[Army Air Corps]

I honestly believe that the interests of all the Orthodox churches in the Old Countries would be better served by the United States having a single Orthodox Church that could speak on their behalf.

Are you speaking of a single representative church from the Old Countries operating here or a single church in the US operating in the Old Countries. If the later case is what you mean, then isn't that what the Orthodox Church in America is?

[The_Reader_David]

I mean a single local Orthodox Church within the bounds of the U.S., the same way there is a single local Orthodox Church in Greece, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, Japan,... (okay leaving aside representation churches of other local Orthodox churches in the capital where the country’s chief Orthodox hierarch, be he called “Patriarch”, “Archbishop” or “Catholicos” has his seat), whether it’s autocephalous or autonomous — if it’s the latter, I’d prefer autonomy under Moscow to autonomy under Constantinople.

That’s what the OCA was meant to be, but it isn’t. We still have the Greek Archdiocese, ROCOR, the Antiochian Archdiocese,... (basically colonies of every Old Country autocephalous church except the Patriarchate of Alexandria — yes, there are even Jerusalem Patriarchate parishes, although blessedly no bishops subject to Jerusalem, thanks to the perpetual snit between Greek-dominated Jerusalem and Arab-dominated Antioch).

Personally, I’d like to see everyone become part of the OCA, the Metropolitan step down, and a new election for a chief hierarch (who would almost certainly be one of the current bishops of the Greek Archdiocese — though there’s a slim chance a unified American Holy Synod would give the nod to Bishop +BASIL).