Posted on 11/19/2005 12:37:40 AM PST by Queen Beruthiel
July, 2005 was a turning point for the Orthodox Christian Church in North America. It was the time when two independent self governing Orthodox Christian Church bodies in North America, the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America (OCA) and the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christain Archdiocese of North America, met with the clergy and lay leaders of the parishes throughout the Americas. In a conciliar manner, hierarchy, clergy and laity reasoned together to make decisions for the good order of their respective bodies, so they could move forward to face the challenges of the 21st century. The OCA meeting took place in Toronto, Canada July 17-22, 2005 and the Antiochian meeting took place in Dearborn, Michigan July 24-31, 2005.
Both groups realize that they are at a crossroads and that bold thinking and actions are needed to meet the needs of the People of God. The theme of the OCA meeting was “Our Church and the Future” and the theme of the Antiochian meeting was “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” (Romans 12:2) These two themes interrelate as Father Thomas Hopko, Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary, pointed out. We are transformed by trusting in God and through God all things are possible. If we are conformed to the world and seek prosperity, possessions, position, popularity and prestige for the Church we will have no future. All Orthodox jurisdictions must die in Christ so that they can be resurrected in Unity and the Church can witness to Christ and make disciples of the people who live in the Americas. This is the mission of the Church and it can be best accomplished in Unity.
Although both meetings were held separately there were common elements and themes that both assemblies must address in order to move ahead to meet the spiritual needs of the faithful. One priority was Orthodox Christian Unity in North America and another was Evangelization. His Beatitude Herman, Archbishop of New York and Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada, addressed the topic of Unity in an eloquent and direct address to all delegates, observers and visitors in his banquet remarks. Metropolitan Philip, Primate of the Antiochian Archdiocese, devoted his keynote address to the topic of unity. Both leaders see Unity as necessary and part of the good order of the Church in the Americas. OCL will post the text of both speeches on its web site www.ocl.org when they are made available.
The faithful clergy and laity of both assemblies are ready to work together in Unity to do the work of the Church which is to keep the faith as it has been handed to us at this time and place by the apostles and church fathers and to share the faith with all those who seek to become Orthodox Christians. The clergy and laity of both bodies share this commitment to Orthodox administrative Unity. They are willing to give up what needs to be given up to accomplish this task. The delegates to the Antiochian Archdiocese meeting voted a strong resolution directed at SCOBA to move ahead to make Unity a reality. The full text is printed for your consideration.
A highlight of the OCA meeting was the panel discussion on Orthodox Relations which featured a video presentation by His Grace Bishop Basil of Wichita of the Antiochian Archdiocese. He called for the re-establishment of a bilateral commission between the OCA and the Antiochian Archdiocese on topics of mutual concern. He received an extended standing ovation. People applauded this concrete proposal.
Other concrete options that the clergy and laity suggested in informal gatherings related to Unity included:
Asking the two primates Metropolitans Herman and Philip to appoint two bishops from their archdioceses to meet together to discuss how the two archdioceses can work together to address mutual concerns.
Setting up a meeting between Metropolitan Philip and Metropolitan Herman so that they can sit down together and talk directly about their mutual interest in jurisdictional Unity as part of the good order of the church. Father Leonid Kishkovsky stressed the importance of direct contact Metropolitan to Metropolitan in External Affairs and many saw the wisdom of these interactions and wondered why there is such little eye to eye contact between the hierarchies in the Americas. A meeting with Metropolitan Herman and Metropolitan Philip would be a very meaningful concrete first step to jump start the movement toward administrative Unity.
Establishing a new organization of all the canonical heads of jurisdictions to replace SCOBA. Those left out of the SCOBA meetings would be able to participate.
There is a consensus among the faithful People of God in both jurisdictions that the OCA and Antiochians share enough mutual interests that they should move ahead. They cannot wait for all jurisdictions to join together at the same time. Some jurisdictions are not ready. Move ahead with those who are ready and in time the others will follow because they will have no choice. Most of the faithful believe that the OCA must take the leadership role in moving ahead on Unity because they are the local Church in the Americas by the fact of their Autocephaly.
The second common element of both meetings is the commitment of both assemblies to Evangelization. For hundreds of years Orthodox Christians couldn’t even talk about their faith for fear of having their tongues cut out or face other reprisals. The Church and its people were in captivity in Moslem or Communist lands. But today in America they are free to speak and write about the ancient apostolic Orthodox Christian faith. In America people are looking for the ancient faith and they are finding and choosing to become Orthodox Christians. They are flocking to both of these bodies through their well developed programs in Evangelization. So much more could be accomplished if they did this work of the Great Commission together! Here is the perfect bilateral program to further develop.
Two other highlights that I observed worth noting are that the Council Study Papers sent to the delegates and observers of the OCA meeting were excellent and applicable to all Orthodox jurisdictions not only the OCA. The lectures and panel discussions and the process involving all the participants to solicit their input on each priority were well organized and involved everyone. All the steps were designed to get input and create the vision for the OCA for the next ten years.
The outstanding Antiochian Camp and Youth and Young Adult Programs were presented by gifted and spirited young people. As faithful stewards we must guide our youth so that they can pass down Orthodoxy to the next generation. As a United Orthodox Christian Church in North America all our youth could have opportunities to participate in the excellent programs. There would be no jurisdictional barriers. The youth are ahead of us and inter-Orthodox programs such as OCMC, IOCC and OCF have broken down jurisdictional barriers. Both conventions were well attended by youth and they participated in all aspects of the meetings.
The holy services of daily Divine Liturgies and Vespers were holy occasions for the participants to reflect upon the work that they were doing each day. The Holy Spirit was truly guiding these two proceedings involving collectively over 3500 Church leaders. The people of God are ready to work toward building a United Orthodox Christian Church in North America. We call on the hierarchy to lead!
*** Observations submitted by George Matsoukas, Executive Director of Orthodox Christian Laity, an independent movement of Church Faithful dedicated to the formation of a United and Self Governed Orthodox Church in North America.
"No different than all the "monarchies" in the world: we have "petit" princes such as those in Monaco, Luxemburg and Linchenstein, and big kings and queens of Old Europe, such as Britain, Spain, and the Scandiavian countries; and then you have a "real" emperor in Japan. But they all share one and the same characteristic -- they have no real power and are just stupid and expensive titles. But a few lucky ones live quite well off ot them."
When you and I meet in Greece I want you to give that lecture to my monarchist relatives. Maybe they'll listen to you. They sure won't listen to me! :)
We actually do travel to more distant church because of the Russian elements there...
There is an Antiochian church nearer to us, though (20 minutes vs 45).
In America I don't think that the various groups started out of arrogance I think they started out of ignorance of the existance of the others.
The exception being the OCA and ROCOR, and I don't think that was purely arrogance on either side either. A big part of ROCOR's separatist attitude was dislike for communism where churches were being used to spy for the KGB and keep people in line. I don't think fear of associating with that is arrogant.
"We actually do travel to more distant church because of the Russian elements there...
There is an Antiochian church nearer to us, though (20 minutes vs 45)."
That figures. Your wife is Russian. If I were a Greek from the old country and my parish wasn't Greek, I might well travel too. In my state we have six Orthodox parishes, four Greek, one ROCOR and one relatively new Serbian parish without, so far as I know, a fulltime priest. Since I live about 2 miles from my Greek parish, there's little incentive to travel. The ROCOR parish is about 30 miles away and is, I think about 95% convert and very, very small, most of the area Russians having either died out, moved away or switched over to our parish for reasons sufficient to them. The Serb Church is about one hour away to the south. I've been there in the past with a Serbian friend who used to live here. Its a marvelous community with a beautiful liturgy but the people are all recent immigrants and speak very, very little English so without my buddy with me (my Serbian is very limited) I'm sort of lost when it comes to interacting with the people after Liturgy.
Church Slavonic was never anyone's "native tongue." It is a liturgical language based on Old Slavonic dialect. I personally prefer Church Slavonic, but outside of the Russian Church even the Serbs have recently started to use modern Serbian vernacular (except for prayers) which sounds odd and clumsy compared to the seamlessness and incredible phonics of the Church Slavonic.
Slavonic is the language of Slavic Churches, and it is not even limited to Orthodoxy. Carpatho-Russian Uniate Catholics still use it, and Croatian Catholic parishes used Slavonic for centuries over Latin.
Slavonic does not define any particular Slavic ethnicity -- no Slavic tribe can claim it as exclusively belonging to it.
It is as much Serbian, Bulgarian as it is Russian. It's our common language and it makes your liturgy intelligible to me as much as my liturgy to you.
It's a preference of eastern Orthodox Slavs, especially for people who don't speak any other language as well as their own, and most immigrant communities are that way.
But, you must remember that going to church is not about "enjoying" the show, but about receiving the Mysteries. A church should be an environment where prayer is made possible, and distractions are minimized. If you have tor struggle with the words and if, as often happens, there are screaming babies that everyone pretends are not there, or bickering siblings in the church, and their parents have no intention of taking them out, the point is lost -- your mind wonders off, and worse you might even become angry, even if for a second or two, and then it's a struggle between thinking of God and trying to ignore the distractions or keeping up with the liturgy one does not understand.
The whole point is this when it comes to language: it's a barrier. It separates people. It is contrary to the idea of Christianity, which is to emulate on earth the loving communion that is the Trinune God. That's why I thought the idea of Latin was good. No one speaks Latin as a native language, so it's foreign to all. It made possible for any Catholic to go anywhere in the world and hear one and the same liturgy in the same language that all had to learn, but that bound them into one community.
But, people refused even Latin for selfish reasons and for reasons of laziness and commodity. They wanted it in their own native tongue and damn the rest! Very charitable and very Christian indeed (not)!
In Chicago, where there are many Serbs of all generations, the liturgies are given in Slavonic/Serbian and in English to accommodate those Serbs whose language precludes them from getting the full effect of the Divine Liturgy. Even though they are all Serbs, that in itself divides one and the same ethnic community and separates them.
Kolokotronis: Thank you very much for the links.
I read some of the essays at Frederica.com and they were verrrrrry interesting. The King's Jubilee Ministry was inspiring as well. Both sites are now in my bookmarks.
QB: I suggest taking a look at the essays at Frederica.com. Mrs. Mathewes-Greene is married to a Antiochian-Orthodox Priest. The website is well worth the visit.
PS Kolo, tell your monarchist friends that Greece survived without their king for about 45 years now... :-) It's like the appendix; we really don't need one, but it's a "vestige" that we share with horses. :-)
1. Chuch slavonic is a heck of a lot closer to Russian than is English. (As our old priest said if you learn slavonic you can communicate the basics in any slavic-based language)
2. Old Russian is quite close to 'Church Slavonic'.
3. If one is from Russia, and wishes to find a church practicing the Russian liturgy familar to them Slavonic is native in the sense of being the one used in Russia.
4. Most Russian churches that use slavonic also communicate with parishioners in Russian. The lady selling candles will speak in Russian. Confession is able to be done in Russian. There is a practicality to it.
None of those are arrogance.
Yes there are places where those are not applicable and slavonic is more prohibitive than helpful, but there are places where the same can be said for English.
"Some say they fasted for a week and that somehow makes up for the confession; to me it sounds like they are just making up their own rules, or actually what the post Vatican II Catholics do in America: eat meat on Fridays if you do charitable work instead of fasting but most just eat meat on Fridays."
Funny you bring that up. My Priest was lamenting the failure of Catholics to observe fasts, something he is rather passionate about. And it was the central theme of his homily this week.
One thing he pointed out was the paucity of available information regarding fasting and the spiritual importance of it.
Are you aware of any books or articles that approach the subject in depth?
"PS Kolo, tell your monarchist friends that Greece survived without their king for about 45 years now... :-) It's like the appendix; we really don't need one, but it's a "vestige" that we share with horses. :-)"
That's going off in an email today!
There is a book which I have heard of but never read, called "Fasting in the Orthodox Church: Its Theological, Pastoral, and Social Implications" Its available on Amazon. Here's what the write-up says:
"In this trenchant and erudite discussion of fasting, Father Akakios provides both the necessary historical background to this crucial dimension of Orthodox asceticism and a pastorally oriented defense of traditional fasting rules. By placing fasting in the broader context of the ecumenist agenda of “modernizing” Orthodoxy, he shows convincingly that fasting is neither an optional extra nor an inconvenience for Orthodox Christians today, but rather an essential weapon in the struggle for spiritual self-transformation."
The final line expresses my experience. My spiritual father has always told people its best to start of slowly and prayer is both an integral and necessary element of proper and efficacious fasting. I'll check our parish bookstore after Liturgy today and see if we have anything there.
"Since then, I have gained a deeper understanding of how the Maronites proselytize (sp?), and it's not done on an active basis. For the present, they are focused on the documents emanating from the 2 year Synod recently held by the Patriarch."
The more you and I converse about what the Maronites are doing, the more apparent the differences with regard to both evangelization and the respective inter-relations of our churches with regard to the larger RCC.
I agree with your observations. To the Maronites, evangelization just doesn't seem to be on the radar screen. And in truth, that makes some sense given what is currently happening in Lebanon and the diaspora of the last 25 years.
The situation is completely different for us. I was speaking with my Deacon a few weeks back and he pointed out that most of our seminarians are actually converts. We're no longer a slavic church. We're an American church that's doing it's best to retain it's slavic ethnic and religious traditions. Any growth we see in the future is not going to be from immigrants from the "old country." It's going to be the result of fine "slavic" families who just happen to trace their ethnicity to Mexico or the Phillipines or elsewhere.
Seems strange to ignore immigrants. Emmigration from slavic countries isn't exactly slowing.
Where I live there's actually tons because of some work program that let's workers come from East Europe quite easily... walking the streets in my tiny town I hear much more Russian these days.
I'm not sure it's just the ethnic component that helps the Orthodox resist the secular culture. Some of the Orthodox who do that least well are those who wear their ethnicity on their sleave, but don't live the life of the Church fully.
The thing that makes it easier for the Orthodox to resist secularism is the fact that Orthodoxy offers a comprehensive way of life rather than just sound doctrine and a way of worship.
In terms of openness to converts, I think on average we Antiochians are the most open, followed by the OCA, but mostly it varies community by community (some ROCOR parishes are very Russian, others are mostly convert). I'm told in Western Europe, the Serbs are the most open to converts, and sometimes one finds that here, too. (Kansas City, has a majority African-American Serbian Orthodox parish, St. Mary of Egypt. (!!!) And a young man whose first contact with Orthodoxy was a visit to our little Antiochian mission later converted at a Serbian parish and entered seminary--I've not heard whether he's finished and been ordained.)
Thanks for your perspective, MarMema. I admire the way you are looking after your children's hearts and minds. It's shocking how little many parents care what their kids hear and see via the media. One time when my 8-year-old daughter had a 7-year-old friend over at our house, the younger girl began recounting, very gleefully, the stomach-churning plot of some horror movie she had apparently seen on TV. I told her we didn't allow that kind of talk in our house. This was a nice girl with a lovely mom, too.
This is just my perspective, of course-- I was brought up in the "church of good taste," of respectability, discretion, and not-rocking-the-boat. So matters within the OC undoubtedly appear greatly different to me than they would to a cradle Orthodox.
As usual, you have said it perfectly. I especially like your use of the word "countercultural". I can see that your Saint is so perfectly matched for you.
Thanks, I have read many of her essays and have found them very illuminating.
Thanks for your reply. A "comprehensive way of life" is exactly what we and other hopeful-converts are seeking. Not just an isolated church service once a week.
I don't think the Georgian liturgy is in place anywhere other than in Georgia, where they speak the language.
I can understand your preference for Slavonic. I was trying to point out that the liturgy is greater than the language used to celebrate it.
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