Orthodox Church

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.

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Fr. Thomas Hopko, an advisor to AOI, delivered an address in late September for the 40th Anniversary of the Consecration of the Chapel at the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration, a monastery for women in Ellwood City, Pa.

Fr. Tom observes that while a “sprinkling” of Orthodox Christians in academic circles have been known to the wider American public, “hardly any other practicing Orthodox Christian has been publicly recognizable in American society in the past forty years.” Among the clergy, the late Archbishop Iakovos is singled out for social witness in the civil rights movement. “Things are not much different today,” Fr. Tom says. “But there are some notable exceptions.”

He opens with a sobering assessment and then explores the accomplishments of the Church in recent decades:

A Spiritual Springtime for American Orthodoxy — Reflections on the last 40 Years

Membership in the Orthodox churches in North America in the past forty years has radically decreased. There are probably about half as many people in the churches today as there were four decades ago. It also seems that most adults who attend services in Orthodox churches today are “holding the form” of Orthodox Christianity while “denying the power of it” (2 Tim 3.5) as they ‘pursue happiness” according to “the American dream” as devotees of “the American way of life.”

Concerning the churches’ clergy during the past forty years, I believe that the task of finding, educating, appointing and supporting suitable candidates for the clergy, especially the episcopate, remains the greatest challenge in all Orthodox churches in North America today just as it was four decades ago when (as my friend, the late Fr. John Psinka would say), “few were called and all were chosen.”

Having stated the “negatives” — greatly reduced membership, inept leadership, nominal participation and widespread use of the church for secular purposes – the spiritual achievements in North American Orthodoxy during the past forty years are amazingly many and spectacularly significant. They were accomplished by a relatively small number of people, mostly converts to the Faith, people born abroad and clergy children. They are so remarkable that I am persuaded to call the past forty years a “spiritual springtime” for Orthodoxy in the United States and Canada.

I will comment on the accomplishments as I see them. They are not yet a bountiful “blossoming.” But they are a promising “planting” capable of producing, in due time, a rich harvest of spiritual fruits, including, we may hope, a company of committed and competent bishops, priests, deacons, monastics, church workers and lay leaders for the coming generations.

Read the full address on the Web site of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.

The Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute, based in Berkeley, Calif., has released what it is calling “the first national survey based study of the laity, ordinary church members, in the two largest Orthodox Churches in the United States: the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOA) and the Orthodox Church in America (OCA).”

To a significant degree, PAOI said, the study reflects the profile of an entire Orthodox community in the United States.

“The Orthodox Church Today” study addressed four broad questions:

— What is the “image” of the Orthodox clergy in the eyes of the “people in the pews?”
— To what extent do the social and religious attitudes of the ordinary parishioners reflect those of their parish priests?
— What do church members think about patterns of Church life in their local parishes?
— What do laity think about various issues dealing with “Democracy and Pluralism in the chirch,” “Changes and Innovations in the Church,” and “religious “Particularism’ and Ecumenism?”

PAOI also compared Orthodox Church life to Roman Catholic and various Protestant Churches in the United States.

From the highlights summary:

1) The common stereotype is that the Orthodox Churches in the USA are “ethnic” Churches of certain immigrant communities. The study shows that this not the case anymore. Nine out of ten parishioners in both GOA and OCA are American-born. Further, today, more than one-quarter (29%) of the GOA and a majority of OCA (51%) members are converts to Orthodoxy – persons born and raised either Protestants or Roman Catholics.

2) Not all Orthodox are equally “Orthodox.” The study found that the gaps between the “left” and the “right” wings in American Orthodoxy are wide and that American Orthodox Christians are deeply divided among themselves in their personal “micro-theologies.” Answering the question “When you think about your theological position and approach to church life, which word best describes where you stand?” the relative majority (41%) of church members preferred to be in the safe “middle” and described their theological stance and approach to church life as “traditional.” At the same time, quite sizeable factions identified themselves as
being either “conservative” (28%) or “moderate-liberal” (31%).
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Leaders of the world’s Orthodox churches released a joint statement that touched on far ranging issues of interest to the Church, including the global economic crisis, the environment and the prospects for further pan-Orthodox consultations and a Holy and Great Council.

The primates were gathered for the Oct. 10-12 Synaxis of the Heads of the Orthodox Churches and Pauline Symposium at the Patriarchal Cathedral of Saint George in Istanbul, Turkey. His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I addressed the gathering on Oct. 10, saying that “such a Synaxis is deemed necessary and beneficial, especially in times like ours, when the personal encounter and conversation among responsible leaders in all public domains of human life is rendered increasingly accessible and essential.”

The Message from the Primates, posted on the Europaica site, also pointedly affirmed the Church’s role in the social sphere.

“Efforts to distance religion from societal life constitute the common tendency of many modern states,” the primates said. “The principle of a secular state can be preserved; however, it is unacceptable to interpret this principle as a radical marginalization of religion from all spheres of public life.”

The complete Message of the Primates follows:
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George C. Michalopulos has submitted the following in response to Harry Katopodis’ article on Orthodox Dominionists. Michalopulos is co-author, with Herb Ham, of “The American Orthodox Church — A History of its Beginnings” (Regina Orthodox Press).

Michalopulos:

It never ceases to amaze me how certain benighted and theologically inept individuals take upon themselves the task of speaking for Christ’s Church as it traverses on its voyage through history. One such individual fears that the so-called religious right has made inroads into the Orthodox Church in North America, and that it is only because of noble souls such as himself that tolerance can only be found in one remaining bastion, i.e. the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

And of what is Katapodis afraid? In no particular order: converts, “theocons,” non-GOAA bishops, and the rising tide of pro-lifers within American Orthodoxy.

The ridiculousness does not end there. In order to buttress this foolish argument, Katapodis creates a straw man –the dreaded “Dominionist theologian.” This phantom has under guise of conversion to Orthodoxy taken over the Antiochian Archdiocese and the Orthodox Church in America. Instead of what actually happened –sincere converts of all political ideologies embracing the Ark of Salvation—he sees instead a nefarious descent along a rightward political path.
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