www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology St. Alexis: a dilemma

St Alexis of Wilkes-Barre. I just learned of him. A former Eastern Catholic cleric who got push back from a certain Bishop John Ireland. He then became an Orthodox priest and set about to convert other Eastern Catholics.

What to make of him as a Eastern Catholic. Not to get up anyone's nose or just to foment controversy, but does he "count" as saint for Eastern Catholics?

As I used to tell my students who would ask whether this or that mass 'counted' for the Sunday obligation, the only thing that gets counted is the collection! In this case who is the auditor? If the assumption is Rome, you have your answer. (Roma locuta est; causa PERDUTA est.) But if you appeal to a Higher Authority, then why ever not?!

I can't think of any official, public way ECs venerate St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre. However, I do privately venerate and invoke him especially for the overcoming of divisions between us and our beloved Orthodox brethren. Archbp. Ireland put him in a terrible bind and he responded as he did, no doubt being convinced it was the right thing to do. I admire his determination to spread Byzantine Christianity as he did under those circumstances. If the Latin bishops at that time had had a different mentality; a more paternal and empathetic outlook, maybe those those Catholics he led into the Orthodox Church would have remained Catholics.

I haven't the least idea if I would have done the same had I been in his place.

May he and St. Josaphat intercede unceasingly for our salvation.

He's in my icon corner. And if I had been Greek Catholic back then, I would have followed him into Orthodoxy. A Church that practices ecclesiacide can't pretend to be the Church That Presides in Love.

I think Fr. Alexis got a bad deal from Bishop John Ireland. We have, unfortunately, only one account of their confrontation, and there's usually two sides to such a story. It has been said that the two were opposite sides of the same coin, struck from the same metal. It even seems they have come to share that unofficial title of "The Father of the Orthodox Church in America."

In fact, if or to the degree the situation was "ecclesiacide" it did not succeed for the Catholics -- quite the opposite. We're still here. And what did Fr. Alexis accomplish for his people, his church? Russification and assimilation and the effective loss of their unique identity?

I admire those who stuck it out and fought the good fight without schism; true saints they. That faithful remnant retained its chant, emerged from the trials of external and self-imposed destruction, has available the makings of a pristine "Ruthenian" usage for its liturgy, and has the opportunity to see and be ever increasingly its own self, one that is not Latin or Russian or Greek, but, with God's help, a unique witness to the Catholic faith, surmounting east and west.

As an Armenian Christian I do not have a dog in this fight, so to speak. I tend to agree with ajk though. I admire most those who stuck it out.

The Ruthenian national motto.

But there were something like 300,000 of you, and now there are barely 40,000. If the loss of more than 125,000 in the 1890s, and another 50-75,000 in the 1930s, along with the concomitant bitterness and confusion of identity didn't get that rock rolling downhill, what did?

I admire those who did what they believed they had to do (whether by staying or leaving).

It is sad, and now the Ruthenians must struggle for survival with the revised liturgy.

And what exactly did those who chose not to follow St Alexis accomplish? Latinization and assimilation and the loss of their Traditions.

Alexandr

What's the difference in the history of the OCA and ACROD? From what I remember, there is an overlap -- why the separate hierarchy? Aren't these both Ruthenian/Little Rusyns?

Alexander:

Dead on !

Seraphim

I would have to agree with my brother. The decision, whichever one each made, was not easy and it rent families asunder in many instances, with siblings not speaking for decades thereafter. That it happened, whether in the 1890s or the 1930s, was a terrible thing and I'm certain that neither Saint Alexis nor Metropolitan Orestes took any joy in the aftermath and its effects on the Eastern Christian community.

That said, I am certain that both did what they believed to be necessary and proper for the peoples whose spiritual lives they considered themselves responsible. (To give the man his due, I suppose Archbishop Ireland believed likewise, though I've never seen anything to suggest that he felt any anguish as a consequence, seeing as he seemingly believed that Eastern Christians weren't really Catholics anyway.)

Many years,

Neil

What's the difference in the history of the OCA and ACROD? From what I remember, there is an overlap -- why the separate hierarchy? Aren't these both Ruthenian/Little Rusyns?

The OCA evolved from what had been called the Russian Orthodox North American Mission, a missionary eparchy of the Church of Moscow. Prior to 1917, it was responsible for all Orthodox Christians in the United States (and, I believe, Canada, too). When the disenfranchised Ruthenian were looking for a home in the Orthodox Church, the Russian Orthodox North American Mission was the logical and canonical home for them, and that's were most of them went.

Then came the Bolshevik Revolution, and the captivity of the Russian Church under the Communists. The domination of the Church by the Party led to the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (or Outside Russia), with concomitant canonical issues regarding jurisdiction and property. The Russian Church in North America remained under the restored (but puppet) Moscow Patriarchate, but this in turn put it under suspicion of communist control. ROCOR began establishing competing eparchies and parishes, which split the Orthodox community. It's at this time that the Greeks, the Ukrainians, and everybody else begin setting up their own jurisdictions, because the situation regarding Russia was so confused.

In the 1930s, when Cum data fuerit was issued, reigniting the celibacy controversy, and it became clear that Bishop Basil (Takach) was not going to stand up to Rome, a number of parishes again decided to return to Orthodoxy, but did not want to be involved with Russia--for many reasons. Instead, they approach the Ecumenical Patriarchate (which claims jurisdiction over all "barbarian lands"), and the EP established an independent Carpatho-Rusyn Greek Catholic Orthodox Diocese at Johnstown, PA, which eventually became known as ACROD.

Michael,

What follows is a simplistic explanation and I may well be corrected by my ACROD brethren, particularly Father David or DMD, but it's how I see it ...

The OCA derived from the Russian Metropolia. Saint Alexis turned to the latter because it was the sole Slavic Orthodox jurisdiction with a presence in the US at the time. Thus, although the faithful who entered into it were principally Rusyn, the Church itself was Russian and the majority of its new congregants were, over time, Russified - losing much of their own historical praxis.

By the time that ACROD came into existence, those who would be its faithful were comfortable in their own culture and eager to retain it - pursuing the right to practice their faith as they had historically. But, they also believed that they could take the necessary steps to do so without needing to be part of a 'foreign' hierarchical structure. That, I'm certain, was easier to do (and probably seemed more natural) with several decades behind them as 'Americans' (unlike their counterparts of 4 decades earlier, many of whom were still, essentially, freshly emigrated). When ACROD did come into reception by the EP (a year or two after the breakaway began), it was a decidedly less controlling environment into which they entered.

Many years,

Neil