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REFLECTIONS
4.27.09
A Response to Fr. Oliver Herbel
by George C. Michalopulos
Fr Oliver,
Christ is Risen!
I pray that the Paschal season finds you well and that you have recuperated from the most intense liturgical period in our Church’s calendar.
I very much enjoyed your recent letter posted on Ocanews.org. It was informative and game me new insights into our jurisdictional problems. However, I feel that I must disagree with you on several points and perhaps the thrust of your thesis. Please forgive me for any statements that follow that may be considered importunate or disrespectful, I mean no such impertinence.
I will address your assertions seriatim.
To my knowledge, no one has ever said that there was a golden age of unity in North America under the Russian-established archdiocese. It seems to me that in order to make this argument, that you proffer many assertions that are beside the point. For example, you state that the “vision” of persons such as St Innocent and the “circumstances” as found in the actual missionary diocese were different. Yes, so what? I’m sure that there are many bishops in America today who have visions that differ from the circumstances of their diocese. Some want Orthodox hospitals. At present there are none. Just because a visionary ideal has not been met doesn’t make the dioceses any less real.
You then make several points which are contradictory. You state that Archbishop Tikhon Bellavin (r. 1898-1925) “was fully aware that there was not jurisdictional unity and yet he did not treat [Orthodox people who were not under his omorphor] as uncanonical. He wished them the best.” Yes he did, which is why he set up an Arab vicariate and had plans to do so for the Serbs and the Greeks. Why? You yourself answer that question two sentences later: “…in order to bring order to the chaos he saw around him.” Does this not prove the point? That is to say that St Tikhon was the canonical hierarch in North America?
Since when does chaos equal canonicity? Never! This makes a mockery of the words of St Paul who begged for “order” in the Church. Paul realized that anarchy was not reflective of sobriety, discernment, wisdom, charity, and other positive virtues that we associate with Christian order. What sort of Christian witness does jurisdictional anarchy promote? The answer was just as obvious to St Tikhon as it is to us.
You then mischaracterize the mission of Bishop Raphael Hawaweeny as one of “relative independence.” St Raphael was no freebooter who wandered the length and breadth of North America because he had nothing better to do or because he had his own resources. First of all, he was consecrated as bishop in North America by the Russian hierarchs of the native archdiocese. Second, this was done for the express purpose of evangelizing the Syro-Lebanese people wherever he found them. Third, are you aware that because of his fluency in Russian and Greek, he ministered to these immigrants as well? And all at the behest of the Russian archbishop located in New York City.
As for St Tikhon’s awareness that “the Greeks were asking for a bishop from Athens,” this raises several pertinent points. The most obvious one being that there was no Greek bishop in America prior to this time. This leads to several uncomfortable points as well. which bishop blessed the founding of the several Greek parishes already established in the U.S. before this time? If not the Russian bishops, then who? If not blessed, who consecrated them? If not consecrated, then how are their mysteries valid? From where did they get their priests? Which theological schools did they attend? Were these priests canonically ordained? From where did they receive their antimins? You write that Fr Sebastian Dabovich complained to St Tikhon that the Greeks in San Francisco had a “priest and antimins from Greece.” I’m sure that Dabovich was correct about the priest, but did he actually see the antimins himself? Was the bishop who gave this antimins in canonical order? Is the antimins still in existence so we can verify for ourselves its validity?
This is not a trivial matter. Recently, in researching the establishment of parishes in the United States and Canada, a friend contacted Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in New Orleans. As you may know, this was the first Greek parish established in North America. It was founded in 1864, when Louisiana was still officially part of the Confederacy (but was militarily occupied by the Federal forces and thus under martial law). A kindly lady who worked at the church answered as best she could his questions but was unable to tell him anything about its incorporation. When asked if the bishop who blessed its foundation was Greek, she replied that that was not possible as there were no Greek bishops in North America at this time. This was the only thing she could say with certainty. The records of the Metropolia on the other hand, are meticulous in comparison.
Similar to the carefree picture you paint of St Raphael’s supposed indifference to the Russian hierarchy, you state that the “different autocephalous Churches simultaneously viewed their immigrant flocks as missionary outposts in a new land.” This is incorrect on several fronts:
The overwhelming majority of Orthodox immigrants had no intention in staying in America. Over one-third actually did return to their natal places.
The Old World churches had little to no actual interest in evangelism as they had no resources for undertaking missionary programs in North America. (You admit the same later on when you mention the refusal of the Serbian Orthodox Church to send priests to serve their immigrants here when specifically asked to do so by the Russian hierarchy.)
“Missionary outposts” presupposes evangelistic fervor. I think we both can agree that these Old World churches were anything but hotbeds of evangelistic enthusiasm.
Next, you dismiss the revolutionary aspect of Isabel Hapgood’s translation of the Slavonic liturgical texts into English, stating that English was “not the dominant liturgical language.” Nobody every said it was. (It still isn’t in many ethnic jurisdictions here in North America.) Hapgood’s work was revolutionary because Orthodoxy has traditionally been viewed as a hidebound religion, resistant to innovation. Please note that it was only in the Russian Orthodox Church that active translations of liturgies were ongoing for decades prior to Hapgood’s outstanding efforts. St Innocent for example preached and celebrated the services in many Siberian languages as well as in the Alaskan ones. To my knowledge, nowhere else was such an evangelistic endeavor being propagated in Orthodoxy.
In addition, I fear that you create a straw man and an unfortunate rivalry between Ss Tikhon and Raphael. For what purpose I do not know. Certainly no one in the OCA views these two towering figures of evangelism as antagonists. As for the other great English-language enthusiasts –Nicholas Bjerring and Fr Nathaniel Irvine—I can again find no evidence of hostility by the Metropolia then, or the OCA now, towards them and their work. St Alexish Toth likewise did admirable work with the Eastern Catholics by bringing them en masse into the Faith. What is your point? That the OCA has placed St Tikhon alone on a pedestal and that only his accomplishments are noted? Please be aware that both Hawaweeny and Toth have been glorified as saints by the Orthodox Church in America. As for the ideas of Fr Benedict Turkevich, who wanted to resettle these Eastern Catholics in Siberia, I cannot comment.
As for changing the name of the Russian archdiocese and the expansion of the American nation to include California and then later Alaska, this is historical but beside the point. You state that St Tikhon, who was by then Metropolitan of Moscow did “envision…an opportunity to spread Orthodoxy throughout the rest of America…” Is that not a good thing, regardless of whether it was happening or not? It seems to me that you minimize Tikhon’s vision by stating that if it were not for Fr Toth and Mr John Mlinar, who made the overtures to the Russian bishops Vladimir and Nestor to bring in the Eastern Catholics, then Tikhon’s vision would have remained that and nothing more. Perhaps. Both Toth and Mlinar are to be acclaimed for their heroic efforts. This is also a type of evangelism, one that would not have happened if Tikhon had not had the “vision” to “spread Orthodoxy through the rest of America.”
The efforts of Toth and Mlinar perhaps raise the most important question of all: Why did these two men go to Bishops Vladimir and Nestor in the first place? Why did they not go to Istanbul, or Belgrade, or Moscow for that matter? Why did they seek out these local bishops to bless their undertaking? To ask the question is to answer it: it was because even these two Eastern Catholics recognized the permanency and jurisdiction of the Russian mission, no matter how insignificant it was outside of the confines of Alaska and that it was the only canonical Orthodox jurisdiction in North America.
As to the presence of Greek parishes in New York state, my critique remains unanswered. Like the church in New Orleans, I ask again: who blessed their founding? Who consecrated them? From which theological school did they receive their priests? Are the cornerstones observable? Did their priests have antimins? Are they available for examination? Lest anybody think that I have a particular beef against the Greek jurisdiction, I can ask these questions of all other non-Metropolia churches, whether they be Albanian, Bulgarian, Montenegrin, and so on.
A word must be said at this point about the establishment of the non-Russian mission jurisdictions. All of them were created by the Old World patriarchates only after the fall of the Russian Empire and the end of financial support from Moscow. This is uncontroversial but it is indicative of two things: (1) that they did not seek to establish jurisdictions in North America as long as the Russian mission was active and (2) this same Russian mission was supported by resources from Russia. That being said, the establishment of the Greek jurisdiction bears special scrutiny. As is well-known, the notorious Meletius Metaxakis organized it single-handedly without recourse to normal canonical procedures. For one thing, he was expelled from the archiepiscopal throne of Athens (which he had earlier usurped); second he was a Freemason; third, there was no canonical act or order which established this jurisdiction, either in Greece or in America. (In other words, there was no council of at least three bishops which alone could create a new diocese.)
I applaud your other points, especially about the fact that other jurisdictions were open as well to evangelism. But let us be honest, one or two examples of non-Orthodox or even non-whites being brought into the Faith does not indicate evangelistic fervor. To suggest as much would only invite howls of laughter from other Christian denominations who are known for their missionary work.
As to the supposed lack of continuity between the Metropolia and the Russian mission, you insinuate that perhaps it had been broken by the fact that Moscow temporarily suspended communion with it in 1924. You fail to mention that this was the time of the Soviet persecution and that the patriarch of Russia (St Tikhon, the former hierarch of the Russian mission) was imprisoned by the Soviets at this time and died one year later under mysterious circumstances. The reestablishment of the Russian mission in the Aleutians in 1933 was likewise done at the behest of the godless Soviet regime and only for the express purpose of delegitimizing the Metropolia. Why? Because the Metropolia was resolutely anti-Soviet. Also it would be easier for the Soviet regime to seize the properties of the Metropolia if they could get the downtrodden Moscow patriarchate to break off communion with the Metropolia.
In conclusion, I would state that to make the case that the Russian mission was not the only canonical presence in North America to be misleading at best.
Let us recap:
There were no non-Russian bishops in North America prior to 1922 nor were there any non-Russian exarchates, dioceses, eparchies, or jurisdictions on this continent before this time. This bears repeating: all ethnic jurisdictions were created after the Bolshevik revolution.
The only non-Russian bishop before this time was consecrated by the Russian hierarchy in New York.
All non-Russian mission churches established outside of the Russian mission before this time therefore are under a canonical cloud. The present trustees of these parishes cannot (or will not) produce their letters of incorporation, dates of consecration, identify the relics (if any) they possess, etc.
The creation of the ethnic jurisdictions appears to have been ad hoc. Which council of at least three bishops established them? The creation of the Greek archdiocese by the exiled Archbishop of Athens appears to have been the single-handed creation of one man who himself was under a canonical and ethnical cloud.
It is only by tortuous reasoning that the case can be made that the Metropolia was created de novo in 1924 and that it was not continuous with the original Russian mission. To believe so, one would have to accept the Soviet view of history and give assent to the machinations of this godless regime.
In conclusion, I believe that in order to justify the position of those who are uncomfortable with the OCA’s primacy, you employ several curious arguments that are either non-germane, inaccurate, or propagandistic. Most troubling of all, you try to belittle the Russian mission’s efforts at evangelism by justifying the chaotic nature of nineteenth century American Orthodoxy. I realize you probably do so in a spirit of charity in that you don’t want to delegitimize all other evangelistic efforts and thereby cast aspersions on the canonicity, orders, and mysteries that were part of the non-Russian mission experience.
Unfortunately, in doing so, you justify the present anarchy. Quite simply, if the anarchy of the past is ecclesiastically meritorious, then there is absolutely no need at all to rectify the present chaos. In short, we can happily go along our merry way establishing competing missions, “poaching” each others’ flocks, jurisdiction-jumping to find the “right” bishop which will sanctify our sinful proclivities, and continue to present a morally and theologically ambiguous face to those who are seriously considering joining the Ark of Salvation. Rather than an ark however, we would be presenting various lifeboats, some more resolute than others and leave it up to sinful people in needs of God’s mercy to decide for themselves which is the “authentic” lifeboat.
In Christ,
George C. Michalopulos
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"Merely” Bishops?
by a life-long member of the Antiochian Archdiocese
One of the aspects of the crisis created by the Synod of Antioch’s February 24 decision, and Metropolitan Philip’s implementation of same, is what it seems to imply about the Antiochian Church’s operative understanding of the episcopacy and its role in the polity and administration of the Church.
In Metropolitan Philip’s letter, dated February 26, 2009, announcing the Synodal decision, he notes that the changes in the Patriarchal by-laws applied to “all bishops within the See of Antioch” (emphasis in the original). I, for one, was a bit confused at first. After all, aren’t metropolitans also (or first?) bishops?
In reading through the Articles and all of Metropolitan Philip’s communiqués on this topic, my confusion disappeared and my consternation increased. Why? Because it is very clear, that in the Patriarchate of Antioch the only true bishops are the Patriarch and the Metropolitans. These decisions also de facto do away with the concept of the diocese in favor of the archdiocese.
Many of the archdioceses of the Patriarch are geographically small, and/or have relatively few parishes. If the metropolitan needs an auxiliary bishop due to advancing age or large numbers of parishes, this kind of system make some sense. As applied to an archdiocese that encompasses all of Canada and the U.S. with over 250 parishes, the model becomes cumbersome. This is why it made so much sense to create dioceses within the North American Archdiocese and install diocesan bishops. The creation of an Archdiocesan Synod to deal with the internal matters of the AOCA had as its purpose to maintain its unity. The continuing membership of the Metropolitan on the Holy Synod of Antioch guaranteed our connection with the world-wide Orthodox Church (until the looked for day when an all-inclusive autocephalous or autonomous local church arrived).
Now, in spite of what the Metropolitan asserts, this concept (and the Constitution that defined it) has been overturned, and one metropolitan now has six auxiliary bishops, with rumors that two more will be added in the non-too distant future. His Eminence is quoted as having once said, “Priests do not make policy, only bishops.”
Apparently now (mere) bishops do not make policy, only metropolitans.
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Jurisdictional Disunity and the Russian Mission
After thinking and praying about some of the discussion on OCANews about the history of Orthodoxy in America, I decided to present an overview of the history of the Russian Mission in order to show that we should be careful about the claims we make based on that history. Specifically, I wish to address the misconception that the presence of the Russian Mission on the North American continent precludes the canonical presence of any other jurisdiction in North America. Often this belief is paired with a belief in Orthodox unity prior to the Russian Revolution, a simplistic view unsustained by the actual history of the Russian Mission itself. Typically, this is argued in response to the manner in which the Ecumenical Patriarchate interprets Chalcedon canon twenty-eight, in order to argue for the right to oversee Orthodox Christians in the New World, but I will not argue for such a misapplication of the canon. I do not think we should place our hope in either error (that from history or that from the canon). I realize that some may be concerned about the upcoming meeting in Constantinople in June and where that will leave the OCA in relation to worldwide Orthodoxy, but I do not think it is healthy in the long-run to base our position on a faulty argument from history.
It is correct that Russia established a diocese on North American soil. In 1840, St. Innocent (1797-1879) became the bishop of Kamchatka and the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, the latter of which are on North American territory. A separate diocese for The Aleutian Islands and Alaska was later formed and moved to San Francisco (1870, officially by 1872) and later renamed and moved to New York (permission granted to do so in 1904), being known as the diocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America.
When discussing the history of this expanding diocese, however, we must distinguish between a vision promoted by a person or persons within this diocese and the actual context of such a visionary. A vision is something someone has because he or she is looking ahead. A vision is not something like the Encyclopedia Britannica, where we record current facts. I am not using such an analogy to offend the intelligence of the reader but only to show very bluntly and clearly that there is a big difference between current circumstances and someone’s vision. We need to keep this in mind, even when we speak of the vision of St. Tikhon (1865-1925), who oversaw the Russian Mission from 1898 to 1907. He was fully aware that there was not jurisdictional unity and yet he did not treat such people as uncanonical. He wished them the best. One easily attested example of this occurred in 1903 when Fr. Sebastian Dabovich (1863-1940) informed him of the Greeks in San Francisco having a priest and antimins from Greece. He wanted Russia to establish an autonomous diocese, perhaps with autocephalous-like powers, in order to bring order to the chaos he saw around him.
Furthermore, in the report to the Holy Synod of Russia, which was published in November 1905 and in which St. Tikhon proposed an autonomous diocese, he was simply making a proposal, hoping to address what he saw happening. Nowhere in that report to the Synod of Russia did he treat the Orthodox who were not part of the Russian Mission as schismatics, or uncanonical. He did not complain about foreign bishops adversely affecting his own ecclesiastical prerogatives. He was aware of the relative independence of St. Raphael (1860-1915), who was the bishop of Brooklyn from 1904 until his death in 1915, and oversaw the Syro-Arab community. St. Tikhon also explicitly noted that the Greeks were asking for a bishop from Athens. Tikhon was optimistic and considered it possible that America could become an exarchate of national churches. He did not claim such was already the case. What Tikhon was attempting to do was create canonical order out of a non-canonical situation. For possibly the first time in the history of the Church, several different autocephalous Churches simultaneously viewed their immigrant flocks as missionary outposts in a new land.
As an aside, the issue of the use of English in Orthodoxy is sometimes raised as part of St. Tikhon’s vision for America. Even if one considers the translation work of Isabel Hapgood, however, we are left admitting that St. Tikhon’s vision was good but English was not the dominant liturgical language. That was something for future generations to achieve.
As important as St. Tikhon was and still is for Orthodoxy in America, we often treat him as though he were the only visionary or that all other visions are to be subsumed under his. Why is this? Is it because we fear that if we let St. Raphael step forward as a visionary, we would learn that he considered himself the head of a diocese that was somewhat beholden to both the Russian Mission and Antioch?
Or, let’s take another visionary, one not as well known: Nicholas Bjerring (1831-1900). I’ll mention Bjerring later for other reasons, but I raise him now because he published English translations of liturgical texts. He had converted in 1870 and established an Orthodox chapel in New York later that year (after spending a short amount of time in St. Petersburg earning a doctorate and getting ordained). He was the first convert-priest for the Orthodox Church in the New World and published many English translations of liturgical services. In this way, he envisioned an English-speaking Orthodoxy that could relate to the American setting. Ironically, his translations were hardly used (if ever at all) beyond his own chapel. I have not yet found anyone later in American Orthodox Church history who credits him and his translations (though I’d be greatly obliged if someone were to correct me with an exception or two).
Or, let’s take Fr. Nathaniel (Ingram Nathaniel Washington) Irvine (1849-1921), a Protestant Episcopal convert in 1905. Upon ordination, he headed an English department at St. Nicholas Cathedral and in 1909, petitioned to have an English language chapel. He was finally granted that in 1920. Both Bjerring and Irvine were visionaries with respect to the use of the English language in worship but the reality of their times was not what their vision entailed.
We might even think of St. Alexis Toth (1853-1909), and remember that he was a Russophile and helped establish Russian language schools for parishes. The Eastern Catholics were the main focus of evangelism for the Russian Mission early on, not the surrounding Americans who were already established in the New World. In fact, Fr. Benedict Turkevich (1873-1928), brother to Fr. Leonid Turkevich (1876-1965), the future Metropolitan LEONTY, thought the converted Eastern Catholics should leave America and help settle Siberia, the settlement of which Russia was actively promoting at the time. The Russian Mission had not yet fully expanded her view of the evangelical potential in America.
Visions are one thing. Certainly, the visions of St. Tikhon, Fr. Nathaniel Irvine, and Nicholas Bjerring on the issues of an autonomous diocese and the use of the English language are ones we would still promote to this day. As forward looking as these visions may have been, they were not the only visions and were responding to the surrounding reality, not reflecting it. So, we need to remember that visions are responses to one’s context, not a direct reflection of what one’s context actually is.
As important as it is to distinguish between the vision and the actual context of the visionary, history allows us to go further and state that the establishment of a diocese on North American soil did not necessarily create sacramental and administrative unity for any and all Orthodox people living in North America. Under proper, canonical procedures, one would hope that would be the case, but the American context did not present that.
Even the territory claimed in the name of the Russian missionary diocese expanded and changed over time. We need to remember that initially, the territorial denotation of the diocesan name was Irkutsk and the Kurile and Aleutian Islands. That was in 1840. Alaska was still part of Russia at this time. Alaska was sold to America in 1867 and there was no doubt that the Russian Orthodox Church was the Orthodox Church in Alaska. The treaty made that clear as did the continuation of the diocese. The diocese did move to San Francisco, a move completed and approved by 1872. It had already been renamed in 1870, when the diocese became called the diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. St. Innocent, Metropolitan of Moscow by this time, did envision this as an opportunity to spread Orthodoxy throughout the rest of America, but that was his vision, not what was actually yet happening and not a claim denoted by the diocese’s name.
At this juncture, it is worth asking: how many parishes in what are now called the lower forty-eight states were in the Russian Mission prior to St. Alexis Toth and John Mlinar, one of Toth’s parishioners, seeking out Bishop Vladimir beginning in December, 1890? One. Ft. Ross, which had never been anything more than an outpost chapel, had been abandoned in 1841. By the time John Mlinar visited Bishop Vladimir (bishop from 1888 to 1891), the Russian Mission had had Bishop John (1870-1876) and Bishop Nestor (1879-1882). Bishop Nestor spent most of his time in Alaska even though the diocesan seat was in San Francisco. Bishop Vladimir set liturgical compositions to English and Fr. Sebastian Dabovich preached homilies in English, but the Russian Mission’s presence outside of Alaska before St. Alexis Toth’s conversion was really no more than the cathedral in San Francisco.
What had happened to Nicholas Bjerring’s chapel in New York? Well, in 1883, the chapel was closed and Bjerring was offered a teaching position at St. Petersburg Academy. He declined, though, became a Presbyterian, and then died a Roman Catholic layman, which is what he had been prior to becoming Orthodox. The Russian Mission had established a chapel to New York but it was closed only thirteen years later. For a diocese that only designated the territory of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, this might not seem like a big deal, but it is a small fact we should keep in mind when considering the ecclesiastical prerogatives of the Russian Mission at the time. It must also be noted that the purpose of Bjerring’s mission was not to evangelize fellow Americans. Bjerring actually publicly discouraged visitors through newspapers at the time and noted that the chapel’s main purposes were to serve the Russian Orthodox in New York and foster good relations with the Protestant Episcopal Church in order to assist in uniting the Episcopal and Orthodox Churches.
There was a Greek Orthodox parish in New Orleans from the 1860s and in the early 1890s, before the Russian Mission returned to New York, Greek parishes were established in New York. For this reason, we need to be very careful with both the “who was in America first” argument and the argument that might claim “there was a diocese on the continent dedicated to evangelizing the whole continent and, therefore, all Orthodox anywhere on the continent were to be subject to that diocese.”
Also, we would do well not to mischaracterize the Greek Orthodox presence. Early on, the Greeks were willing to be open to those who were non-Greek. In one case, Robert Josias Morgan (ca. 1869-1916), a Jamaican from Philadelphia, was ordained in Constantinople in 1907 and later in 1911 tonsured in Athens as Fr. Raphael. He was commissioned to evangelize fellow African Americans. He does not seem to have been successful, but one should not think that only people in the Russian Mission were capable of envisioning the spread of Orthodoxy.
The case of the Serbs and Montenegrins also does not entirely support the idea of early jurisdictional unity despite Fr. Sebastian Dabovich’s efforts on behalf of the Russian Mission. In 1897, Bishop Nicholas and Fr. Sebastian asked the Serbian Orthodox Church to oversee the Serbs in America. The request was refused not because of concerns for Russian diocesan authority over North America, but because the Serbian Orthodox Church could not sustain the infrastructure at that time. Despite this, Serbian parishes would seek Serbian clergy from Serbia under the supervision of Serbian bishops and in 1913, they pursued the logical conclusion of such autonomy and appealed again to the Serbian Orthodox Church for a bishop.
In addition, the continuity between the Russian Mission and the Metropolia did not remain so neat and tidy in the aftermath of the revolution. In 1924, the former Russian Mission declared itself self-governing, thus becoming known as the Metropolia. Moscow, however, cut off communion, and in 1933 re-established the diocese of the Aleutians and North America under Bishop Benjamin.
It is unfair to discount the perceptions others would have had about the status of the Metropolia based on Moscow’s own actions in 1933. Even for those who accepted the idea of pre-Revolutionary unity under the Russian Mission, the recreation of the diocese in 1933 could affect perceptions. The notion that all Orthodox were united under the Russian Mission before the Russian Revolution was first publicly expressed in writing in 1927 by Fr. Boris Burden (1898-1973), an Episcopal convert. At that time, Burden was part of an attempt to create a single jurisdiction, known as the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church of North America, under Archbishop Aftimios, St. Raphael’s successor. In the jurisdiction’s journal, Orthodox Catholic Review, Burden argued that all jurisdictions were under the Russian Orthodox Church prior to the Russian Revolution. Therefore, in keeping with the rift at the time, he considered the Russian Church Abroad, aka Karlovtsy Synod, schismatic. By 1933, however, the attempt at creating a unified jurisdiction had failed miserably and Fr. Boris Burden joined the recreated diocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America in 1933 under Bishop Benjamin. At this time, Burden, the first to claim publicly in writing that there had been pre-Revolutionary unity, considered the Metropolia schismatic.
Based on all of this, there are a few things the historical evidence does not allow us to claim. We cannot reasonably uphold a simplistic view of unity, whereby we claim that everyone (or nearly everyone) was under the jurisdiction of the Russian Mission. By the time the Russian Mission did return to New York and claimed (at least in name) to be a diocese of all of North America, the immigration floodgates had opened. By about 1906 and certainly by the time of revolution itself, approximately half of the Orthodox population did not fall under the auspices of the Russian Mission. Further, we cannot claim that the Russian missionary diocese saw itself as the normative diocese for all Orthodox Christians before the 1904-5 move to New York under St. Tikhon. Even then, St. Tikhon himself realized he was trying to make the best of an exceptional situation. The Serbs maintained ecclesiastical ties to the Serbian Orthodox Church and early on, Bishop Nicholas supported their attempt to create an official Serbian presence separate from the oversight of the Russian Mission.
I believe an honest look at the history should cause those of us in the OCA to be humbler in how we state our claims. To call the other jurisdictions uncanonical is unfair in light of the complicated history of the Russian Mission. Such an argument risks being heard and read as nothing short of inflammatory and should that happen, we are likely to hinder the kind of dialogue many of us would wish to see in order to obtain a united American Orthodox Church.
The reality is that America was a place in which Orthodox Christians of different communities formed their Churches and have had to begin working toward unity. That work has been ongoing. It was attempted with the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church of North America in 1927 and later with the Federated Orthodox Greek Catholic Primary Jurisdictions in America in 1943. More recently, SCOBA established itself and pan-Orthodox services and ministries have increased. It may not be as romantic to think of ourselves as a group of separate clusters working toward the goal of full administrative unity, but I think it is more truthful with respect to the history of the Churches in North America and less divisive in spirit. Perhaps such a reconception of American Orthodoxy could help us break the gridlock between a misinterpretation of Chalcedon twenty-eight and a misguided perspective on the history of the Russian Mission in North America.
May the Lord grant us the spirit of humility so that someday we all may be able to cry aloud together as a single, fully united American Orthodox Church:
Christ is risen!
-- Fr. Oliver Herbel
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