Generally, the OCA has been silent on the subject, probably confident in its position, conceding nothing, and realizing that little is to be gained by controversy. It, too, has published a booklet entitled, ╥Autocephaly╙, giving both sides of the subject, containing the exchange of letters between Constantinople and Moscow. Again, vastly oversimplified, the problem before the OCA is that all the ancient Patriarchates oppose our autocephaly.
The Russian Church evangelized America. Some hate to admit it, and some resent it, but no one can refute it. From 1794 until 1922, when Churches abroad began sending their bishops to establish themselves here, the Russian Church had been seeking out and offering spiritual comfort to all who sought it: Creoles, Fox Aleuts, Kodiak Aleuts, Inuits, Denes, Haida, Tlingits, Americans, Europeans, Great Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Carpathians, Ugro-Russians, Bukhovenians, Syro-Arabs, Serbs, Albanians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Slovaks, Slovenians, Greeks, Ruthenians, Herzegovenians, Roman converts, Protestant converts, and pagan converts. She has created written languages for use by native Americans and has brought them Orthodoxy in their own languages, an essence of Orthodoxy. What has been the history of Greek mission during this period?
At various times between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries the Russian Church had established missions and built churches in Siberia, China, Korea, Japan, and America, all ╥lands of the barbarians╙, creating written worship texts for Siberian tribes, China, Japan, and America. What has been the history of Greek mission during this period?
Which canons apply to continents unknown and undiscovered? When did Constantinople first learn of the discovery of America? Is America a ╥land of the barbarians╙? When the Pope of Rome was sending Spanish, French, and Portuguese Jesuits into the New World to spread Christianity, and England, Holland, and Germany were sending out Protestant missionaries, what was the history of Greek mission during this period?
In his introduction to the booklet on autocephaly, Archbishop Iakovos wrote, ╥...But when Orthodox communities began to function as such in the United States, definitely, there was no established Church here, and no politically delineated ecclesiastical jurisdictions so that the former could place themselves under already existing Orthodox Bishops.╙ (Emphasis Mine.)
During the centuries of Russian evangelization of Asia and America, eleven missionary saints were glorified, eight of them American, five of whom were martyred. What is more fitting for foundation of ╥an established Church╙ than the blood of its martyrs, all in ╥lands of the barbarians╙?
In the Prolegomena to the Archdiocese╒s booklet on autocephaly another author wrote, ╥A last observation before we touch briefly on the real and inescapable problems of Orthodoxy in America. This has to do with a much publicized and seemingly anti-canonical situation in America for the correction of which the Metropolia has raised so much noise. This is the allegedly imperative (!) need of jurisdictional amalgamation of all ethnic Orthodox Churches here. True╤ as the Ecumenical Patriarch himself has reiterated╤ more than one Orthodox bishop in the same area is against the canons and the traditional jurisdictional order of the Orthodox Church. But the Ecumenical Patriarch has given the reason for which this situation arose and the reasons for which the Ecumenical Patriarch at the time allowed it as a temporary expedient of a unique nature.╙ 2 (Emphasis mine.)
Much has been made of early Greek presence in America, beginning with the Greek explorer Columbus 3, and then extending to colonies in New Smyrna, Florida in 1767 and in St. Augustine in 1786, as well as settlements in other parts of the country, all of which are of little or no significance. Where was the Church?
It is true that there was a Greek church functioning in New Orleans in 1867. There was no resident bishop, and its ecclesiastical affiliation was uncertain. One of its early priests, a fugitive Ukrainian Decembrist who had served in the Russian Embassy in Athens, told an incredulous story: that in 1862 he purchased his ordination in Greece and came to America and founded the New Orleans Church in 1865, which he called a ╥Greco-Russian Church╙, bringing with him antimensis, sacred vessels, and myrrh. 4
Doumouras reported that the Russian Bishop, (Peter), visited the parish in 1886, and that various vestments and an elaborate Book of Gospels were presented to the parish from the Russian tsar, Alexander II, ╥in token of his imperial pleasure over the beginning of Greek-speaking churches within the American diocese of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in Russia.╙ From his studies, Doumouras concluded that prior to the 1890╒s, it may be said that all Orthodox parishes in North America were naturally and canonically under the protection and care of the Orthodox Jurisdiction thus established by the Russian Holy Synod for all American residents, and that the New Orleans Church was included until it left to join the Greek Archdiocese. Other early churches which Greeks attended were in Galveston, (1862), and San Francisco, (1868), both attached to the Russian Church.
In 1812, 55 years prior to the formation of the New Orleans Church, Russians were worshipping in the Church of the Holy Trinity at Fort Ross in California.
By 1915 there were 50 Greek parishes in America. This was not an established, organized Church, but rather a group of unrelated parishes, having in common their Faith and their language. The parishes operated as separate, autonomous entities, with only a vague identity with the Greek Church , and certainly with no resident bishop. Church committees wrote either to Athens or Constantinople for priests, being partial to ╥home town╙ countrymen and hired and discharged them with no episcopal approval. Some of the clergy moved from parish to parish without the knowledge either of Athens or Constantinople; others were without canonical standing.
Although most of these formed parishes had little or nothing to do with the Russian Church here, there were many other Greeks who shared parish membership with other ethnic groups in Russian parishes in the large cities: San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Pueblo, Galveston, and others. Priests visited and ministered to Greek communities or individuals wherever they were, as did Father Michael Andreades of Seattle, reporting his visits to 40 Greeks in the logging town of Aberdeen in the northwest in 1905. Many of the Greek churches received vestments and Gospels from the Russian Holy Synod or from the tsar. The parishes of Springfield, Mass; New Britain, Conn.; Reading, Pa; Columbus, Ohio; Cedar Rapids, IA; and Thompsonville, Conn. all wrote to the Russian bishop requesting antiminsia for their churches. This acknowledged him as their bishop. The pattern was the same; all were happy to accept the spiritual care of the Russian Church, but as soon as enough individuals could be gathered, they broke away to form their own parishes.
When Bishop John (Mitropolsky) passed through San Francisco on his new assignment to Sitka, he received the following greeting from George Fisher, the Greek consul, ╥I have the honor to welcome Your Right Reverence to this city, as the Diocesan of the Holy Orthodox Eastern Church of the Pacific coast of the United States of America, and the representative of the Holy Synod of Russia, in this portion of the Lord╒s vineyards. In welcoming your RR, I take pleasure to assure you, RR Father, that I will use whatever official and individual influence I may have with the Greek residents in this city and state, professing our Holy Religion, under Your wise guidance, to follow the teachings of the same, by supporting the worship thereof and by living an exemplary life, thus cultivating harmony among themselves, and causing to be respected and esteemed by the community at large as good Christians and useful and worthy members of the human family. I have the honor to be, RR Father, Your Most Obeisant Servant-Geo. Fisher Nov. 3, 1870╙ 5
IT is appropriate to note the prevailing conditions when Churches abroad decided that the time was right to send bishops to America, as one church historian noted, ╥...when the process of the breaking up of the Church into a totally uncanonical maze of ethnic dioceses was well under way.╙ 6 In Russia, following the revolution, the soon-to- be-martyred Patriarch Tikhon was under house arrest and was being tortured, both physically and mentally. His keleinik, Yasha Polozov, was shot to death before his eyes. All Church properties, including sacred vessels, were confiscated by the Bolshevik state, which was determined to stamp out all religion. The murder of bishops had begun taking place during the 1917 Council, and tens of thousands of clergy and monastics were being rounded up for imprisonment and execution, declared non citizens and deprived of food cards, left to starve to death. The Church was in the crucible.
In America, Metropolitan Platon, confirmed by Patriarch, now Saint Tikhon, was head of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America, a diocese of the Church of Russia, on this continent since 1794. There were over 250 parishes extending from coast to coast and from Alaska to Mexico. It contained a Syro-Arab Vicariate of 23 parishes, formerly headed by Bishop Raphael (Hawaweeny), the first bishop to be consecrated in the United States, plus 19 Serbian churches, four Albanian parishes, as well as Romanian and Bulgarian missions. The Church was plagued by problems: loss of financial support, revolutionary influence in parishes, and Soviet agents making their assaults on the American Church. Was this the right time to weaken the struggling Church in America? Where was the sympathy, the Christian compassion, the support, the understanding, the helping hand from the Churches abroad?
In 1927, His Eminence, Aftimos (Ofeish), who succeeded Bishop Raphael, as head of the Syro-Arab Vicariate and Bishop of Brooklyn, wrote, ╥For a hundred years the Russian leadership and control over Orthodoxy in America was unquestioned, and tended steadily toward the unity and ultimate autonomy or independence of the American Province of Orthodoxy.╙ 7
To this end, twenty-five years earlier, Archbishop Tikhon had envisioned a plan to unify all the ethnic branches into a single American Orthodox Church, each with its own variations in canonical order and in national tradition, and asked the Holy Synod to consider granting it autocephaly. He could not have known that the plan had little chance of succeeding, for several reasons:
1. The Churches abroad never would relinquish the support of their American faithful, with the rationale that no American Church was capable of handling the spiritual, cultural, and language requirements of their ╥people in diaspora╙.
2. Churches here themselves did not want to sever their relationships with their mother Churches. Ethnic ties were too strong.
3. No Church group, except perhaps for the Antiochian on a temporary basis, was willing to place itself under the authority of the Church of another nationality, and this includes being under an American Church today. It seemed more important to locate their ethnic Churches in America than it was to bring Orthodoxy to America. For these reasons, when the announcement of autocephaly was made 68 years later, it became necessary to rationalize their objection to autocephaly and justify their establishing themselves in America.
Just as the branches of foreign national Churches resisted being under the authority of the American Church, so may Americans one day equally resist their Church being put under foreign authority.
One argument used frequently is a reminder of how large is the Archdiocese. One Archbishop asks, ╥How is it that a Church in the minority can claim to govern and guide the affairs of the others?╙ 8 Why are numbers important? No one disputes the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarch, yet His Holiness has one of the smallest episcopal sees in the Orthodox World.
To illustrate how things can be misunderstood, we cite the following excerpts from a letter, presumably from a lay person, to a professor of theology at the Greek Theological School at Brookline, Mass., following the announcement made recently by the SCOBA bishops on Orthodox unity, ╥We of the Greek Orthodox Faith are indeed concerned with the recently announced changes and are truly worried as to the future of our church. Essentially, nationalism is deeply rooted in our church, and any changes that may eliminate our Greek heritage is troublesome indeed. We are also at a loss with Metropolitan Philip╒s statement that an overwhelming majority support these changes. Our research indicates that few if any of Greek Orthodox Faithful are even aware of what is taking place. Our basic concerns are a) Will the Greek Orthodox Church become the minority? b) Will the Russian Orthodox overwhelm us? c) Will our churches be allowed to celebrate Greek National Holidays? d) Will our churches be allowed to teach the Greek language? e) Are the other churches willing to give up their heritage be it Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, etc. f) When are we to expect the specifics?.....╙ 9 One only can ask╤ what kind of stories have they been telling these people? Is this the prevalent mentality?
Also, it has been 25 years since the tomos of autocephaly was given to us. We are an American Church. Why do people still refer to us as the ╥Russian Church╙? We do not call theirs the ╥Turkish Church╙.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, yet I shall venture a look into the future, with the fervent hope that it is all wrong. There is little likelihood of having an American Patriarch. The ancient patriarchates stand together on this issue, and will not release their American faithful, assuming the responsibility of looking to the spiritual, cultural, and national welfare of their faithful in diaspora in America Their combined authority at a Council will be awesome, and few of their clergy will dare to oppose them in open debate. There will be a Holy Synod of Metropolitans and Archbishops of the larger Churches, with numerous consolidations and subdivisions of the smaller groups. The ruling primate will be the Ecumenical Patriarch.. The outcome will be called an American Church, with ╥American╙ used generously in the titles of the various Churches, but it will be an amalgamation of the branches of ethnic Churches abroad, located here in America.
The only Church hard-pressed to explain its ethnic origin will be the OCA. Its current name, ╥The Orthodox Church in America╙, will continue to cause some uneasiness, and a clever commission will be selected to find a suitable substitute. If too many decades pass before another Council is called, the large number of American-born and converted Orthodox may create a ground swell which may cause the prelates to consider another approach, but this is problematic.
America is the only country in the Orthodox world which has never been under an anti-Christian government, whether it be Islamic, Communist, or Israeli, yet one day our ecclesiastical center may be on the Bosphorus, where Europe and Asia meet.
THE RUSSIAN CHURCH is the Mother Church of American Orthodoxy because she has brought Orthodoxy to America canonically and has established a Church here, later releasing that Church, which carries on as the Orthodox Church in America.
With unusual emphasis on language, culture, and national pride, and because of its affiliation, the Greek colony here could not allow itself to be under the authority of another national Church. Although the Ecumenical Patriarch is not a pope, he has solved this problem by ignoring a clear canon and creating and approving the formation of the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America, while invoking an ambiguous canon and declaring our autocephaly invalid, at the same time taking responsibility for all those ╥in diaspora╙. No one seems to question or challenge his right or authority to take such action.
