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["yet the OCA continues to use the "Moscovite" liturgical,"

I can't stand those highbacks. The MP bishop is always present at big OCA events, so the OCA is still very Russian and still very much with MP

Well, the Church of Russia, not the RCC or the UGCC, is the parent Church of North American Orthodoxy-the tomos of autocephalacy was given by Moscow, not Lviv or Kyiv.

While descendents of ex-Greek Catholics may make up the (numerically) largest portion of the OCA, remember there are significant portions of the OCA (mainly outside the Great Lakes states/Northeast) where the ex-Greek Catholic heritage is practically non-existent.
Look at the average OCA parish in California, and compare it to one in Pennsylvania, for example.
I'm not particuarly pro-MP myself, but the OCA does have room for a wide range of traditions, including Muscovite ones!


Michael

Slava Isusu Christu!

The OCA, although promoting America Indegenous Orthodoxy, is still heavily attached to its Mother the Moscow Patriarchate. Here in Alaska the OCA Diocese is officially called the RUSSIAN ORTHODOX DIOCESE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN AMERICA. This the the eternal holdout of Russian Orthodoxy is America and I expect with His Grace Bishop Nikolai's efforts it will be restored and infused with life again. His Grace is so awesome and is even respected by some ROCOR clergy I know. He and His clergy have a disdain for Uniates though and are very hardheaded in that regard; of course they also think the Antiochian converts at St. John's in Eagle River are too wacky and Protestant as well. But regardless of their traditonalist mentality I admire the OCA in Alaska. His Grace is very Traditional and very Great Russian. You would expect the services here in Alaska to be the same as in the Russian Federation. So here in Alaska the OCA is most definately and will be for many years truly Russian Orthodox.

In Christ,

Robert Horvath

Actually, Bishop Nikolai of the OCA in Alaska is of Serbian descent, was raised in Montana, and did study in Yugoslavia. I have reason to believe that at some point he moved to the OCA, but I'm not sure when that was. Prior to his elevation, he was chancellor for the OCA Diocese of the West with a parish in Las Vegas, NV, which he built into one of the largest OCA parishes in that diocese based on headcount, St. Paul's. The church has strong Serbian design influences architecturally. Bishop Nikolai also has extensive job experience in social service in Nevada. The parish was the only OCA parish in Las Vegas, unless you include a Roumanian one in the count, last time I checked. The Byzantines now have 2 parishes there, and a third is being planned. Anyhow, he should do great things for the Alaskan OCA folks. He is very honest and forthright.

It clearly has plenty of room for Muscovite traditions. The question is why is there evidently so little room for Carpatho-Russian traditions.

djs

Isn't that why there is a Carpatho-Russian diocese under the Ecumenical Patriarchate?

Slava Isusu Christu!

I never said His Grace was of Russian descent; I was referring to his liturgical usage. I am here in Alaska, that might tell you something

I am pretty sure that the majority of the OCA resides in the Midwest and Northeastern U.S., and are descendents of Greek Catholics who joined the Metropolia early in the 20th century. I also think Eastern Pennsylvania has more parishes than the entire Diocese of SF and the West, which is pretty much the entire Western U.S.-and is more Great Russian. So, numerically, who has the clout in the OCA? The last 2 Metropolitans are not Great Russians (or converts) either.

If anything, I think the more conservative (and either Great Russian or convert) Dioceses like San Fransisco and the South tend to get overlooked in the OCA.

Michael

One of the problems (depending on your perspective, it may not be) for Rusyns who joined the Russian Church here was that most of the early clergy were Russians. As were the choir directors. The number of Rusyn immigrant clergy who served the old Russian Metropolia was rather small (and most of them were Lemkos, whose orientation towards Russia was more pronounced than among the Subcarpathians). And by the time the first generation of American-born Rusyns (e.g., John Dzubay and Gregory Warhol, both from Minneapolis) became Orthodox priests, they were already formed in a Russian environment, and the remnant of their particular Rusyn liturgical/spiritual heritage was rather small.

There was a small number of parishes that maintained the prostopinije, and an even smaller number of mostly-Lemko parishes that retained their Galician plainchant/samoilka. However, today even these have mostly gone over to standard OCA choir music, because there was no support in English for the Carpatho-Rusyn chant, at least following the OCA translations/usage.

I've been told on more than one occasion that in general the OCAs Diocese of the West tends to march to a different drummer as compared to the rest of the OCA (more Russian, less Greek Catholic). Perhaps the lack of national church attention mentioned earlier has a connection with that. It reminds me of what the composer/conductor Richard Strauss is supposed to have once offered as advice to would-be symphony conductors: "Never look at the brass. It only encourages them."