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What is the current nature of the relationship between ROCOR and the OCA? Is there any contact between their repective seminaries, scholars, professors, students, etc...? Another question: I've heard that OCA membership is declining as the elderly members die out and are not being replaced, i.e. cradle members leaving, and not enough new members (converts). Is this the same situation with ROCOR, the BCA, GOA, and the Antiochian Orthodox Church.

�What is the current nature of the relationship between ROCOR and the OCA? Is there any contact between their respective seminaries, scholars, professors, students, etc...?�

From a quick look at the �News� page of Holy Trinity Seminary [hts.edu] in Jordanville (ROCOR):

Sitka Icon Visits Jordanville

The Wonder-working Sitka Icon of the Mother of God visited Holy Trinity Monastery as part of a pilgrimage taking it across the United States.

The Sitka Icon was brought to Jordanville by Archimandrite Isidore, Chancellor of the Diocese of Alaska and Dean of St. Innocent Cathedral in Anchorage, Archpriest Michael Oleksa, Rector of St. Alexis Church in Anchorage and former Dean of St. Herman�s Seminary, and Subdeacon Paul Erickson on Monday, November 7, 2005, where it was greeted with the ringing of bells. Following the completion of Small Compline, Archimandrite George served a Moleben with Akathist in English before the icon. The following morning, following the completion of the Divine Liturgy, Archimandrite Luke, Dean of Seminary, and monastery clergy served a Moleben with Akathist in Slavonic.

Archpriest Michael Oleksa, author of Orthodox Alaska: A Theology of Mission and editor of the anthology Alaskan Missionary Spirituality, gave a lively and erudite talk in the Seminary auditorium on the history of Orthodox in Alaska, which was received with great interest and appreciation by all present....

Visit to St. Herman�s Seminary

Deacon Vladimir Tsurikov, Assistant Dean of Holy Trinity Seminary, accompanied His Eminence, Archbishop Evgenii of Vereia, Rector of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary, and Hieromonk Evfimii (Moiseev), a faculty member of the Moscow Theological Academy, on a visit to the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Alaska and St. Herman�s Orthodox Theological Seminary in late October, 2004....

Fr. Alexander Rentel Delivers Lecture

Holy Trinity Seminary was pleased to welcome the Rev. Dr. Alexander Rentel, Instructor of Church History and Canon Law at St. Vladimir�s Orthodox Theological Seminary, to Jordanville on May 6, 2004....

Visit of Archpriest Alexander Golubov, Academic Dean of St. Tikhon�s Seminary

The seminarians and faculty of Holy Trinity Seminary welcomed the V. Rev. Archpriest Alexander Golubov, Academic Dean of St. Tikhon�s Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, PA, to Jordanville on March 29, 2004. Fr. Alexander came to deliver a lecture entitled �Defining the Church in Nineteenth-century Russian Theological Thought....�

Holy Trinity Seminary Students Attend OISM Meeting

With the blessing of His Eminence, Metropolitan Laurus, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and Rector of Holy Trinity Seminary, two seminarians traveled to New York on Friday, March 12, to attend several events.

On Friday evening the seminarians accompanied Archimandrite Luke, Dean of Holy Trinity Seminary, to the St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City, where Fr. Luke served a moleben before the Wonderworking Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, where it was on its last stop before being returned to Russia.

After the moleben the students left for St. Vladimir�s Orthodox Theological Seminary, where they attended the second meeting of the Orthodox Inter-Seminary Movement (OISM). Our seminarians joined representatives from St. Vladimir�s (Crestwood, NY), St. Tikhon�s (South Canaan PA), Holy Cross (Brookline, MA), and St. Herman�s (Kodiak, AK). The main goal of the OISM, which was recently reestablished, is to create lasting relationships between Orthodox seminarians from different schools....

The Challenge of the Fathers

An evening of discussion on themes of patristic theology awaited students as they returned to their regular schedule following the first week of Great Lent. On March 4/17, 2003, Holy Trinity Seminary welcomed the Rev. Dr. John Behr, Associate Professor of Patristics at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in Crestwood, NY, and editor of St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly and the Popular Patristics Series, to deliver a lecture entitled "The Challenge of the Fathers."...

Generally positive developments...

This page [orthodoxwiki.org] on OrthodoxWiki has some brief information on the history of relations between the Church Abroad and the Metropolia. It notes warming relations at the end of the article.

I don�t have any sort of hard numbers to point to, but this is essentially what I have heard.

OCA � The membership is essentially flat right now. There are new converts coming in and growing churches in some areas (the South for instance), but these are offset by parishes that are shrinking in the older industrial areas of the Northeast. Among the converts is the newly installed Bishop of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania (Many Years!)

GOA � I actually don�t have a clue what state their overall membership is in. I do have some close friends with lifetime associations with that jurisdiction. What I have heard from them anecdotally is the GOA is in the process of undergoing changes. Their impression is there are for instance a number of good, younger priests that have come in to the GOA that will hopefully represent a bright future for the jurisdiction.

What I have heard is the two jurisdictions that are definitely growing in the United States are the ROCOR and the AOA. My own parish just as an example is an AOA mission split off another parish in 2002. Our priest is a convert, and the congregation is probably 50/50 cradle to convert. I would guess we have roughly doubled since the founding in 2002. Currently we�re in a rented space we�ve outgrown and we�re trying desperately to find a permanent home. The missions and evangelism page on the AOA site says that since 1988

91 missions (excluding Western Rite) have been established by the Antiochian Archdiocese. Of these, 54 have grown to full parishes. At present we are developing missions in 13 cities across the United States and Canada, and are exploring possibilities in several more.

I�m not sure how up date those numbers are, but that probably gives you a pretty good idea of what is going on. I believe the ROCOR has founded a number of missions and as I said my impression is they are definitely growing.

Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Jordanville has always grown and our old parish priest actually had two Jordanville icon-writers do our parish of St Nicholas way back when (this parish was featured in the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" for the baptism and marriage ceremony shots).

And he would often mention Jordanville in his sermons and public lectures on Eastern Christianity (the latter were published by the parish, you know how it is, "publish or parish").

Alex

One of my favorite things put out by the ROCOR is their Inok [russian-inok.org] page.

Andrew

The hierarchy has somehow failed to make the Orthodox religion a viable, real and living option for so many traditional Christians who seek a truly traditional, ancient and catholic church but who reject polemics and divisions.

I have always had great respect for the OCA hierarchy and I am led to think that they just need a better accounting department to heal their troubles, but the situation of the EP's dioceses here and there is very bad.

Now, it's true that the ROCOR and the Old-Calendarists appear to grow, but many of the new members are not the kind of people that would lead to reconciliation and peace ("Last year I was a fundamentalist Evangelical Protestant who hates the Papists and holds the only truth, now I'm a traditionalist Orthodox who hates the Papists and the liberal Orthodox Churches. Oh I forgot I still hold the only truth!)

Well, not being a ROCOR apologist, I would point out that the reason why people convert to them and resister bodies is twofold: 1). Genuine zeal & love for the Master which seems shared. 2). A firm and comprehensive spiritual and liturgical life.

Mexican,

I can't count the times I've seen this posted at other forums

(now I'm a traditionalist Orthodox who hates the Papists and the liberal Orthodox Churches. Oh I forgot I still hold the only truth!)

It's equal is found on RC Trad boards...a very sad
statement, and void of compassion and true charity.

The OCA site was the 1st Orthodox site I found when I started my exploring the East, in fact it was just after 9/11/01, and have not be offended by what I have read.

I do my best to dodge the shrapnel, and show goodwill to all my brethern...

james

You will find people afflicted with "convertitis" in every Faith! Yes, I know some pretty wacky Orthodox converts in ROCOR, OCA etc but I knew equally wacky converts to Catholicism (Catholic Answers and EWTN crowd) who would Genghis Khan look liberal in their view of Orthodoxy (if they even thought of Orthodoxy) not to mention Protestants!
ROCOR has preserved the beauty of Russian Orthodox spirituality and liturgy. Would I agree with them about the Tsar?? Probably not nut I admire their keeping of the Faith!

" "Publish or parish" "?! That man has no shame.

Tho new here , I am in ROCOR because when I converted, from conservative Prots (actually Anabaptists) I wanted no part in this movement in most all western churches...Prot and Cath....of the disrespect for the historical Church tradition of modesty in dress, women with head covered (I remember pre-VatII, when I went with my RC Aunt and all the women and communion age girls at least had a black doity or some such on their heads...boys at least had a white shirt,and trousers...no jeans as you see nowadays). This does not mean they were less sinners, but a little protocol is always in order! I had had my fill of guitars and tamboreens, etc, etc as an excuse for a worship service. When I experienced the Liturgy for the first time, I was flabbergasted at the fact of the sung/chanted Scripture and the very real 'biblical' sense of it being alive and not some stuffy recitation of an ancient text. I love the St Jo Chrys Liturgy and must have 6 or so copies sung in Old Slavonic, Ukrainian, Russian and English, even my 19 yr old has found the Rachmaninoff Vespers such a soothing and calming blessing, she has it on her college laptop. I am sorry the division and such in the Byz and Orthodox, but I can somewhat understand the real rejection of the solely Latin/Roman Catholics....their quite real haughtiness towards our ancestral people (Carpathians-Rusyns-Ukies..and such)it is an historical record how the Irish catholic heirarchy treated the Byz in Penna, disparaged (to say the least) thier married priests and their form of Liturgy, and customs (as tho the Irish are such saints themselves...wherefrom does the moniker..'Fightin' irish' come from...from real life..!). So , that's a facet of my thumbnail, feel free to send private posts, and thanks, S Bohom, Mikhailo (mik)

My personal feeling is that the conservative leaning, Byz and Orthodox are somewhat gaining from those who are fed up with the liberal and 'contemporariness' of many churches. We will always have church hoppers, are those searching for the 'new and exciting' which always wears off in time, but, even as I have talked to several RCs and heard comments about the 'old days'...from people under 50..!! They are, upon queary, actually looking for something more 'meaty' than what is trendy wishy washy modernism of american 'christianiy'. I took these people as sincere and also not knowing what to do about it, afraid to leave the 'family' church, not willing to leave friends behind, etc, etc...of which I can empathize. Many times there are bridges that they themselves won't burn but others, not under the same conviction, will misunderstand, or even outright reject. Hope we all can be more brave (starting with myself), and do what conviction and the Spirit leads us to. Just some of my thoughts, love and peace, S Bohom, mik

I will be attending a ROCOR Church tomorrow along with another Catholic friend. I have been there before, and was very impressed by...well, everything.

I noticed on my last visit that there were several former Byzantine Catholics among the parishioners. Has anybody found that Byzantine Catholics who convert to Orthodoxy tend to head toward the more "traditionalist" Orthodox parishes or do they spread out evenly among throughout the realms?

Just wondering...


Mateusz

Mexican, Jakub, Brian et al,

Good points all around. Touchstone has an article I like about this topic, "Convert Provocateurs" [touchstonemag.com]

Also, several months ago we had discussion on this topic (more specifically, about Clark Carlton's view of Catholicism and Scott Hahn's view of Orthodoxy) at the "Scott Hahn, Thomas Howard, Peter E. Gillquist ,etc.. " thread.

God bless,
Peter.