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By St. Andrew House, Center for Orthodox Christian Studies
www.standrewhouse.com
Board of Directors: Steve Lionas, Dean Calvert, Myke Jacobs, Warren David
Visit the St. Andrew House “Orthodox Episcopal Assembly” on Facebook
Sixteen years ago the bishops of the various jurisdictions of the Orthodox Churches in America met in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, to map out the road to a unified American Orthodox Church. Call it the “Ligonier Council” — the First Council of Orthodox Bishops in America.
The air was electric. Called by the two towering leaders of Orthodoxy in America — Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Church (GOA) and Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochian Church (AOCA) and courageously supported by representatives of Romanian, Serbian and Bulgarian jurisdictions, the bishops resolved to tackle head-on the vexing problems of Orthodox jurisdictional disunity in America. The Church in America had turned a corner.
It was not to last. The news upset many of the Old World patriarchates. Perhaps they saw the attempt at unity as moving too fast. Or maybe they didn’t understand the American “can-do” spirit and our native impatience with progress that moves too slowly.
Reaction against Ligonier was swift and the Ecumenical Patriarch took the lead in reversing it. The message was unequivocal: There will be no independent and autocephalous American Orthodox Church.
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