www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Russian Orthodoxy in the U.S. - Which came first?

Christ Is Risen!

I've noticed that many Orthodox communities in the U.S. that were originally founded as Russian Orthodox parishes prior to the Russian revolution in 1917 are now OCA members. Can anybody tell me when these communities severed their ties to the mother Church in Russia? Was this event what inspired the formation of The Orthodox Church In America or did parishes from other Orthodox jurisdictions come before the Russian Orthdox in forming OCA? Was this jurisdictional change (for the Russian communities) "en masse" or on a parish-by-parish basis?

Thanks in advance for the information!

S

Indeed he is risen!

The answer to your first question requires a walk through the history. Yes, the OCA is the old Russian dioceses in America started before the revolution.

When the Communists took over in Russia the church there couldn't supervise them so they weren't sure what to do. In practice they were independent of Russia but there was no formal 'severing of ties'.

Meanwhile in 1920 escaped Russian bishops started ROCOR (which is the same as the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad) in Europe. For a while in the 1930s the Russian dioceses in America said they were under ROCOR.

After World War II the Communists sent a bishop to America who told the Russian parishes to go under him. A few did.

In 1946 the dioceses had a council and said they weren't under ROCOR and were still under Moscow in name, but until Communism fell they'd be independent in practice. The Russians said those dioceses were out of communion with them.

Meanwhile, again in the late 1940s, ROCOR, upset that the dioceses in America broke with them, moved its headquarters to America and its priests and parishioners, Russian refugees, set up their own parishes and whole dioceses, which the existing dioceses of course didn't like.

Things continued that way - three Russian jurisdictions in America, all officially out of communion with each other, which meant the clergy didn't concelebrate (the laity went back and forth).

Then in the late 1960s friendly relations between the dioceses and Russia resumed.

In 1970 the Russian Church granted the dioceses in America independence: they became the OCA.

There were hard feelings between the old dioceses and the parishes who'd left and gone directly under Russia. Russia and the OCA agreed in writing that those parishes were exempt from being incorporated into the new church and allowed to remain under Russia. (In the document granting independence they're listed by name.) Their bishop no longer claimed to be a diocesan but rather an exarch, meaning as far as the Russians were concerned the OCA has jurisdiction in America not they directly. (In SCOBA the Patriarchal Parishes are represented by the OCA.)

ROCOR remained out of communion with them both until two years ago. (Again, laity intercommuned and hopped parishes; clergy didn't concelebrate.) With the fall of Communism there was no more reason for the separation. Now ROCOR is under the Patriarch of Moscow but is still run separately from the little Patriarchal Parishes exarchate; it commemorates the patriarch but is still largely self-governing. Anyway with reunion with Russia came reunion with the OCA. Run separately, and not necessarily much to do with each other in that decentralised Orthodox way, but all in communion.

The different jurisdictions make sense culturally. The OCA are Rusyn-Americans, 60 per cent of whom are descended from Greek Catholics who switched 100 years ago because of bad treatment by the local Irish RCs in America. (The characters in The Deer Hunter.) In other words most American Russian Orthodox are Slavs but not Russian. And now they're Americans. (Rusyn immigration really ended with World War I.) They switched to the Gregorian calendar in the 1970s. ROCOR is Russian as in from Russia and speaking Russian. They use the Julian calendar just like the church in Russia. The Patriarchal Parishes are a mix: some actually Russian immigrants, some Ruthenian-Americans.

By the way to give some perspective I think at most at any given time in this we're only talking about a few tens of thousands of people in the US.

Ah, young fogey displays great wisdom!!

Thanks very much for your ROCOR / OCA history lesson!!

S

The late Archpriest Vitaly Sahaydakiwsky,himself a Ukrainian who was in the OCA from about 1966 to 1976,estimated the ethnic makeup of the OCA at about 80% Ukrainian(here including Carpatho -Rusyns),15% Belorussian,and 5% Russian.Keep in mind that this was Fr.Vitaly's view of the OCA circa 1966 when that church was called the Russian Orthodox Church of North America.Also prior to the 1970 Autocephaly,there were some cases of ROCOR clergy celebrating services with the Metropolia,at some point in 1966 Metropolitan Ireney of the Metropolia(soon to become OCA) DID concelebrate Liturgy with ROCOR Metropolitan Filaret at the former's chapel in Syosset,Long Island(this I read in DIAKONIA, a then Greek Catholic journal which reported the event as such,not making any comment about one side vs. the other,as far as I can recall).Of course,todays OCA is no longer a Russian Church,though it has some Russian speaking parishes,and some Ukrainian as well,mostly in Canada.Many OCA parishes in the "lower 48" were founded by ex-Greek Catholics from Western Ukraine or the Rusyn homeland,many of the Moscow Patriarchate's early churches here were made of the same peoples,almost no ROCOR parishes were ever made up of Western Ukrainians or Rusyns until the early 80's when some left the OCA over the change to the New Style and found refuge in ROCOR.

I think the official name before 1970 was the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church either of the USA or of North America. The long name was for a few reasons: the Orthodox one-true-church claim ('we are the Catholic Church'), being like the Roman Catholic Church and another related to being ex-Greek Catholics. If the words Greek Catholic were in the name, the parishes had a better chance of keeping their buildings in lawsuits with the RC Church. The words were in the parish charters and keeping them in the name showed continuity.

The Moscow Patriarchate's parishes in the USA are administered, not by an Exarch, but by a vicar bishop posted at Saint Nicholas Cathedral, New York. A similar arrangement is in place for Moscow's parishes in Canada, where the vicar bishop is posted in Edmonton at Saint Barbara's Cathedral.

Fr. Serge

(Based upon http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/822/Alaska.html, and confirmed on several other sites)

Alaska is about 620,000 people, and 8% orthodox, currently.
That's about 50,000 Orthodox in Alaska alone. (Some of those are Old Believers, Some are ROCA, some are ROCOR, most are OCA, some are Greek, some are Antiochian, and a few are Ukrainians attending one or more of the above; at least 1 is a Ukrainian Orthodox attending a Catholic Ruthenian parish.)

Thanks for the correct title, Fr Serge. Of course the point is he’s a sacramental bishop not a diocesan claiming American territory any more.

aramis, I was thinking of practising, regularly churchgoing members.

In which case, Alaska Alone is at least 25,000 Orthodox. (and about 80-100 Byzantine Catholics practicing as such). Yes, Orthodoxy is one of the largest sects in Alaska. If you go by Chrismation alone, Alaska has over 100,000 Orthodox! (and about 150,000 Catholics).

The Orthodox cathedral in Anchorage is many hundred families.

ARDA lists 10,000 orthodox in anchorage alone, 9600 of them OCA.
(http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/counties/02020_2000.asp) and some 21000 active Orthodox (not counting RO OBs) (http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/state/02_2000_Theology.asp)

Given that a significant minority of Old Believers exist, and are not on the ARDA data, as they are not part of the listed churches... Alaska is easily 20,000 active Orthodox, with probably another 20,000 for Pascha and Nativity who are nominally practicing the rudiments of the faith.

Although i have a profound respect for the other Russian jurisdictions in America, I would highly object to the MP exarchate being labeled as a "bunch of commie sympathizers". This church, originally labeled (until 1970) as the Archdiocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America considered itself the legal and canonical succesor to the pre revolutionary missionary diocese of such saintly men as Tikhon and Toth. They had the legal backing of the Church of Russia to back it (They must have made a pretty good arguement for their canonocity since the US supreme court ended up siding with them over the St Nicholas cathedral in NYC in the 50's).

Although the archdiocese was dissolved in 1970, an exarch still reigns in NY over the 40 something parishes that still pledge loyalty to Moscow. These churches are loyal to the end and I can see no time in the future when they will willingly submit to the OCA and any way, shape, or form (they almost threatened schism when such was preposed to them in 1970). Besides, these parishes mostly use the old calendar and have no desire to adopt the more modernist practices which the OCA has wholeheartedly embraced.

No matter how much tiems passes, there still seems to be a lot of propaganda against the Exarchate. That it was sort of a "dust bin" for rebelious clergy and laity as well as communist sympathizers and agents. From the propaganda that used to put o0ut against them back in the old days, one would assume that those who wished to remain loyal to the patriarchate of Moscow were the worst assortment of oddballs and sabatours around. In truth, those Russian orthodox who wished to remain loyal tot eh patriarchate did so out of a sincere desire to remain loyal to the mother church of Russia. Remember, before 1970, the MP viewed the OCA (then metropolia) as schismatic and those who knowingly participated in such parishes were thought of as being in schism. It is true that those clergy who joined the exarchate had to pledge to refrain from anti Soviet polemics in publiuc but I guess this is no worse then those traditional Latin Catholics who have to pledge not to preach agaisnt Vatican II in order to have a regularized situation with an RC diocese.

Believe me when I tell you that most MP parishes in America were mindful of the suffering that the Church in Russia was going through. They prayed for it to cease (but in private). They knew that when the patriarch of Russia denied that there was any persecution of the Church in that country, it was because he had to under duress. Yet they were still loyal through all these difficulties. This alone shoudl at least merit them some respect from us.

I was one of the Byzantine Catholics in Alaska. I was transferred from Midland, TX to Anchorage with ARCO in June 1998. We were disenchanted with the RC parishes in Anchorage and decided to give St. Nicholas of Myra BC Church a try. My (now ex) wife and I were hooked on the Divine Liturgy after just one try, so we made it our parish home from July / August 1998 until we transferred out in November 2002. When we were there, there were about 60-70 families at St. Nicholas and I developed a love of Byzantine Christianity - both Catholic and Orthodox. In fact, although I very much love and am committed to the Catholic Church, I've often wished St. Peter's see had been in the Eastern Church, so the our Holy Father celebrated Divine Liturgy instead of Mass!

Besides being the place where I first was exposed to Eastern Christianity, Alaska quickly got in my blood and although I was born and raised in Texas, Alaska became - and still is - home to me after only 4 1/2 years there. I do so miss the Great Land and wish I could return. If I ever manage to do so, I won't ever leave again...

S

If you succeed in returning to Alaska, please allow me to suggest that you look up the Old-Ritualist Church in Nikolaevsk. Enjoy!

Fr. Serge

Thank you for the recommendation, Father Serge. One Sunday after Divine Liturgy during my time in Alaska, I was poring over the Anchorage Daily News and came across a fairly lengthy article - at least 1 full page - with color photos about the Old Ritualists. Not sure if it was about the Nikolaevsk church or not. It was the first I'd ever heard of the Old Ritualists and the fact that some communities have priests and some do not. Do you know if the Nikolaevsk community has a priest or not?

S

This community has a priest. see video below:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26788731#26788731

Father Konrad Fefelov (Memory Eternal - he fell asleep in the Lord a year ago) led the community in Nikolaevsk to build the church in 1985; don't know the name of the current priest. The bishop, however, is Archbishop Sofrony, based in Oregon and in Sydney, Australia; His Grace belongs to the Synod headed by Metropolitan Leonty of Bielaia Krinitsa (who resides in Braila, Romania, for the time being).

There are not many parishes - but the parishes themselves are growing.

Fr. Serge