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Can anyone explain why the Ecumenical Patriarchate doesn't recognize the Russian Orthodox Church's granting autocephaly (if I have the word right)to the Orthodox Church in America?

Becuase the EP sees itself as the sole grantor of autocephaly and the rightful overseer of "barbarian lands."

Priest Thomas

Bless, Father Thomas!

Yes, if I were the EP, I wouldn't recognize those barbarians either . . . ( )

Now please put that heavey censor down, Father, remember, forgiveness is good for the soul . . .

Alex

Dear Father Thomas,

Didn't Metropolitan Herman visit the EP a couple of years ago? Aren't things getting worked out?

Respectfully,
Alice

Alice,

Yes - to your first question. No - to the second.

Ultimately, it is the politics of the status quo. I cannot speak for the EP (or for the OCA for that matter!) but I do know this - the vision of the OCA is simple: to have canonical unity in this country which goes beyond simple "cooperation," but is fulfilled in one Church, one Holy Synod, for all of the Orthodox in America. Anything less than that is a denial of the canonical anomaly in which we find ourselves. We know how we got here, we just can't find a way to get out of it.

Time and time again, the call has been put out to simply submit ourselves to the canonical reality of the Church's vision. The gathering of bishops in Ligonier, PA [ocl.org] , now about 10 years ago, I think, was a high point in that struggle. It seems so long ago now.

When I find the statements that were approved by all the bishops there, I will post them here.

Priest Thomas

Statement on Mission and Evangelism
SCOBA Conference of Bishops
Antiochian Village, Ligonier, Pennsylvania
November 30-December 2, 1994

The end of the second millennium after Christ coincides with a unique missionary challenge to the Orthodox Church around the world. To mention only two dimensions of this challenge will show its scope. 1) The fall of communist totalitarianism in Central and Eastern European countries opens the way for the re�evangelization of the peoples of these countries. 2) In the United States and Canada millions of people are in spiritual crisis, millions of people are unchurched, the societies are afflicted with a spiritual and moral vacuum, and the Orthodox Church is therefore presented with a challenge to bear witness to the Orthodox faith and to evangelize.

We, the Orthodox bishops of North America, assembled at the Antiochian Village, Ligonier, Pennsylvania, November 30-December 2, 1994, have heard an address on Mission and Evangelism by His Eminence, Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, and a response by His Eminence, Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas, Orthodox Church in America, and have reflected together on the missionary task of the Orthodox Church in North America.

We wish to express the following convictions and commitments regarding mission and evangelism in North America:

It is our conviction that mission is the very nature of the Church, and is an essential expression of her apostolicity, and that the Orthodox Church is therefore commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ to teach, to preach, and to make disciples of all nations; - It is our conviction that the Orthodox Church's history and experience give numerous examples of commitment to mission and to the preaching of the Good News of Christ (missions to the Slavs, missions in Siberia, China, Korea, and Japan, the evangelization of the Alaskan native people, and contemporary mission in Africa, Indonesia and Albania);

We believe that our task in North America is not limited to serving the immigrant and ethnic communities, but has at its very heart the missionary task, the task of making disciples in the nations of Canada and the United States; - We believe that the Orthodox of North America - bishops, clergy and laity - are called to think together, plan together, and work together in order to do mission work together;

We commit ourselves to show special pastoral attention to couples coming to marry in the church, especially in mixed marriages, and to their Orthodox Christian education and inauguration into Church life.

We commit ourselves to the evangelization, or re-evangelization, of those many people who call themselves Orthodox, and have indeed been baptized and chrismated in our churches, but whose lives are in fact distant from the fullness of the Orthodox Faith and the fullness of the Orthodox Church's sacramental life; - We commit ourselves to avoiding the creation of parallel and competitive Orthodox parishes, missions, and mission programs;

We commit ourselves to common efforts and programs to do mission, leaving behind piecemeal, independent, and spontaneous efforts to do mission, moving forward towards a concerted, formal, and united mission program in order to make a real impact on North America through Orthodox mission and evangelism; - We strongly endorse the unified Orthodox Christian Mission Center, the Mission Conferences (at present co-sponsored by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, and the Orthodox Church in America), and encourage further consolidation of mission efforts and programs here and throughout the world;

We commit ourselves to express a common vision of mission and to work towards this end in the teaching of mission as an important part of the theological education of our future priests.

We respectfully petition His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch to convene a world conference of mission representatives to help coordinate Orthodox mission strategies and efforts around the world;

We Orthodox in North America commit ourselves to bringing our household into order for the sake of the preaching of the Good News of Jesus Christ, His Incarnation and His teaching, His crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection, and His presence in the Church through the descent of the Holy Spirit.

--

Please forgive my ignorance, does the OCA encompass all "ethnic" Orthodox beit Greek,Ukie,etc ?

Brad

(This was the statement that rattled the feathers of the EP)

STATEMENT ON THE CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA

STANDING CONFERENCE OF CANONICAL ORTHODOX
BISHOPS IN THE AMERICAS
CONFERENCE OF BISHOPS

Antiochian Village
November 30 - December 2, 1994

We, the Orthodox Hierarchs in the United States and Canada, assembled at the Antiochian Village, Ligonier, Pennsylvania from November 30 through December 2, 1994, do first and foremost offer most sincere gratitude to the venerable Fathers and Brothers, the Hierarchs of our Mother Churches beyond the seas for their love and concern, exhibited by the prominence given to the "diaspora" on the agenda for the forthcoming Great and Holy Council evidenced in the Adopted Texts of the Inter-Orthodox Preparatory Commission.

We await the next meeting of the Commission referred to in the Adopted Text of November 1993. We maintain that it is critical that the Church in North America be directly and concretely represented at that and future meetings. How is it possible for there to be discussion about the future of the Church in North America in our absence? We must be present to share the two hundred years of experience that we have had of preaching the Gospel and living the Orthodox Faith outside of those territories that have historically been Orthodox. We would humbly ask His All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch to seek a way, through the venerable Hierarchs of the Standing Conference, to accomplish this representation. We also humbly request the Primates of the other Mother Churches to support this initiative. The demands upon our Church's life by an unbelieving society do not allow for any further delay in this process. Therefore this episcopal assembly supports the repeated requests of SCOBA for its officers to be granted an audience with His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch and the other Patriarchs and Primates of the Mother Churches to discuss the North American reality.

Furthermore, we have agreed that we cannot accept the term "diaspora" as used to describe the Church in North America. In fact the term is ecclesiologically problematic. It diminishes the fullness of the faith that we have lived and experienced here for the past two hundred years.

Moreover, as we reflect on the ways in which the Church in North America has matured, it is important to recognize that much has been done as the natural and organic response of Orthodox Christians who share the same faith while living together in one place. We celebrate and build on already existing structures. Some are formal. The first of these is SCOBA itself. There are in addition various agencies of SCOBA such as the International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC), the Orthodox Christian Education Commission (OCEC), the Orthodox Theological Society in America (OTSA), the Orthodox Christian Missions Center, and other North American-wide pan-Orthodox efforts. There are also less formal structures such as the joint meetings of our theological schools and seminarians, the joint monastic assemblies, the local councils of churches and clergy brotherhoods, and sacred art and liturgical music associations. They give witness to the strong foundation upon which we continue to build.

To this end, all of our efforts should be coordinated within an overall ecclesial framework. This would provide the freedom and flexibility to allow us to organically become an administratively united Church. As in any Orthodox ecclesiological framework for a local Church there are three levels. The first is the national, or in our case the continental. The second is the regional or diocesan. And the third is the local or deanery. All of these depend upon and grow out of the parish which is the primary place where Christians express and encounter their faith.

On the national or continental level the body which coordinates the life of a Church is the Synod of Bishops. We have had in SCOBA an Executive Committee that has guided Church life in North America for over thirty years. In convening this present Conference of Bishops, we find ourselves to be an Episcopal Assembly, a precursor to a General Synod of Bishops. We express our joy that in addition to the regular meetings of SCOBA, this Episcopal Assembly will convene on an annual basis to enhance the movement toward administrative ecclesial unity in North America.

The regional level presents a special challenge because this is one area in which few models of cooperation presently exist. Bishops who live within a given region of North America should meet and concelebrate regularly. They should coordinate activities, encourage clergy and laity to get to know one another and to work together, and initiate concrete joint programs. In essence, they should duplicate regionally what SCOBA has pioneered on the continental level for the past thirty three years.

The local level is where the greatest diversity of models presently exists. These range from very informal clergy or lay associations to highly structured clergy brotherhoods or clergy and lay councils of churches. The bishops of a given region should continue to encourage the clergy and laity of their parishes to work together with other parishes in their area. Without imposing any one model, bishops should seek to formalize and regularize those models that already exist. In areas where there are as yet no such structures, bishops should work with the clergy and laity to develop a model that is appropriate in that locality. The principle is to encourage diverse models within a broader canonical ecclesiological framework.

The Church in North America also benefits from our various monastic communities. Their meeting together should be encouraged by their hierarchs so that the monastics might share their spiritual experience and wisdom with one another and with the whole Church of a given region.

We would like to emphasize again: this is presented as a broad outline or framework within which the whole Church in North America can grow to manifest the deep unity of faith that we share in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father who sent Him, and the Holy Spirit who continually makes Him known to us. The visible unity of the Church is a profound witness of our love for Him and for one another.

Finally, we would like to thank and bless our Christ-loving flocks: the pious priests, deacons, monastics, and laity--who, praying and laboring together, incarnate the oneness which our Church on this continent already enjoys. We ask for their prayers and support, as we pledge to work with them for the glory of God and His Holy Church.

---

In theory, the OCA is THE Orthodox Church in America, therefore, by the very nature of the Church, it transcends ethnicity.

Now the history of the OCA, and even in practical terms a majority of the OCA, has a Russian/Rusyn/Carpatho-Russian background to it. However, it also encompasses, at this time, Bulgarians, Romanians, and Albanians within it's canonical protection. (However, admittedly, those same national churches each have Patriarchal represenations in American outside of the OCA.)

(I can hear Alex knocking on my virtual door...)

Priest Thomas

Bless, Father Thomas,

Yes, did you hear that really?

I was only wondering when you were coming up here so I could take you to lunch!

The OCA up here has its ethnic parishes and non-ethnic ones.

My friend, Fr. Geoff Korz, is one happy OCA priest (and a convert from Anglicanism).

It was he that wrote the akathist to the Chinese Orthodox Martyrs of the Boxer Rebellion.

Alex

Alex,

I had an opportunity to go to Mississauga again, but alas, it is during the first week of our Great Fast, so I must be here for the Canon of St. Andrew. I will be at the All American Council in Toronto in July.

Regarding ethnicity, yes, of course, every parish has it's ethnic roots, even our mission parishes in the South! I mean, they have to serve some kind of food at the parish pot-luck!

Priest Thomas

Bless, Father,

Even our Administrator is ethnic, when it comes to food!

Alex

Proposing that perhaps the best route to autocephaly is jurisdictional unity and not the other way around:

The perogative of the Pat. of Constantinople to grant autocephaly (often occurring decades after a Church has self-declared her autocephaly) is an old one and not based soley upon the canon that grants her that specific authority over the "barbarian" lands, at that time, those on the North side of the Danube, largely inhabitted by Germanic peoples.

Archbishop Peter (OCA - Diocese of New York and New Jersey), one of our greatest living canonists, refutes that one may base a universal and absolute authority (of the EP to grant autocephaly) soley upon that specific canon. I would tend to agree with him, although recognizing (as he may or may not) that that specific canon would necessarily help to inform the Church regarding what to do in other cases of a nascent Church amongst peoples who are not members of the Church and in a land not traditionally under any particular jurisdiction (the Americas, Australia, East Asia).

As God gave us brains and hearts, we ought to use them. What would be the logical and charitable thing to do? Perhaps gather with the senior brothers in counsel and prayer in order to allow the Spirit to reveal the path.

Historically, the Church of Russia had the first large numbers of adherents in the North American lands, but never claimed universal jurisdiction there.

[I challenge others to find contemporary letters from Moscow to Constantinople, Athens, Bucharest or other autocephalous Churches protesting their respective efforts to organize their nascent flocks. Some of these flocks, but not all by any stretch of the facts, sought or accepted organization under Moscow. But when they did not, but sought it from their ethnic homeland, did Moscow consistently insist otherwise?]

Later, southern European Orthodox Christians, especially from the balkans, came to outnumber the arrivals from the Russias and were simultaneously organized by their "home" Churches. Again, without significant protest from Moscow.

Thus, the myth that any one jurisdiction ever administered or had clear authority over the Americas is simply not true.

The problems with the granting of autocephaly to the OCA in 1970 are several.

A) It was done without adequate consultation with the other canonical jurisdictions in North America. The then Metropolia (later OCA) had approached the Patriarch of Constantinople asking to come under his jurisdiction, but the response was that such a request would need first be heard in Moscow, as was canonically appropriate.

B) The Tomos of Autocephaly from the Church of Russia recognizes that there are other legitimate canonical jurisdictions in North America and beseeches the OCA to work with them. Thus the autocephaly of 1970 is clearly different from all previous autocephalies in that it does not grant exclusive jurisdiction to the receptor over a territorial area. This complicates and, it could be argued, perpetuates the overlapping of jurisdictions.

C) The autocephaly of 1970 sets the precedent that any autocephalous Church may grant autocephaly to its flock in unorganized or "barbarian" lands. Thus, upon this precedent, the Church of Romania might grant her flock in the Americas autocephaly; likewise the Church of Antioch, the Church of Bulgaria, etc.

Taken to its extreme, the precedent of 1970 could enable the OCA herself to decide to grant autocephaly to one of her flocks, the large Diocese of Alaska, for example.

Then the problem could spread to Australia and East Asia.

In my opinion, the cause of unified jurisdictional autocephaly in any large definable territory, which I support wholeheartedly and which Christians are obligated to support (even if they don't like it) due to the scriptural and canonical basis, would have been better served by a grant of autonomy to ther Metropolia.

At some point, in the scenario that I propose, the various autonomous Churches (OCA, Antiochian) and dependent jurisdictions (Greeks, Ukrainians, CarpathoRussians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Belorussians, and Albanians) would then simultaneously petition their respective synods to come under one jurisdiction either as a unified jurisdiction (Autonomous Church) under the Pat. of Constantinople (whose flock is the largest single component of these groups) or as an Autocephalous Church receiving its autocephaly from the traditional and logical issuer of autocephaly - the Pat. of Constantinople.

I don't for a minute think that we can propose that the overlapping of dioceses would be done away with. These new "barbarian" lands are ethnic quilts unanticipated in the canons and subject to recurring waves of immigration. In other words, there would still be Romanian, Greek, Ukrainian, American, et. al. dioceses, but all of these diocesan bishops would sit on the same Holy Synod and be held accountable to one another.

All easier said than done, but it I think that the model, very similar to what St. Tikhon envisioned and fostered while in the Americas, is worth presenting in this esteemed forum.

With love in Christ,
Andrew

Alex,

If you judge my ethnicity by the food I eat I am Chinese. Especially during the Fast when peanut butter sandwiches become old really fast. Nothing beats �Hunan style garlic mixed vegetables� at the end of a very long day.

Hmm� I just thought of a new creation � a peanut butter and cold slaw sandwich.

Admin

Dear Andrew,

A very good post. Thank you.

In Christ,
Alice