American Orthodox

Reflections on the American Orthodox experience by foreign leaders are often interesting. Sometimes they are even insightful. That’s what we see in the recent interview with Bp. Hilarion of Vienna and Austria conducted by Dr. Peter Bouteneff, Associate Professor of Dogmatic Theology at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York. Discussion ranged from the American jurisdictional divisions, proper ecclesiology, the failure of ecumenical initiatives, to Bp. Hilarion’s musical compositions (The Passion of St. Matthew).

Some highlights:

Your Grace, as an archpastor and scholar, with experience both within the Moscow Patriarchate and globally, you have reflected on a vast array of topics, many of which are now of key importance to us in the Orthodox Church in America as we prepare to meet in council and elect a new primate. While we in America reflect on the origins of our autocephaly, the recent scandal in our Church, and the challenges we face, how do you see a way forward for us?

I find it helpful here to recall the history of more than two centuries of Orthodox presence in North America. Orthodoxy came to North America from Russia through Alaska (which, as Governor Sarah Palin has recently reminded us, is “sort of near the eastern border of Russia”). The roots of Orthodoxy in North America lie with St. Herman of Alaska, who came to Alaska in 1794 and spent more than 40 years there, and St. Innocent (Veniaminov), the future metropolitan of Moscow. In 1872, five years after the sale of Alaska to America, the see of the Russian bishop was transferred to San Francisco. From 1898 to 1907 St. Tikhon, future Patriarch of Russia, governed the diocese. It was he who organized the all-American council of 1907, which renamed the diocese as the “Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America.” Thus began the future autocephalous American Orthodox Church.

Continue reading →

A new American Orthodoxy, one more vitalized by the Gospel, is taking shape now. There will be fewer parishes, more and younger bishops, a clergy that is better educated and morally rigorous. And, finally, the ethnic “coffee club” model of Orthodox Christianity will fade away. This is the vision of Fr. John A. Peck in “The Orthodox Church of Tomorrow,” just published on the AOI site.

“As frightening and disconcerting as it may seem to our leaders, they will learn that emerging from a cocoon, even a Byzantine cocoon, is not a bad thing,” Fr. John writes. “Orthodoxy is about to take flight on new beautiful wings.

Here he is on the future of the hierarchy in America:

If our current slate of bishops has been mostly a disappointment, reducing their number will only tighten this closed circle, making the hierarchy less and less accessible, and more and more immune to things like, oh, the needs and concerns of their flock. The process of selection for the episcopacy will contain a far more thorough investigation, and men with active homosexual tendencies, psychological problems, insecurities, or addictions will simply not make the cut. We aren’t far from open persecution of Christians by secularists in this country, and we need bishops who know the score. With better bishops, no one will be able to ‘buy’ a priest out of a parish with a gift of cash. Conversely, parish councils will no longer be able to bully priests into staying out of their affairs, and will be required to get out of the restaurant/festival business and get into the soul saving business.