American Orthodoxy and Parish Congregationalism 9781463210731

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GORGIAS DISSERTATIONS 18 RELIGION Volume 3



American Orthodoxy and Parish Congregationalism

American Orthodoxy and Parish Congregationalism

NICHOLAS FERENCZ

GORGIAS PRESS 2006

First Gorgias Press Edition, 2006. Copyright © 2006 by Gorgias Press LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Gorgias Press LLC, New Jersey.

ISBN 1-59333-195-9

 GORGIAS PRESS 46 Orris Ave., Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface.....................................................................................................................vii Preface to the Original Edition ............................................................................xi Chapter One: The Theology and Practice of Church Structure.....................1 A Definition of the Issue ..................................................................................2 The State of the Question.................................................................................3 The Value of the Question ...............................................................................6 Methodology .......................................................................................................8 A Canonical Excursus......................................................................................10 Chapter Two: Unity in Authority – Ecclesiology............................................17 Unity and Catholicity in the Church in Transition......................................23 Unity and Catholicity in the Expanded Church ..........................................33 Unity and Catholicity in the Modern Era .....................................................46 Unity and Catholicity in Eucharistic Ecclesiology ......................................60 Conclusion.........................................................................................................70 Chapter Three: Disunity in Authority – Present Practice..............................73 The Place of the Canons in Jurisdictional Laws..........................................82 Supra-Parish Governance in Jurisdictional Laws ........................................84 Parochial Governance in Jurisdictional Laws ..............................................99 Chapter Four: Moral Absence of the Hierarchy ...........................................113 Chapter Five: The Toth Movement ................................................................147 Chapter Six: Lay Societies .................................................................................167 Slavic Brotherhoods.......................................................................................167 Greek Lay Societies........................................................................................178 Summary of the Causes of Congregationalism..........................................185 Chapter Seven: Congregationalism In Orthodoxy — An Analysis............187 Archbishop Tikhon and Archbishop John Carroll ...................................187 Conclusions .....................................................................................................202 Bibliography .........................................................................................................211

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PREFACE This book is a somewhat revised edition of my doctoral dissertation, which I defended at Duquesne University in 2003. The revisions that I have had to make are relatively few and do not substantially affect either my original thesis or the arguments I make in favor of it. If anything, the updated material I have added further confirms my contentions that something major is awry in American parish structure and theology. Besides some very minor additions or corrections throughout the text, there are three major areas of change that I wish to note here. First, the dissertation was originally entitled A Study of the American Orthodox Church and Congregationalism. I changed the title to reflect the subject matter more accurately. Second, I had to update some of the material which deals with the structures, charters, and bylaws of the Antiochian Archdiocese and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. I especially had to update chapter three, but there are some other occasional references which I also had to rework. I had already noted in the original text that both jurisdictions were in the process of undergoing major changes; the Antiochian Archdiocese was in the throes of becoming an autonomous jurisdiction, and the Greek Archdiocese was waiting for approval for a new, revised charter. By the time that the dissertation had to be finished, however, these changes were either not yet formalized or not yet implemented. I have updated the text to incorporate these changes and some of the responses to them which have already come to light. Third, I have included some new material in the last chapter. I note in Chapter One, under “Methodology,” that I had initially intended to explore the results of the divergence between Orthodox thought and practice regarding parishes and parish structures. As I note there, “I believe that there is a causal relationship between congregationalism in Orthodoxy and some of the major problems currently afflicting the American church. The demonstration of that relationship proved to be an entire subject in itself and requires a separate study.” Nevertheless, this question was the driving force behind my exploration of this uncharted territory. I have added a few vii

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reflections to the last chapter which begin to lay out the direction that I think this particular road will take. Finally, I wish to make a note about terminology. I have used the term “Uniate” to designate the churches and the people who are often known generically as “Eastern Catholics,” or “Greek Catholics.” They also have a variety of official names which they have adopted in recent decades: Byzantine Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic, Melkite, etc. The problem is to determine which term to use. “Eastern Catholic” is a misnomer. Most of them derive geographically from areas which are known in the West as Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but these are known to nonChristians and others as Westerners, not Easterners. Some few come from modern day Iraq, Iran, and India and they could truly be called “Eastern Catholics.” However, the peoples that this book discusses are not the latter. Besides, the term is of recent origin and is not generally used by the groups themselves. “Greek Catholic” has the advantage of history, having been used since at least the 1700s. However, it is also a misnomer and misleading besides; many people have thought these people are ethnically Greek, or religiously “Greek Orthodox,” although none of them are. It is a term that has been discarded in America and other points of immigration in recent decades and so is rarely heard. The other terms are both too recent and too specific. They are referents for only specific jurisdictions (which formed later than the story told here) and so become cumbersome when it is necessary to refer to these peoples as one whole or generically. I had contemplated using “Byzantine Catholic” as a generic term, since it is the least ethnically derived. This term, however, has only been in existence since the 1960s and is usually used to refer to only one group: the Ruthenian or Carpatho-Russian Catholics. I made the attempt, but it is too anachronistic to try to reinsert this admittedly more politically correct term back into history. I have spent time on this explanation because I am very aware of the sensitivity of the subject of the term I selected to use most often. I believe that “Uniate” is the most accurate description for all of these various groups, since they all (except for the Maronites) exist as a result of a union of parts of Orthodox churches with the see of Rome. While it was the original term used for all these groups, it became charged over time with negative meanings, so that eventually the “Eastern” Catholics quit using it for themselves in preference to one of the other terms above. The term need not be so negative, however; it need merely be taken as a descriptive term which distinguishes these various churches. I think that the text below demonstrates a very sympathetic view of the Uniate churches without any

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overtones of antipathy or negative feelings toward these churches and their people. I have always been aware of the difficulty of this issue. I am indebted to Dr. George Worgul of Duquesne University for pointing it out during my defense of this dissertation. However, as I noted to him, I’ll be happy to use another term to replace “Uniate” if anyone can think of a better one.

PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION When I started my doctoral work many years ago, I became fixated on doing a dissertation on a topic that I thought needed to be done and I ought to do. I spent years casting about for ways to approach this topic. One day my director told me that if I wanted to complete a dissertation, I needed to write about a topic that I cared about and wanted to do. Two months later I had my topic. This work is the result of that conversation. I am deeply indebted to my director, Fr. Michael Slusser, for his guidance, mentoring, and his sharp editorial pen. I am also very grateful for his patience in seeing this project through, his humor, and most of all his friendship. I also thank the theology faculty at Duquesne for their encouragement and forbearance through these many years, especially Drs. Jim Hanigan, Bill Thompson-Uberuaga, and Dave Kelly. No work is completed in isolation. Many people have aided my research and my work with their help, guidance, and ideas. Some of these I have known for many years; some I have never met face to face. I truly appreciate and wish to acknowledge their generous giving of time and knowledge. Fr. Bazyl Zawierucha gave me inestimable help in translating material from the Amerikanskii Pravoslavnyi Viestnik and has been a constant source of encouragement. Fr. Sergei Alekseev likewise accepted the task of translating crucial material in Makarii Bulgakov’s Pravoslavno-Dogmaticheskoe Bogoslovie, for which I am truly grateful. All errors in rendering these translations are mine alone. I also thank Fr. Michael Oleksa, whom I have never met, Fr. Robert Holet, who has been my friend for many years, Fred Petro of the GCU, and Peter Dickson for helping me with information and invaluable resources that I could not have obtained otherwise. Pittsburgh is not necessarily the first place a person thinks of for basic research, especially in Orthodox theology. However, I completed most of my research in the Pittsburgh area. I want to acknowledge the fine libraries and staff of these institutions: Duquesne University, with its excellent allround resources; St. Vincent College, at which I spent many hours; Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, with its excellent periodical selection; and Christ the Saviour Seminary in Johnstown, Antiochian Village in Ligonier, xi

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and Ss. Cyril and Methodius Seminary on the North Side. Each of these last three contains little jewels which are not available anywhere else. My father, George, instilled in me many years ago the absolute necessity of realizing the unity of the Eastern Churches. He believed that each person had the responsibility to work to make that unity a reality. This work is a memorial to my dad and his vision. Most importantly, I want to thank my family. My children Duane George and Stacey have always been there for me with encouragement, support, and love. They have patiently listened to me go on and on about this topic without ever once showing any boredom or disinterest. I especially thank my wife Joanna for her patience, fortitude, help, and insight throughout the writing of this work. This project would never have been started, much less completed, without her encouragement and support. To my Joanna, this work is lovingly dedicated.

CHAPTER ONE: THE THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF CHURCH STRUCTURE Christians are called by Faith to believe in the truth and to live out that belief fully and completely. This is certainly the basic stance within the Orthodox Church; indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find a belief system which could not be defined by this statement. The point of believing in something is to be able to live out that belief. Nevertheless, professing the truth and living out that truth are not the same. Salvation history is the story of humanity’s inability to practice what it preaches without the personal intervention of God Himself. On a microcosmic level, the person seeking theosis through the grace of God must work synergistically with Him to bring back into a unity their belief in truth and their lived experience of it. This relationship between what one believes and how one lives pervades all aspects of life. It is so ubiquitous that a person or even a group of people may overlook it or not recognize it in one or more aspects of their lives. The theological task thus becomes an ongoing two-fold process: first, the discernment of the myriad specific ways in which the gulf between knowledge of the truth and lived experience manifests itself; second, the exploration of how to close that particular gap. The latter may involve modifying knowledge to match true lived experience, or it may involve bringing practice into conformity with knowledge so that it correctly expresses the truth.1 Either way, the first step is to determine that a particular gap between knowledge and practice does exist.

1 So, for instance, while liturgy has traditionally been regarded as the norm of faith, liturgy itself has changed and developed as necessary in order to correctly express that faith. See Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1975), 15–18, where Schmemann cites the principle lex orandi lex est credendi. He then goes on to discuss the task

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The purpose of this work is to explore such a divergence within the lived experience of the American Orthodox Church. More specifically, I will explore the ecclesiastical structure of this specific church, focusing mainly on the parish level. My contention will be that, especially on this level, American Orthodoxy lives out an experience of church which is at odds with its professed understanding of church. Even pointing out that such a self-contradiction exists can be controversial; Orthodox theologians, pastors, and hierarchs tend to deny or ignore the gap publicly while often acknowledging it privately. Most laypersons do not even realize the gap exists. Recognition of this issue may, then, in itself be a first step toward resolving it.

A DEFINITION OF THE ISSUE The nature of this inconsistency can be stated briefly. In the traditional doctrine of the Orthodox Church, the authority of the church resides in the local bishop, who is the head of the eucharistic community of clergy and laity, and who is in communion with all other local bishops. However, when the Orthodox Church arrived in America, authority was vested in the congregation of each individual parish, that is, the laity alone. This remains the case in virtually all parishes in all Orthodox jurisdictions in America today. This is, then, the anomaly presented: congregationalism in a hierarchical-synodal church. Congregationalism, often called trusteeism,2 can be defined here as the idea that the authority of the church resides totally within the lay congregation of each parish community. Helen Rose Ebaugh’s sociological study of congregationalism delineates five criteria which define a congregational structure ideal—typically as a religious organization that: 1) has a formal list or roster of members; 2) a local governing body (board or council), elected by the members and which is composed of lay members that makes policy for, and administers, the affairs of the institution; 3) has committees/ministries composed of lay members who conduct the work of the institution; 4) has clergy who are

of liturgical theology as one of discovering how development and change in liturgical worship maintains this principle. 2 See, for instance, Patrick J. Dignan, A History of the Legal Incorporation of Catholic Church Property in the United States (1784–1932) (New York: P. J. Kennedy & Sons, 1935); Patrick W. Carey, People, Priests and Prelates: Ecclesiastical Democracy and the Tensions of Trusteeism, Notre Dame Studies in American Catholicism, vol. 8. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1987).

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selected by the local organization and 5) raises most of its operating funds from its own local members.3

In terms of authority, which is the issue here, these criteria can be summarized as including two major areas of lay authority: authority over the property and material goods of the parish, and authority over the appointment of clergy to the parish. The clergy of all ranks, especially the bishop and priest, are either completely excluded from participating in this authority, or their input is minimized to, at best, an advisory role. Most American Orthodox parishes function within what I will call “modified congregationalism.” In this version, the ordained hierarchy of the church is acknowledged by the laity as having some authority; in most cases, this authority extends to the hierarch’s exclusive right to appoint pastors in parishes. Even the least knowledgeable layperson knows that they have to have priests and bishops to “do” certain things on a spiritual plane. Therefore, the claim in this version is that the authority of the laity is intended to be only over the material goods and welfare of the church: that is, ownership and management of property, real and fiscal. The cleric, then, is supposed to retain authority over the spiritual realm: liturgical services, sermons, education in the faith, and other such services. Each body of authority is separate from the other and most structures have safeguards to keep them separate. In this way, separate but equal spheres of parish authority are supposed to guarantee that leadership is “shared” between clergy and laity, for the good of the church as a whole.

THE STATE OF THE QUESTION This specific issue has not been well studied. The fact that most American Orthodox parishes are congregationalist in their structure is a generally accepted reality. Whether or not this is a good thing depends upon an individual’s point of view, but little work has been done to determine its causes or to examine its problems. Congregationalism is rarely referenced by name in Orthodox discussions of church authority or structure. When it is, it is usually blamed for causing certain effects, but with little analysis regarding the causal connections.4 It is usually mentioned in the context of 3

Helen Rose Ebaugh and Janet Saltzman Chafetz, “Structural Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations,” Sociology of Religion 61 (Summer 2000): 137. 4 For instance, “Trusteeism is a terrible, and heretical, ecclesiastical phenomenon in this country.” Fr. John Peck, “An Interview with a Parish Priest on How to Bring About Parish Renewal,” The Handmaiden: a Journal for Women Serving God Within the Orthodox Faith 6.2 (Spring 2002): 6.

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practical issues; the theological aspects of trusteeism have generally been ignored. The doctoral dissertation of Thomas Sable, one of the few works which partially addresses the issue, focuses more on Uniate than Orthodox parishes.5 His discussion of the question, however, also has to consider Orthodox parish growth, since the Uniate and Orthodox Churches in America have a great deal of intertwined history, and many American Orthodox parishes started out as Uniate ones. A number of works deal with parish and pastoral renewal in Orthodoxy, but almost all of them avoid or ignore the structural issue. Joseph Allen in his pastoral theology text,6 and Metropolitan Emilianos in his, both identify common existing pastoral problems and concerns, but prescind from the structural problem. Metropolitan Emilianos notes some of these concerns in the penultimate page in his book.7 Stefan Zencuch is very interested in how parishes, parish boards, and pastors interact, but he never actually discusses parish structure itself; he accepts the existing situation as problematic and searches for solutions.8 Michael McKibben is the author of another fairly recent text on Orthodox parish administration and relationships.9 Although McKibben talks about congregationalism, his major concern is also to accept that it is, then try to fix it. The term “congregationalism” is itself used unclearly in American Orthodox discussions on church polity. On the one hand, the term can be used derogatorily to assail lay independence in controversies between hierarchy and laity.10 At the same time, most American Orthodox 5

Thomas F. Sable, “Lay Initiative in Greek Catholic Parishes in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (1884–1909)” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, Graduate Theological Union, 1984). 6 Joseph J. Allen, The Ministry of the Church: The Image of Pastoral Care (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986). 7 Metropolitan Emilianos Timiadis, Priest, Parish and Renewal: Concepts for Pastoral Effectiveness (Brookline, Mass: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1994), 232. “How does the clergy relate to the laity? What are their duties and prerogatives? How is autonomy of a aprish [sic] defined with regard to the bishop?” His response: “This delicate issue must be placed beyond the two extremes: an inadmissible authoritarianism and a complete permissiveness” (234). 8 Stefan Zencuch, The Ethnic Orthodox Congregation and the Parish Council (Minn.: Light and Life Publishing Co., 1996). 9 Michael T. McKibben, Orthodox Christian Meetings: Ideas and Principles for Unlocking More of Our God-given Creative Potential in Our Communications and Administration (Columbus, Ohio: St. Ignatius of Antioch Press, 1990). 10 Two brief examples can be cited here. Archbishop Antony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA (South Bound Brook, New Jersey), in a regular

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jurisdictional bylaws codify at least a modified congregationalist parochial structure.11 The split structure of clerical/spiritual authority versus lay/material authority is in this way espoused by the hierarchy of many jurisdictions as the proper mode of parochial governance. In recent decades, both hierarchy and theologians have had a tendency to characterize this type of church structure as “conciliar” or “synodal” (the terms are used interchangeably) rather than congregationalist.12 This nomenclature is applied to the parish and to the diocese or jurisdiction rather indiscriminately. Chapter Two will show that conciliarity in the Orthodox tradition requires, minimally, the active participation of the clergy in their proper leadership roles in all aspects and phases of church life and, preferably, the active participation of all members and ranks of the church, including the website column wrote, “These parish boards envision the local parish as a free standing island with no responsibility or obligation to the Metropolia and with no higher authority than the local parish board of administration or the general parish meeting. This, quite frankly, is congregationalism—a Protestant concept, which bears no similarity to the long established Ukrainian Orthodox ecclesiastical structure.” “From the President’s Desk” August 1999, from http://www.UOCOFUSA.org/news; Internet, accessed 11/05/2001. Hardcopy in my possession. Metropolitan Maximos Aghiorgoussis of Pittsburgh, in response to lay charges of clericalism, said, “If anything, our church suffers from ‘secularism’ and ‘congregationalism,’ which hurt our communities and at times make it impossible to carry out the mission of the Orthodox Church of Christ.” Metropolitan Maximos, “‘Para-Church’ Lay Organizations in the Light of Orthodox Ecclesiology,” private photocopy in my possession, p. 37. I have not been able to find the original place of publication for this text. 11 A number of jurisdictional bylaws will be examined in Chapter Three, but here is one example: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, “Special Regulations and Uniform Parish Regulations,” 1978. Art. 8 (Parish Council), sec. 1: “The priest shall not have a vote.” Art. 11 (Election of Parish Council Officers), sec. 1: “the Parish Council shall convene immediately to elect its officers under the chairmanship of the Priest who shall not vote.” Art. 13 (Duties of Parish Council), sec. 1: “to administer the affairs of the parish in such manner as to aid the Priest in the fulfillment of its aims and purposes … to buy, sell or mortgage the Parish property …” 12 Examples: Archbishop Antony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA: “…ours is a Sobornapravna (Sobor governing) Church…” “From the President’s Desk” June 1999, from http://www.UOCOFUSA.org/news; Internet, accessed 11/05/2001. Hardcopy in my possession [Sobor = Synod]. John Meyendorff: “…the conciliar ecclesiology of Orthodoxy…” in Living Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1978), 78.

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laity. Conciliarity cannot by this tradition exclude the leadership of the clergy from any authoritative role. Admittedly, most diocesan and jurisdictional bylaws and structures are now more conciliar in their makeup. However, most parishes are not, and this fact is generally glossed over by most Orthodox authors. As an example, Silas Koskinas states, Prior to the assignment of a resident bishop in 1918 and the establishment of the archdiocese in 1922, the Greek people in America were without immediate hierarchical leadership and guidance. This naturally affected the type of community administration and organization that was adopted by the Greek immigrants.13

After reflecting upon the influence of American Protestant congregationalism upon the Greek immigrants, he then states blandly, Orthodox laymen were influenced by this view of church structure when they set out to organize Orthodox communities. At that time, unfortunately, Orthodox Church administration under a hierarchical system was absent from the American scene. This did not prevent laymen, however, from establishing Orthodox communities as ecclesiastical entities in conformity with the teachings and spirit of Orthodox tradition.14

This particular stance satisfies both an external and an internal concern. Externally, it arises sometimes within the context of dialogue with (and polemic against) the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches (as in Meyendorff’s example in note 12 above). Internally, this view enables the hierarchy to accept the current status of parish structure without violating theological or canonical principles (as in Koskinas’ example). Thus, it is not forced to struggle with an extremely difficult problem except on a very rare and individual basis.

THE VALUE OF THE QUESTION The concept of dividing the church into the material (i.e., laic) world and the spiritual (i.e., clerical) world is highly problematic, at least from an Orthodox point of view. In American parishes an assumption appears to exist that this separation of authority reflects a type of branch government, creating a balance of powers akin to the American federal system. These 13 Silas Koskinas “The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Development of the Orthodox Church in the New World,” Orthodox Theology and Diakonia (Brookline, Mass: Hellenic College Press, 1981), 214. 14 Koskinas, “Ecumenical Patriarchate,” 219.

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separate but equal powers somehow provide safeguards from unnamed evils, while empowering the laity to act with authority in the church. Both the safeguarding of the goods of the church and the active participation of the laity in the life of the church are desirable, even necessary, aspects of parish life. I contend, however, that the current parish structure cannot aid in achieving these or any other valid goals of parish life. At best, with a lot of hard work, the structure may be made less of a hindrance to them, but it cannot help. I have two reasons for this contention. First, simple logic should show that thinking one way and doing the opposite is not conducive to attaining any goal. If the church, then, believes that authority must flow in one direction, but puts into practice a different authority structure, it is reasonable to predict that the function and goals of that authority will be thwarted. It may even be possible to predict in what ways parish life will go awry. Second, my own experience and observations have led me to conclude that the type of separation of parish authority espoused by congregationalism does not work in practice within the Orthodox Church. Parish life does not divide into such neatly fragmented categories as spiritual/cleric on one side and material/laic on the other. A congregationalist structure merely serves to maintain a fiction which undermines the authority and responsibility of both the clergy and the laity, to the detriment of the parish and, therefore, of the church. This work will examine the issue of congregationalism in the Orthodox Church in the hope that such an analysis will provide a starting point for a true renewal of the American Orthodox parish. The value of this study for Roman Catholics and Protestants is perhaps more problematic. All churches are beset with an ongoing struggle over the meaning of ministry and the relationship between clergy and laity. Congregationalism is one manifestation of that struggle as well as a solution offered and accepted by the majority of Protestant churches. It was a solution also offered to the American Roman Catholic Church, but was rejected early on. American Orthodoxy, then, finds itself somewhat betwixt and between these two responses. Its theology rejects the idea while its practice accepts it. Clarification of this issue within Orthodoxy will hopefully contribute to the dialogue regarding ministry which continues to be an issue in all churches today. Perhaps the struggles that American Orthodoxy has experienced will serve as a cautionary tale to those in Roman Catholicism who seem to favor congregationalism as a panacea for clergy shortages and lay lassitude. On the other hand, an Orthodox

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theology of orders, of the intimate connection between the laying on of hands and true church authority, may contribute to Protestant concerns regarding the meaning of ministry. Hopefully this study will contribute to the overall understanding of the clergy-laity relationship.

METHODOLOGY A word on the way that the conflict between doctrine and practice will be examined is in order. The material is ordered according to what seems to be a logical progression, answering the following questions. First, how should a parish be structured? Second, what is the current practice regarding parish structure? Third, how and why did practice diverge from theory? Fourth, what does all this say about the path of reconvergence of theory and practice? Must the theology of authority be rethought, or should current practice be brought into conformity with current theological understanding?15 I will respond to the first question in Chapter Two with a theological discussion and a critique of church doctrine and thought regarding church and parish structure. There are two major trajectories in current Orthodox ecclesiology, known as universal ecclesiology and eucharistic ecclesiology. Both of these will require exploration for the reader to appreciate the normative character of a hierarchically structured church in the Orthodox tradition. Some focus will be placed on the understanding of priesthood and its relationship to church structure which prevailed from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. This should give some insight into the thinking of both clergy and laity during the foundational period of Orthodoxy in America. Since the focus here is on the discontinuity between official Orthodox belief and actual American parish practice, I will not attempt to challenge the broad consensus in Orthodox ecclesiology nor to necessarily advocate the superiority of one particular approach within that consensus. Sources for this theological discussion will include the patristic witness, including that of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Hippolytus of Rome, and St. Cyprian of Carthage. This patristic witness itself will be subject to interpretation by more recent theologians. The canons of the church will 15

Initially I had intended to answer a fifth question: What are the results of this divergence? I believe that there is a causal relationship between congregationalism in Orthodoxy and some of the major problems currently afflicting the American church. The demonstration of that relationship proved to be an entire subject in itself and requires a separate study. I hope this work will help to lay a foundation for the study of that issue. I will, however, attempt some response to this question in the final chapter.

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provide important testimony to the mind of the church especially through its most critical period of expansion and crystallization in the fourth to eighth centuries. Special considerations regarding the canons of the church are discussed in some detail at the end of this chapter. Local laws and regulations of various jurisdictions will be examined where applicable. One type of source which has value is the dogmatic manual; these were published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, usually for use in seminaries. These manuals give some insight into mainstream thinking on the subject. Also, more modern statements and thought by both American and European authors will be considered, insofar as they contribute to the ongoing understanding of church structure. In response to the second question, Chapter Three will discuss the organization of jurisdictions and parish communities and their ongoing function in American Orthodoxy today. A review of current jurisdictional bylaws will give insight into existing practices and find some common denominators and possibly some differences in the understanding of how authority functions in the church today in America. Chapters Four, Five, and Six will discuss the reasons for and causes of the present authority structures in the American Orthodox Churches. To a certain extent this will require an historical methodology. A brief history of the main currents of Orthodox establishment in America will demonstrate its congregationalist structure. This will not be an exhaustive history. The emphasis in this historical approach will be to highlight the causes, places, settings, and people which contributed to establishing a trustee parish system in American Orthodoxy. Therefore, the chapters have been laid out thematically, based on the causes that I have found to be most fundamental. Among useful sources are counted standard histories of the Orthodox Church and various specific Orthodox Churches. These also include official parish and diocesan histories, some parish archival material, and some material from fraternal societies and their periodicals. More work has been done on this level in theological articles and books in recent years. Much of this historical work, however, is of a biased and even polemical nature since these events are still so close in time to the present that little objectivity is available. Nevertheless, this may not be a bad thing. Data provided by those who are trying to promote their own Church or jurisdiction, or trying to blatantly disvalue another Church, can be valuable in itself, especially if it presents a picture which is contrary to the author’s desires. Chapter Seven will give some analysis of the material presented in the thesis. The first section will look more closely at one specific chapter in the history of American Orthodoxy, that of Archbishop Tikhon’s tenure in

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America and his most important influences. This will be compared to a similar time in Roman Catholic American history, that of Archbishop John Carroll and immediately after. This comparative analysis will help to define more clearly the problem presented by congregationalism and its causes. The second section of this chapter will be a critique of the theological problem presented by congregationalism, based on the preceding discussion of its causes and divergence from an authentic Orthodox ecclesiology. It will also consider briefly an alternative form of parish structure. The aim is to consider the possibility of a mode of parish structure which enables both clergy and laity, all the people of God, to maximize their participation within the life of the church in all facets of community life, including that of the exercise of church authority.

A CANONICAL EXCURSUS One linchpin of Orthodox ecclesiology is the canons of the Church, which will be referred to throughout this work. The canonical tradition of the Orthodox Church, however, is very dissimilar from that of the Roman Catholic Church and requires some explanation. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which first codified its law in 1917, the Orthodox Church has never codified the canons.16 Rather, the Church has worked within a 16 Lewis Patsavos, “The Canonical Tradition of the Orthodox Church,” in A Companion to the Greek Orthodox Church, ed. Fotios K. Litsas (New York: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, 1984), 142. The whole question of codification is itself an issue. Especially from the 1960s through the 1980s, when there was a major push to hold the first Pan-Orthodox council since II Nicea, codification was embraced by many as necessary and long past due and the topic was slated for the agenda for the council. Those who embrace this codification include the present Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I (see Bartholomew Archondonis, “A Common Code for the Orthodox Churches,” Kanon I (1973): 45–53). Nevertheless, as Patsavos notes (142), “Then there are those who reject codification outright as conflicting with the spiritual essence of Orthodoxy.” This view is usually held by those who would consider “law” to be a Catholic or Western concern and those who promote codification as being too Westernized. Since the future Patriarch advocated utilizing the Catholic Codex Juris Canonici and the Catholic Code for Oriental Catholics (51), in the work of codification, the attitude is not surprising. Besides these two sources, other introductions to the unique canonical problems of the Orthodox Church include John H. Erickson, The Challenge of Our Past (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991), 9–21; and Archbishop Peter L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), 1–15. A very succinct summary of the development of the canonical tradition, given within the context of a discussion of the overall structure

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framework which includes ecumenical canons and decrees, local or particular law, and the writings of the Church Fathers. This framework may also include local, long-held custom which takes on the force of law.17 “Local custom” may include a number of sources besides the laws of a local church. For instance, in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, a number of collections of canons and laws appeared, with commentaries by a few highly regarded canonists. These commentaries have themselves often taken on the weight of law.18 Similarly, liturgical practice may take on the force of law.19 Last, civil laws (nomoi) from the Christian Byzantine empire which affect the Church, such as those from Justinian’s Code, take on the force of canons, as noted in Chalcedon 17 and Trullo 38, although they are subordinate to the canons promulgated by the Church.20 and function of the Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire, can be found in J. M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 297–368. 17 Patsavos, “Canonical,” 141. See also St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite, “Prolegomena in General to the Sacred Canons” in Agapios and Nikodemos, ed., The Rudder, Denver Cummings, ed. and trans. (Chicago, IL: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957), lv, n. 1. 18 L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils, 4. In The Rudder, each canon is followed by a commentary called Interpretation. These Interpretations, written mostly by St. Nikodemos aided by the hieromonk Agapius, are based on selections from various sources, mostly the classical Byzantine commentaries which have acquired this canonical weight (xlvi): first, John Zonaras (~1118 AD), next Theodore Balsamon (end of 12th c.), “only rarely” Alexius Aristenus (~1166 AD), “but many times that of ‘Anonymous,’” (somewhat later than Aristenus, xlvii, n. 4), and of others (xlvii, n. 5): including the nomocanon of Matthew Blastaris (1335 AD); Joseph the Egyptian (1398 AD); nomocanons of John the Antiochian; nomocanons of John Scholasticus (the Antiochian). See L’Huillier’s discussion of Pedalion, 4–5. 19 Nikodemos, “Prolegomena,” in The Rudder, lvii. 20 Chalcedon 17 (R263) with interpretation. For ease of reference, canon citations will be followed in parentheses by the page number in The Rudder, e.g. (R294). Trullo 38 (R334). See also Erickson, Challenge, 18. Subordination of nomoi to canons, Nikodemos, “Prolegomena,” in Rudder, lvi: “That the divine Canons override the imperial laws.” Act IV of Chalcedon (see 276ff on Act IV): “As against the Canons, no pragmatic sanction is effective. Let the Canons of the Fathers remain in force.” (lvi–lvii) and “We pray that the pragmatic sanctions may be held in abeyance incontrovertibly; and that the Canons may come into force through all…” (lvii). In Book 1st, Title II, ordinance 12. Photius, Title I, ch. 2: “Pragmatic forms opposed to the canons are void.” And Balsamon’s commentary on Photius adds: “For those canons which have been promulgated and supported, that is to say, by emperors and holy Fathers, are accepted like the divine Scriptures. But the

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No one edition of the canons is considered to be the authoritative text promulgated for the entire Orthodox Church. John Scholasticus published a “Collection in 50 Titles” in the sixth century, and a “Nomocanon in 14 Titles” was first published in the seventh century by Anonymous II,21 with later editions coming in the ninth and eleventh centuries. In the modern era, there are two editions of the canons which are the most important.22 The Syntagma Rhalli kai Potli was published in six volumes in Athens from 1852 to 1859. This is considered to be the most scholarly edition today and in that sense “authoritative.” It can be difficult to obtain, however, and only exists in Greek. The most influential modern text, because of its relative availability in reprints and in translation, is Pedalion, a collection compiled, edited, and commented on by the Athonite monks Agapios and Nikodemos, printed in Greece in 1800. It has gone through several editions and translations.23 This text was well received and was even granted an official approval by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.24 It was translated into English in 1957 by Denver Cummings as The Rudder from the fifth Greek edition published by John Nicolaides in 1908, and has seen several reprints.25 While various English translations of many of the canons are available,26 The Rudder has also laws have been accepted or composed only by the emperors; and for this reason they do not prevail over and against the divine Scriptures nor the Canons.” 21 Hussey says this was the most widely used collection in the middle ages. See Orthodox Church, 306. 22 In the late 1800s, a number of Slav canonists published texts with commentaries. Nevertheless, they do not hold the prominent place that these two texts do. 23 I would stress that this is a useful but only quasi-authoritative compendium. The latest Greek edition is a photostatic copy with an appendix added: Pedalion, Agapios the Hieromonk and Nikodemos the Monk, ed. and comp. (Athens, Greece: Papdimitriou Publishing Co., 2003) from the 3rd ed. of Sergios Raftanis, Zakinthus, 1864. 24 L’Huillier, Church of the Ancient Councils, 4. 25 The Rudder (Pedalion), Denver Cummings, trans. and ed. (Chicago: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957), from the fifth Greek edition published by John Nicolaides in 1908. 26 For example, J. Stevenson’s two compendia have selections from the texts of the ecumenical councils and a number of the local ones up to 461 AD. See A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church to A.D. 337 (London, SPCK, 1975, reprint of 1957) and Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church A.D. 337–461 (London, SPCK, 1976, reprint of 1966). Also of interest is the collection of in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, vol. 14: The

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attained a quasi-authoritative status as an English version of the Pedalion. Unless otherwise noted, this will be the reference used for the canons in this work. With all of this said, the canons27 which hold the first place are those promulgated by the seven ecumenical councils and those which were ratified by those councils.28 These canons are the common canonical ground of all Orthodox Churches, regardless of later local canons and regulations. Therefore, in this text, these will constitute the primary canonical source. The lack of codification of the canons presents its own special situation. It will be helpful to briefly summarize this issue so that the use of the canons can be placed in a proper context. Two major concerns result from the canonical situation as it exists. First, the canonical corpus has been closed since II Nicea, the last ecumenical council, held in 787. The canons were not positivist laws, but rather the Church’s application of universal doctrine and ethics to a specific situation in a specific time and place. There was very little attempt to universalize the language of any canon to apply to all times and places: the idea of legal positivism was resisted by the Church at that time and it is still resisted today as being a civil rather than an ecclesiastical concern. Canons by their nature, therefore, express matters in a specific context, even when they are concerned with universal topics such as doctrine. Some Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church, Their Canons and Dogmatic Decrees, together with the Canons of all the local synods which have received ecumenical acceptance (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977, reprint). This text also includes commentary from a variety of canonists. 27 Having noted the above concerns, it becomes clear that it is difficult to describe the canonical tradition of the Church as “canon law,” although the term is often used. Some would even deny that the canons constitute a legal system at all: “No matter how we may define law, canons in no way belong to the field of law.” Nicholas Afanassieff, “The Canons of the Church: Changeable or Unchangeable,” St. Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly 11 (1967): 60. Most often, reference is made to “the canons” or to “the canonical order/tradition.” 28 The Orthodox Church recognizes as ecumenical only the following: I Nicea, I Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, II Constantinople, III Constantinople, in Trullo (Quinisext), II Nicea. Trullo is not usually considered a separate council; it is counted as a completion of II Constantinople and III Constantinople, neither of which promulgated any canons. Trullo nevertheless was an extremely important council for canonists, since it ratified the previous six councils, as well as listing by name the other accepted sources of canons up until then (691 AD). The list of sources can be found in Trullo 1 (R290) and 2 (R295).

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later canons may repeat earlier ones with some modification. Some later canons may even contradict earlier ones without direct acknowledgment. Modification and contradiction were not seen as changes, but rather as applications to a new time and place of the underlying sense of the doctrine and discipline which the earlier canon also expressed.29 Later eras have had to deal with these contradictions as they have attempted to apply both canons (which would carry equal weight) to their own situation. Because of the canonical situation, the text of the canons is treated in a fashion similar to Scriptural texts. They are subject to interpretation and explanation by later generations, each of which seeks to apply the canons to their own context. The act of interpretation and application of a canon to a specific context is generally known as economia. Theoretically, economia is not itself capable of creating legal precedents, because it cannot abrogate the canon. So, for example, even if the same canon is repeatedly dispensed from, that original canon still holds the force of law and in the next situation may be held strictly. Nevertheless, such repetitive examples may be taken into consideration the next time that canon applies, and may be one reason for dispensing from the strict observance of the canon on a different occasion.30 Of all the canons considered by the Orthodox Church to be ecumenical, the ones known as the Apostolic Canons are especially problematic in terms of date and authorship and so perhaps require a short explanation. These 85 canons form the last part of the text known as the Apostolic Constitutions, being the forty-seventh chapter of book eight of that work. The Apostolic Constitutions were condemned by Trullo 2 (R294) as “falsified by heretics” except for the Apostolic Canons.31 Modern scholarship 29 As one example, compare I Nicea 5 (R169) with Trullo 8 (R301), where the requirements for episcopal synods have been modified. In making this modification, Trullo says, “With a desire to hold fast to whatever our Holy Fathers have decreed in everything.” 30 For an excellent discussion of economia, see F. J. Thomson, “Economy. An Examination of the Various Theories of Economy Held Within the Orthodox Church,” Journal of Theological Studies 16 (1965): 368–394. He applies the theories of economia to the various ways in which the Orthodox Church has received or not received non-Orthodox Sacraments, especially baptism and orders. Just because, for instance, Roman Catholic baptism has been accepted as valid in some cases does not necessarily mean that it must always be so accepted. 31 See also William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, vol. 2 (Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1979), 128–130. Trullo actually affirmed the apostolic origin of the entire Apostolic Constitutions. The rejection was based on the fact that the text was too corrupted by heretics to be reliable.

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dates them as no earlier than AD 341, but the early councils, including Trullo, recognized their authorship as being from the Apostles. Many Orthodox theologians today accept, even require, their apostolic authorship, regardless of modern findings.32 This acceptance in itself would testify to their importance and ecumenicity, even without their ratification by Trullo. Other theologians today are less literal about the authorship of these canons, regarding their ratification by Trullo as sufficient. The Apostolic Canons, then are valuable as a double witness for the historian and theologian. First, in accepting their apostolic origin the church gives them great authority for the proper regulation and order of the church; these canons are certainly not to be taken lightly. Second, if the date of their final redaction is actually around AD 340, they testify to the church’s self-understanding that its doctrine and its practice are in complete keeping with the tradition handed down from the apostles themselves. Even though the circumstances of the church in the fourth century were vastly different from those of the apostolic age, the church then and now finds that its mode of being church has never altered substantially. This has some important ramifications when considering the authority structure of the church.

32

Nikodemos is typical in his defense: “But inasmuch as many heretics, perhaps also some of the Westerners (I say ‘perhaps’ because, according to the testimony of Anthony Forest the Jesuit, in his ‘Preparation for the Priesthood,’ their so-called ecumenical council held in Trent ratified all of them, numbering 85); yet, being censured by the present canons for their innovations, they open their mouths against them, alleging that not all or only some of them are genuine Canons of the Holy Apostles.[sic]” in “Prolegomena,” The Rudder, lx.

CHAPTER TWO: UNITY IN AUTHORITY – ECCLESIOLOGY The main focus of this work is the existence of the church on the parish level. There is, however, no well-developed ecclesiology of the parish in Orthodox theology; indeed, there is very little discussion of the parish at all.33 Most ecclesiological thought dwells upon the episcopal or local church level, not on the parish level. The paucity of material which explores a theology of the parish means that much of this chapter will have to draw from discussions on bishops, dioceses, and churches more often than not. Explanation of a theology of authority on the parish level will rely on the few witnesses that do exist, together with an exploration of the understanding of authority in Orthodoxy as a whole. An understanding of parish structure can be extrapolated from these two sources. The Orthodox Church adheres to the doctrine that the church has by its nature the four classic attributes or marks of being church: one, holy, catholic, apostolic. These attributes are in the state of “already, but not yet.” That is, the church is truly one, both ideally and in reality, while still having to realize that oneness in each given time and place that the church exists. So, for instance, often the church’s realization of unity falls short of the mark, but this does not take away from its essential unity. The key for understanding the authority and structure of the Orthodox Church is the unity of the church and, to a lesser extent, its catholicity. The church must be one for it is the Body of Christ, which is one. No division or split can exist in this Body, else it is not truly Christ’s. The same is true for all the church’s attributes—for example, the church is

33

In 1963 Alexander Schmemann wrote in a footnote, “The division of the diocese into parishes and the corresponding transformation of the presbyter into a parish rector came later, and this change has never been seriously studied and interpreted theologically.” Forty years later the situation has hardly improved. See Schmemann, “The Idea of Primacy in Orthodox Ecclesiology,” in The Primacy of Peter (Bedforshire, England: Faith Press, 1973 reprint of 1963), 39, n. 23. 17

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holy because it is the Body of Christ, which is holy—but the necessity of being one and catholic has driven the development of its structure. Most of Orthodox ecclesiology regarding authority and structure today can be roughly grouped into two schools of thought.34 The predominant ecclesiology for much of its history is today often called “universal ecclesiology,” while a more recent school of thought is known as “eucharistic ecclesiology.”35 A brief description of each will be helpful in showing its connection to the issue of unity and authority. In terms of church structure and authority, universal ecclesiology emphasizes the communion of all bishops of the church as being the manifestation of the oneness and catholicity of the Body of Christ. This communion is expressed in various ways. The most important sign of this communion is that the bishops pray for each other and that they celebrate

34

Paul Nadim Tarazi, an American Orthodox biblical scholar, proposed a third sense of unity and authority in an article in 1992 (“The Parish in the New Testament,” St. Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly 36 (1992): 87–102). He finds the authority of the church and its unity based not in the bishop, either in his person or in his office. Rather, he finds them in the “apostolic word,” which he essentially equates to the New Testament. His ecclesiology is Scripture-based, and it ultimately subjects all the faithful including the church leadership to the apostolic word as “the constituent element of the church and its life” (100): “The church leadership is in charge of, but also subject to, the truth of Christ expressed in the correct didaskalia, since this ensures their salvation too. …no other criterion than the risen Lord himself as witnessed in the apostolic word is to be used for the correct administration of the church’s life and affairs” (101). Tarazi’s attempt to prefer Christ as Word over Christ as Eucharist as the grounding of the church has made little impact so far on Orthodox ecclesiology and so is outside the bounds of this work. However, Tarazi’s proposition is a radical departure from mainstream Orthodox thought, and in terms of authority appears to lean too far in the direction of a Protestant “sola scriptura” stance, to the detriment of the sacramental life of the church. The issue requires more attention than can be given here. 35 Both terms are attributable to Nicholas Afanassieff. He needed to differentiate the prevailing ecclesiology from his proposed eucharistic ecclesiology. “Universal ecclesiology” is, nevertheless, a useful, descriptive term and so will be used in this work. See Nicholas Afanassieff, “The Church Which Presides in Love,” in The Primacy of Peter in the Orthodox Church, 58. As is common in names which originate in a different orthography from English, there are a number of variant spellings for Afanassieff, including Afanasev, Afanasiev, and Afanassiev. The Library of Congress standard is Nikolai Afanas’ev. I am using the spelling most often used by the author himself.

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the Holy Eucharist together.36 Another is that the bishops and their dioceses are grouped in various ways into larger, united subdivisions of the universal church. For instance, a few dioceses may form a metropolis, and a number of metropolia may form a particular church,37 and the various particular churches are each in communion with each other. A third way of expressing unity is that on each level of this layered authority, the hierarchy are called to come together more or less often in council, or synod, to express in a real way the unity of heart and mind which is required for both good order in the church and for the right proclamation of the Truth. The communion of all the bishops, at each level, between levels, and between churches is both the guarantee and the visible sign of both unity and catholicity in the church. Last, this ecclesiology requires within each diocese

36

When there is a break in the church, the first thing that happens is that bishops take the others’ names off the roll of commemorations (diptychs) in the Divine Liturgy. This happened, for instance, in 1995–1996, when Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew became involved in the Orthodox Church in Estonia. Patriarch Alexis of Russia removed Bartholomew’s name from the diptychs on February 23, 1996 and, in essence, broke communion. A brief résumé of this action is provided by Ron Roberson in The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey, 6th ed. (Rome, Italy: Edizioni Orientali Christiani, 1999), 111. For a summary of the actions, see Syndesmos Orthodox Press Service Background Information (29-Feb-96); from http://www.holy-trinity.org/estonia/2.29.96.syndesmos.html; Internet, accessed March 5, 2003. 37 The problem of what to call larger groupings of dioceses is ongoing, since there seems to be no commonly accepted generic or group term for churches like, for instance, the Moscow Patriarchate, or the Church of Greece, etc. I am following John Erickson in borrowing from elsewhere the term “particular church,” meaning any self-governing, cohesive Orthodox Church, whether autonomous, autocephalous, national, etc. He uses this term in “Concrete Structural Organization of the Local Church: The 1971 Statute of the Orthodox Church in America,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 20 (1976): 9–18. America, as shall be seen, is a special case. Many of the various American Orthodox Churches have ties to, or are jurisdictionally under, other churches in Europe; for example, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese is under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On the other hand, others such as the OCA are more or less selfgoverning and some, like the Ukranian Orthodox Church, are somewhere in between. The Antiochian Church, for instance, has over the past few years been involved in achieving autonomy with respect to its Mother Church, and has yet to realize all the ramifications of that process. None have clearly defined, exclusive, territorial boundaries. For the sake of simplicity, when referring to any or all of the American churches, I will use the term “jurisdiction.”

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the unity of the clergy and faithful people with their bishop, from whom all authority derives by virtue of his office. Since the mid-twentieth century, the other school, known as “eucharistic ecclesiology,” has come to the fore, at least in areas of the world that are not traditionally Orthodox. Eucharistic ecclesiology has its immediate roots in late nineteenth century Russia and early twentieth century Russian émigré thought. Nicholas Afanassieff is credited with being the first to express this ecclesiology.38 However, the place of the bishop in the church is somewhat underdeveloped in Afanassieff’s thought, and later theologians have added some basic correctives to his original position.39 My discussion of eucharistic ecclesiology will focus mostly upon Afanassieff. In some ways he is more in touch with the parish situation than some who follow him. Also, I believe a proper sense of church authority can be found in his work, even if he is sometimes not clear about the distinction between bishop-as-celebrant and presbyter-as-celebrant. Later eucharistic theologians give more emphasis and clarity to the position of the bishop in the church and help solidify this school’s understanding of the relationship of authority and unity. This more developed form of eucharistic theology certainly falls within the broad tradition of the Orthodox Church’s self-understanding. In more recent decades, the interaction between the two schools has contributed a great deal to Orthodox ecclesiology as a whole. As its name implies, eucharistic ecclesiology finds the unity and catholicity of the church primarily in the assembly in one place or locale of all faithful, laity and clergy, presided over by the bishop in celebration of and reception of the Body and Blood of Our Lord. It is in that communion of the whole assembly that both unity and catholicity are realized. The bishop’s presence is based on the understanding within the Orthodox tradition that one of the bishop’s most important functions, if not the most important, was and is to preside over the eucharistic celebration. Thus, the role of the bishop is key in this ecclesiology as well as in universal ecclesiology. Insofar as bishops and hierarchy may and do gather as an assembly for the same purpose (at a synod, for example, or for an ordination), they also, then, manifest the unity and catholicity of the church.40 Nevertheless, the emphasis is on the regular, local eucharistic 38

Nicholas Afanassieff, “The Church Which Presides in Love,” 57–110. For a brief overview of both ecclesiologies, see John H. Erickson, “Concrete Structural Organization,” 10–13. 40 In this school, actions to the contrary have the same significance as they do in a universal ecclesiology, if not more so. That is, a bishop who is omitted from the diptychs, or declared no longer in communion, is thereby declared to be outside 39

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assembly. For this reason, this ecclesiology is sometimes known as a “local ecclesiology.” A major difference between these two schools of ecclesiology is the question of wherein lies the fullness of the church. For the universal school, it resides primarily in the larger group: at least in the particular church, but even more so in the entire, universal church. This fullness is epitomized in the gathering of the church at the ecumenical councils, which are a realized sign of that fullness. For the eucharistic school, the fullness of the church resides primarily in the local assembly, usually called the “local church,”41 gathered around the Eucharist. Each local church, therefore, contains within itself all the marks of the church—each is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. All the local churches together are also whole and complete. The entire church, then, is one whole which is the summation of whole churches, a kind of Trinitarian addition. In universal ecclesiology, however, each local church is only a part of the whole, and no one local church can be said to be “the whole.” In this thought, the whole, entire church is literally the sum of its parts. The two ecclesiologies are not necessarily incompatible, however. The issue of fullness is a very muted theme in this work and will be dealt with as necessary. The main interest here is the issue of unity and authority, and both of these schools reflect the traditional understanding of the Orthodox Church, albeit with different emphases. Universal ecclesiology (although not so called) was the mainstream theology of the Orthodox Church for most of its history, especially since the time of the great ecumenical councils (from the fourth to the eighth centuries). Its roots go to an earlier period, though, from the end of the second through the end of the third century—an era of transition. This period saw the church grow from the post-apostolic church, when each local church was still physically one assembly headed by a bishop, to the of the assembly, outside of the church, and so, no longer participating in or signifying the unity and fullness of the church. In this school, the nuances of whether a church is in heresy or in schism become perhaps less important than in a universal ecclesiology. Everything outside the church is outside, no matter how close it may appear to be to the inside. 41 I will use this term to describe specifically the church as it exists in any one particular time and place, presided over by a bishop, including priests, deacons, other clergy and laity, all (ideally) gathered around one eucharistic assembly. The term has not always been used in one definitive sense, even within the same author (see Erickson, “Concrete Structural Organization,” 10 n. 2), but has, over time, crystallized into this definition for most people, even those who are not in the eucharistic ecclesiology camp.

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post-Constantinian church, when each local church became more and more a group of local assemblies headed by a bishop. It was in this transitional period that the church had to begin to re-direct its emphasis on the unity of the church. Cyprian of Carthage’s ecclesiology, which provides the theological foundation of universal ecclesiology, arose out of this milieu. A concern which may be raised at this point is what role the structure of the New Testament Church of the apostles played in the formulation of a universal ecclesiology. The response is that it had a very small part, if any. The post-Constantinian church had few direct points of reference with the church of the apostles, at least in terms of authority and structure. Questions of authority and unity existed in very different contexts in the two eras. For instance, as long as the eye-witnesses of Jesus were alive, any such question was readily (if not easily) resolved by appeal to those eyewitnesses. These were the ones who were recognized by all as having the authority to carry the gospel given to them. The question of who had authority did not really arise until these eye-witnesses were gone. Modern biblical scholarship has delved into the growth and development of the church in the apostolic and post-apostolic eras. It has found, or purported to find, a great deal of flux, variation, and continual change in how the churches went about the business of being church. Even granting that these findings are true, this process is not of great interest here, because it is the end result of this process that the Orthodox Church took to itself and made the norm of church structure. The variety of authority structures which James Dunn42 and many others seem to find in the New Testament and just beyond, for instance, is interesting, but not to the point. Likewise, the less radical exploration of the variation in the stages of development of church authority, by authors like Raymond Brown and John Meier,43 does not affect the outcome of the discussion. The traditional Orthodox understanding of authority was not directly formed by the experience of the apostolic church, with which it could little relate. It was formed first by a church structure which developed in a time when no one in the church could appeal any longer to the eye-witnesses of Jesus. It is in the post-apostolic period that the place of the bishop and his authority became crystallized as the needs of the church required it to reflect more fully upon where or in whom its authority resided. Ignatius of Antioch, especially, is recognized as being the foremost spokesman of this 42 James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1977). 43 Raymond E. Brown and John P. Meier, Antioch and Rome (New York: Paulist Press, 1983).

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reflection, which becomes known as the monarchical episcopate. However, mainstream ecclesiology did not draw its understanding of church directly even from Ignatius, except perhaps in the aspect of the concept of the monarchical episcopate. As shall be seen later, other aspects of Ignatius’ thought become important for modern eucharistic ecclesiology, but do not seem to be so relevant to the post-Constantinian church, again because of a very different lived situation. The post-apostolic church, in turn, was the starting point for further growth in the authority structure of the church. The rapid population growth of the church required the church to find new ways to exist as church, especially by the time of Constantine the Emperor. While these changes were perhaps not as radical as the first stage, they still resulted in a very different church from the one Ignatius knew. The transitional period of growth in the third and fourth centuries is the point where the true beginnings of a universal ecclesiology can be found.

UNITY AND CATHOLICITY IN THE CHURCH IN TRANSITION By the middle of the third century, the church found itself in a very different situation from the one experienced by Ignatius, who knew only one congregation for an entire town. The church had grown outside of the original cities into the surrounding areas and even more remote villages and towns. The local church was beginning to no longer consist of relatively few people, meeting around one altar each Sunday, presided over by the bishop, with all the ministries and people present as a visible sign of the fullness of the church, as in Ignatius’ day. The bishop’s own people needed to assemble regularly where they lived, often far from the city-church center, but the bishop could not be present. In this period, the church struggled with the tension between a realized unity of the whole local church with the bishop, and a realized fullness of the one eucharistic assembly with all members present. This tension was created by the church’s rapid growth, and found various solutions in various times and places. At the beginning of this period in Rome, Hippolytus did not know of a presbyter presiding over a eucharistic assembly by himself. The ordination prayer for a presbyter in Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition says nothing at all about functioning as priest, feeding the flock, offering the Eucharist, forgiving sins, or conferring orders, all of which are explicitly given to the bishop in his prayer of ordination.44 The 44

Compare the texts in Hippolytus of Rome, Apostolic Tradition 1.3 (bishop’s ordination prayer) and 1.7 (presbyter’s ordination prayer). Also, Hippolytus’

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presbyter’s ordination prayer merely asks, “that he [presbyter] may help and govern your people with a pure heart.”45 According to Robert Taft, the Christian assemblies which were held on Sunday apart from the bishop were for catechumens and other non-communicants, and only the presbyter received the Eucharist (the fermentum) from the episcopal assembly. Everyone else was still expected to attend the one eucharistic assembly. The place of the presbyters was surrounding the altar with the bishop. Taft says that this situation remained the norm in Rome, which was always liturgically conservative, even as late as the sixth century.46 Over the next century, other solutions were found. In Egypt, Dionysius of Alexandria (+AD 268) indicated that the solution found there was to have the villages outside of town form their own assemblies. These assemblies seem to have been presided over regularly by resident presbyters: When I arrived in the district of Arsinoe, where as you know this notion [a heresy by Nepos] had long been widely held, so that schisms and secessions of entire churches had taken place, I called a meeting of the presbyters and teachers of the village congregations, with any laymen who wished to attend, and urged them to thrash out the question in public.47

introduction to the deacon’s ordination prayer (1.8) explicitly excludes the presbyters from laying on hands: “The priest [presbyter] has power only to receive this Spirit and not to give him. That is why he does not ordain clerics. At the ordination of a priest [presbyter], he simply makes the gesture of laying hands on the other, while the bishop does the ordaining.” Text in Lucien Deiss, Springtime of the Liturgy: Liturgical Texts of the First Four Centuries, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1979), 127–128, 133–134. (Hippolytus’ text was translated from the critical French edition by B. Botte.) 45 Hippolytus, Apost. Trad., 7. 46 Robert Taft, Beyond East and West: Problems in Liturgical Understanding (Washington, D.C.: Pastoral Press, 1984), 101–102. Joseph Lienhard, however, assumes, with no justification, that presbyters presided over eucharistic assemblies in Rome apart from the bishop. See Joseph T. Lienhard, Ministry, Message of the Fathers of the Church, vol. 8 (Wilmington, DE.: Michael Glazier, 1984), 19. 47 Dionysius of Alexandria, the second book On Promises, in Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 7.24.6., in Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, trans. and intro. G. A. Williamson (Middlesex, UK.: Dorset Press, 1983, reprint of 1965), 308. Lienhard mistakenly ascribes this text to a letter by Dionysius, in Lienhard, Ministry, 19.

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Although Dionysius met with the all the congregations, conspicuously absent were the bishop(s) and the deacons, indicating that presbyters were probably leading these communities. This solution favored the necessity of maintaining the unity of the church from one place to another over the necessity of expressing the church’s fullness in one specific assembly. A third response to this dilemma was the creation of the office of chorbishop. The office of chorbishop or “country-bishop,” his function, place, duties, and charisms, have been a much debated issue. Some would have him be merely a presbyter, the first “pastor” of a modern style parish; others would accord him full episcopal ordination.48 Exactly what a chorbishop’s duties and authority were is beyond this work; what is more important here is that his office was an interim solution to this new situation. He was certainly a bishop at least in this: his function was to preside at the eucharistic assembly in the villages and small towns. This solution favored the need to express the fullness of the church in one place over the need to maintain unity throughout the church.49 48 Nikodemos’ commentary on Laodicea 57 reveals this ongoing debate, including a middle-ground solution which would have some chorbishops be presbyters and others bishops. Rudder, 574–575, n. 1. A good summary of the office of chorbishop in both East and West can be found in Jacques Leclef, “Chorévêque,” in Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, 1935–1965. Also, Zizioulas gives a brief discussion on the office in John D. Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries, trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001), 94–98. Leclef and Zizioulas both come to the same essential conclusion: that chorbishops were originally bishops in the full sense of the word, but slowly had their authority restricted (in all senses) until they were no more than presbyters having their own parish and holding an honorary title. Leclef claims that the title remained in the East through the twentieth century, but it is unknown, at least in America. 49 The confusion which exists regarding the chorbishop’s actual position and function in the church may point toward the intimate connection the church placed upon the roles of eucharistic presider and community governor, with the one presuming the other. The position of chorbishop, who presided over a Eucharist, but was somehow subject to the governance of the city bishop, even if a rather elegant and practical solution, would be an anomalous impingement upon this connection. His precise governing functions and sacramental powers could no longer be presumed; since they had been separated from his eucharistic role, the possibility opened up of a variation in powers bestowed upon him. What other functions he had, then, may well have depended on the time, place, and perhaps even the individuals involved. Once the connection between the Eucharist and the

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Unfortunately, the multiplicity of bishops and chorbishops contributed to a growing disorder, disunity, and lack of harmony in the church, rather than functioning as a sign of unity and fullness. Most of the canons of Sardica, for instance, are concerned with regulating the activities of bishops who were creating chaos through their improper activities. So, the chorbishop was slowly reduced in his authority and eventually replaced completely by presbyters, who were slowly given greater authority than they originally had. The Council of Ancyra in 314 restricted the chorbishop’s episcopal privileges and placed him in greater dependence on the city bishop.50 At the Council of Sardica in 344, chorbishops were no longer to be appointed to small villages and towns if a presbyter was sufficient.51 By the time of the Council of Laodicea, held sometime between 343 and 385,52 the office of chorbishop was eliminated in favor of circuit-riding presbyters: That in villages and in small towns and country districts Bishops are not to be appointed, but circuitors, who, however, having been preappointed, may do nothing without the consent and approval of the Bishop.53

Through this period, the church as a whole gradually found it necessary to maintain the unity of the church between communities, even if it was at the expense of the visible fullness of each local eucharistic rest of the office was broken, chaos apparently reigned, requiring the church ultimately to do away with the office. 50 Ancyra 13 (R496): “Auxiliary Bishops shall have no right to ordain presbyters or deacons, … without being allowed to do so by the Bishop with letters in each diocese.” “Auxiliary Bishop” is a translation for “chor-episcopos,” following the Latin usage of the term (see Leclef, “Chorévêque,” Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, op. cit.) There are a lot of difficulties with the text (Lienhard, for instance, refers to a version which already forbids ordination of bishops for small villages, in Ministry, 19), but no matter how it reads it is certainly concerned with the reduction of the scope of the chorbishop’s authority and presence. See Zizioulas, Eucharist, 96–97. 51 Sardica 6 (R587): “It is [not] allowable in general to appoint a Bishop to a village or to a small town for which a single Presbyter would amply suffice. For it is not necessary that Bishops be appointed thereto, lest the name and authority of Bishop be rendered contemptible or despicable.” The “not” was left out by mistake: see the Interpretation, 588. The reasoning here indicates how much the situation of the church had changed from the post-apostolic period. Ignatius would likely have been surprised that overseeing a community that was too small would render his office “despicable.” 52 Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, vol. 1, 315–316. 53 Laodicea 57 (R574).

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assembly. Once the bishop was no longer the president of each and every eucharistic assembly, the assembly lost an important, visible sign of its completeness. On the other hand, the church gained a stronger sense of unity and order between a number of communities in a given locale, as one bishop was now the single source of authority for all of them. As the church moved more in this direction, the chorbishop disappeared by the end of the fourth century, replaced by presbyters who were assigned the new function of presiding regularly at the Eucharist. It is true that Ignatius of Antioch already had allowed for the occasional possibility of a presbyter presiding over the Eucharist in the absence of the bishop; however, he clearly could not conceive of a regular eucharistic assembly without the presence of the bishop.54 Now, throughout the church, the bishop was becoming an overseer in a broader sense as he was charged with the regulation of eucharistic celebrations in which he himself did not take part.55 It would be anachronistic to say that the parish structure in the modern sense existed then, even by the end of the fourth century. For instance, while Dionysius seemed to know presbyters who led their village churches in the Alexandrian Church, a hundred years later the bishops of the Council of Laodicea still were not willing to go that far in separating the assembly from the bishop. They ruled in favor of circuit-riding presbyters rather than fixed leaders in the villages. This would give the outlying assemblies the opportunity to celebrate the Eucharist regularly, while keeping them within the bishop’s purview. At the same time, the presbyters remained more councilors and aids to the bishop than leaders of the assembly in their own right. Nevertheless, it is not anachronistic to state that congregations were becoming established in which the bishop played a much smaller role as the presence of unity. In this new context, the church refocused its concern over unity and fullness, requiring it to define more closely the authority and place of the minister and those to whom he ministered. The ties that bound the bishop to the presbyters, to the deacons, and to the people needed to be strengthened even as they were being stretched longer and longer.56 When 54

Ignatius, Smyrneans 8.1–2. This point will be addressed in more detail later in this chapter. 55 Lienhard, Ministry, 19. 56 I mean this literally—the physical distance between bishop and people grew longer and longer, making presence and communication more and more difficult. We tend to forget today that up until about 150 years ago, major effort and a great deal of time was required to keep in touch between people who lived relatively

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the local church was still only one assembly, it could readily see within itself the realization of the unity and fullness of the church. Now the local church was no longer strictly identifiable with one eucharistic assembly. The definition had broadened to include a group of assemblies under one bishop. This separation of visible oneness and fullness from a specific locale paved the way for the church to shift its focus to the unity between bishops who were the summation of their churches. The emphasis was no longer on the unity within the local church, but rather throughout the whole church. Cyprian is, perhaps, foremost among the writers of that time who began to treat this situation doctrinally. Much of Cyprian’s time as bishop of Carthage was spent in dealing with division in the church which was occasioned by the Decian persecution. Many of those who apostasized during the persecution wished to come back to the church. This was the first issue of division. The second division came through disputes over what to do with the lapsi; this led to schism and heresy, led by one Novatus. Cyprian had to deal on a very practical level with preserving the unity of the church against these divisions. It is in this milieu that Cyprian wrote many of his letters and his treatise on the unity of the church. Cyprian’s thought starts from the prevailing understanding of the source of the unity of the church: “God is one and Christ is one: There is one Church, and one chair founded, by the Lord’s authority, upon Peter.”57 The debate on Cyprian’s understanding of the meaning of the chair of Peter is not of interest here; his primary point is that the oneness of the Church is founded upon the unity of the one God.58 Cyprian’s statement, which has short distances apart. In the modern age it is difficult enough for a bishop to give proper regular oversight to his flock, much less physical contact, even by phone or by car. In those days it was becoming next to impossible. The only way to keep chaos from overcoming order was to try to make sure that as little as possible was done without the bishop’s knowledge and approval, requiring the strengthening of the bishop’s authority more and more. The impact of modern technology, especially in transportation and communication, upon the freedom and the authority of the church is unexplored territory, at least within Orthodoxy. 57 Cyprian, Letters 43.5.2. The numbering is Hartel’s numbering. Translations for the letters are from G. W. Clarke, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 44, 46 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1984, 1986). 58 The debate on Cyprian’s view of Roman primacy is summed up rather succinctly, from the Roman Catholic point of view, in Maurice Bévenot, in his introduction to his St. Cyprian: The Lapsed and The Unity of the Catholic Church, trans. and annotated Maurice Bévenot, Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 25 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957), 7–8. Here Bévenot dwells on the “implicitness” of the

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echoes of the high-priestly prayer of Jesus reported in the Gospel of John, “Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one” (Jn. 17:11 RSV), is then augmented by the Pauline doctrine of the Mystical Body: Moreover, by Christ’s doing, the Church is one throughout the world, having many members as its parts; the episcopate is one, spread out in the concording fellowship of its many bishops.59

For Cyprian, then, each local church is a part or a member of the whole Body, and the church’s unity is found in the sum of its parts. Each bishop is the person of authority in his local church, and it is his exercise of the one episcopate in a “concording fellowship” with all other bishops that is the sign of unity in the church: Now this oneness we must hold to firmly and insist on—especially we who are bishops and exercise authority in the church—so as to demonstrate that the episcopal power is one and undivided too. … The authority of the bishops forms a unity, of which each holds his part in its totality.60

Catholic doctrine of papal primacy at the time of Cyprian. The general Orthodox view has, of course, tended to coincide with the Protestant one, denying that Cyprian had any intent to acknowledge Roman primacy. Bévenot, who had the major insight, now accepted by most scholars, that the shorter (non-primacy) version was the revision of the longer one, seems to have retreated from the “implicitness” argument later on. In his 1971 text, he concludes that Cyprian had no intention of promoting a papal primacy in the modern sense, with no discussion of any implicit dogma in Cyprian. See Bévenot’s argument, based on the texts, in his introduction in his Cyprian: De Lapsis and De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate, text and translation by Maurice Bévenot (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), x–xvii. Afanassieff, in his analysis of Cyprian’s ecclesiology in “Church which Presides,” contends that a Cyprianic universal ecclesiology has as its logical end some kind of primacy of authority and infallibility (63–65), and standard Orthodox theology merely replaced the Roman patriarch with the Ecumenical Councils (65–67). I am indebted to Afanassieff’s discussion on Cyprian for my argument here. 59 Cyprian, Letters 55.24.4. Text from Bévenot, Cyprian: De Lapsis (1971), 108– 109. 60 Cyprian, De ecclesiae unitate 5. This quote is from his second or revised edition. Bévenot (1971), states that “totality,” in solidum, does not connote solidarity in any sense, but refers to the bishop’s “authority in his own church,” 65, n. 51.

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Cyprian here lays out an understanding of church which becomes the basis for virtually all Orthodox ecclesiological thought until the twentieth century.61 Cyprian’s focus is primarily on a horizontal level; he finds unity and, indeed, catholicity in the unity of all bishops with each other. Nevertheless, this also has ramifications on a vertical plane—that is, on the unity between the bishop and the people of his church. He does not dwell on this point, but rather seems more to assume it. If the bishop is the sign of unity, then all must be united with him: The Church herself does not go away from Christ, and in his [Peter’s] view the Church consists of the people who remain united with their bishop, it is the flock that stays by its shepherd. By that you ought to realize that the bishop is in the Church and the Church is in the bishop, and whoever is not with the bishop is not in the Church.62

The bishop does not act alone, then, or for himself, or even for other bishops, but as the pastor of his flock. The bishop is the touchstone of oneness in the church, both on a horizontal level, with all other bishops and, therefore, all other churches, and on a vertical level, bringing his flock into union with each other through himself and with all the other churches as the one Body of Christ. A counterpoint to Cyprian’s thought can be mentioned here. Cyprian’s emphasis on the unity of the episcopacy shifts the focus of the church from a unity within the local church to a unity of the whole church. Once this happens, the necessity of geographical unity of the local church becomes, to an extent, problematic. At this point, the oneness of the church does not necessarily de facto require that this unity be geographically exclusive in each local church. That is, all people in the local church are to be united to the bishop, who is united to all other bishops. Cyprian’s major ground for disavowing those who are setting up separate assemblies (in Letter 66, quoted above) is that they are not in union with him, who is in union with 61 Not all agree that Cyprian lays the foundation for a universal ecclesiology. See Zizioulas, who, in discussing Cyprian’s concept of the “cathedra Petri ” says, “It is, therefore, wrong to read universalistic ideas into the ecclesiology of Cyprian” (Being, 200–201). His comment is directed specifically at Afanassieff; see 201, n. 107. However, he acknowledges that the problem with Cyprian’s ecclesiology is that it “leads to the search for ‘vicarius Christi’ outside or above the apostolic—and the episcopal—college” (203, n. 114). This is precisely Afanassieff’s point, and why he says that Cyprian lays the foundation for universal ecclesiology. See above, note 58. 62 Cyprian, Letters 66(68).8.3. Clarke, vol. 46, 121. Cyprian here echoes Ignatius in numerous passages, e.g., Ignatius, Trallians 7.2.

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all other bishops. However, what if the other assembly (or assemblies) in the town of Carthage were in union with all bishops and therefore their bishop was part of the one episcopate? This may not be Cyprian’s main concern, but it does point out a weakness in the universal model of ecclesiology. In modern America, this is precisely the situation of the Orthodox Church with its multitude of overlapping jurisdictions and even multiple bishops in one city, most of whom are in communion with each other. So, if geographical unity is not necessarily required, then the local church could have been conceived demographically rather than geographically: for instance, by social class, or ethnic origin. However, this never happened. In fact, the church repeatedly affirmed in practice and in the canons the standard of “one bishop, one city.”63 The reasoning and the theology behind this unchanging stance must come from somewhere else. It is possible that the more developed theology of the local church which the eucharistic theologians see in Ignatius’ work may have influenced the church’s stance on this matter. If so, this would mean that elements of a eucharistic or local ecclesiology were already embedded in and served as a corrective to the universalist tendencies which grow out of Cyprian’s thought. Cyprian’s ecclesiology gives a rationale for the church’s growing emphasis on unity between the local churches. This emphasis is expressed both in the liturgy of ordination and in the canons which regulate that liturgy. For instance, the church reiterates the necessity of having a number of bishops present at the election and ordination of a new bishop. Apostolic Canon 1 (R1) merely requires “two or three bishops,” but I Nicea goes into much greater detail: I Nicea 4 (R168) It is most fitting that a Bishop should be installed by all those in the province. But if such a thing is difficult either because of the urgency of circumstances, or because of the distance to be traveled, at least three should meet together somewhere and by their votes combined with those of the ones absent and joining in the election by letter they should carry out the ordination thereafter. But as for ratification of the proceedings, let it be entrusted in each province to the Metropolitan.64

63 Nicea 8 (R175–76) is the main canon. See also Apostolic Canon 35 (R52); 1st&-2nd (Council in Constantinople, 861, under Patriarch Photius) 16 (R471–472). 64 See also Antioch 19 (R5455), Sardica 6 (R587), Laodicea 12 (R556), Carthage 58 & 59 (R638), II Nicea 3 (R431–2). The original text here read “metropolitan

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It is not just any two or three bishops who are to ordain, but those close by within the province, especially with the approval of the city bishop, who begins to take on a greater role as a sign of unity among all the bishops in his area. The ordination of one by many serves to provide a common, united front against the ongoing heresies with which the church is forced to deal in this period. The bishops themselves remain both the primary teachers as well as the primary officeholders in the church, and this canon helps insure harmony within their teachings. Thus, oneness among bishops also becomes a sign of fullness of faith, since those who are not in unity are heretics and schismatics who no longer express the fullness of the faith. During this period, presbyters slowly become the ordinary presiders over the eucharistic assembly for most people and the ordinary leader in the congregation. Their authority to do so derives directly from the bishop who appoints them and, at least in the mind of the fathers of Laodicea, does not appear to have been an authority which they held in their own right but rather is delegated solely by the bishop: “they may do nothing without the consent and approval of the Bishop.” Nevertheless, there is a gradual growth in the presbyter’s authority. Taft’s discussion of the change in the presbyter’s role in concelebration of the Eucharist shows how this role reflects the overall change of the presbyter’s function during this whole period: at the beginning of the third century, still only the bishop offers the Eucharist; by the end of the fourth, presbyters “co-offer” with the bishop.65 This change happens at the same time that more and more presbyters are no longer finding their seat at the synthronon with the bishop on Sunday; rather, they are sitting by themselves at a different assembly.66 As the church structure expands, requiring that more authority be delegated by the bishops, what does not occur is any sense that the lines of authority and unity have undergone any radical change, even as they are extended. All authority still resides in and flows from the bishop. Those ordained by him are ordained to share in that authority according to their ministry. This is the point of the sign of the laying on of hands, whether it is for a presbyter or a door-keeper. The multiplicity of a variety of orders testifies to the fact that each assembly had many members who were called bishop,” not just “Metropolitan.” The term “metropolitan” had not yet become an official title, nor had it acquired its full jurisdictional significance in the metropolitan system, although I Nicea was instrumental in setting that system in place. See L’Huillier, Church, 36–41. 65 See Taft, Beyond, 85–95. 66 Taft suggests this as a possible reason for the growth in the concept of concelebration. Taft, ibid., 89.

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and elected to serve that assembly and perhaps the whole church in many different ways, but that service was ratified by the laying on of hands. Those who were not so ratified did not share in the authority of the bishop, not because they were being excluded as laity, but because they were not selected.67

UNITY AND CATHOLICITY IN THE EXPANDED CHURCH During the age of the ecumenical councils, from the fourth to the eighth centuries, the structure of the local church continued to evolve so that by the end of that period the local church would be more or less recognizable to a modern Christian as a diocese composed of a number of parishes headed by a bishop. The bishop, no longer the sole presider over the eucharistic assembly, oversaw a number of assemblies or parishes68 which were headed by presbyters. The bishop remained the first pastor of all assemblies under his care, with ultimate responsibility for them and therefore with ultimate authority over each of them. His authoritative presence at each assembly was still considered the norm, and no assembly could take place without his consent and approval. His absence was treated, in a sense, as a temporary one, as if he just happened not to be able to be there this Sunday, but would appear next Sunday. This is, in part, the meaning of the fermentum in the West.69 67 See Canons of Basil 89 (R849–850), where the selection process was becoming sloppy and/or corrupt, through the “utmost indolence” of the chorbishops (another indication of the difficulties that particular office was creating). Nevertheless, it is clear that those who serve the assembly come from the assembly itself: “That is why a great number of servants are to be found in every village, but not one deserving to minister at the altar, as you yourselves bear witness, being at a loss for men in the voting contests.” 68 The term parish, from paroikia (sojourn, dwell, settle, as in a foreign land) is still relatively fluid during this period. It originally was used to mean an assembly led by a bishop. See Zizioulas, Eucharist, 103–105. By the conciliar period, it is often, therefore, used to designate either an episcopal territory, or an individual assembly. See L’Huillier, Church of the Ancient Councils, 252–3, where he notes that Chal. 17 uses the term both ways in the same canon. 69 Zizioulas, Eucharist, 220–222. Zizioulas restricts the term “fermentum” to the Eucharist sent by the bishop to other eucharistic assemblies, at a period dating from the fourth century. The second/third century practice of sending the Eucharist to non-eucharistic assemblies he does not describe as “fermentum,” as Taft does (see above, note 46). He is in agreement with Taft that this earlier usage did not indicate presbyteral eucharistic assemblies. However, Zizioulas would like to see these assemblies as the fore-runner of the parish (210–212). Although he is

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In the East, various liturgical practices have highlighted a similar attitude, which remains until today.70 Most importantly, the local bishop is remembered and prayed for by name during the celebration of all the mysteries of the church, in most of the divine office, and in most paraliturgical services. In the Divine Liturgy the assembly prays for their bishop not once, but four times. It is an indication that his presence and permission for the assembly are still required for a proper assembly. Beyond this, liturgical norms and regulations require that each parish has on the main altar an antimension, consecrated and signed by the present ordinary of the diocese, as a visible sign that the assembly belongs to that bishop and is authorized to celebrate the Eucharist. Without that antimension, the Eucharist may not be celebrated. Likewise, each parish church is required to have a permanent throne for the bishop, either in the ancient place behind the altar (at the synthronon) or on the south side of the solea. This chair remains unused until the bishop arrives. A third sign of the bishop’s authority and first pastorship is the chrism which each parish must have for use in the mysteries, especially chrismation. This chrism must come from the local ordinary, who in turn receives it from the ranking hierarch in his particular church. The chrism, a visible sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit, becomes in this way a mark of the authority of the bishop over his parish, and a sign of unity between parish, presbyter, and bishop, and also between bishops in a particular church. During the conciliar period, the presbyter took on the title “priest” as an indication of his function as presider over the Eucharist; before this only the bishop was occasionally called “priest,” and that only in virtue of the fact that he took the place of Christ in the eucharistic assembly.71 Now a presbyter could be called “priest” inasmuch as he fulfilled the same function for his parish. The presbyter no longer ordinarily stood in concelebration with the bishop, but presided over “his own” assembly. This created a tension between two very different functions of the presbyter. On the one hand, he still had the traditional role of councilor to the bishop cautious about this hypothesis, he seems to push it a little too hard, especially when he wants to date the beginnings of the parish to the middle of the third century (216). It may have been one, but only one, of many factors in the development of the parish. Nevertheless, Zizioulas’ ultimate conclusions are sound: that the parish “appeared as a result of necessity,” due to the “rapid rise of Christians in the cities and perhaps also in the rural interior;” and that “this development was not revolutionary but natural.” (216–217). 70 Ibid., 222–225. 71 Zizioulas, Eucharist, 205–208.

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with little authority in his own right. On the other, in his new role as head of a congregation he exercised a regular authority both in the liturgical assembly and outside of it which had little day to day contact with the bishop. As this situation became the norm, it would have been natural for the presbyter/priest to appear to function as head of an assembly with authority in his own right, in his own eyes and in the eyes of his congregation. However, the church suppressed chorbishops precisely because their autonomous activity was detrimental to the unity of the church as a whole. The church was, therefore, careful to maintain a much closer dependence of the presbyter/priests upon the bishop to keep the same difficulties from occurring: Apostolic Canon 39 (R59) Let Presbyters and Deacons do nothing without the consent of the Bishop. For he is the one entrusted with the Lord’s people, and it is from him that an accounting will be demanded with respect to their souls.72

The canon gives the rationale for the restriction of this authority: the bishop is the one who is ultimately responsible for those placed under his care, and it is he who will be called to an accounting before God.73 This

72 See also Laodicea 57 quoted above; Carthage 6 (R608), 7 (R609), and 50 (R633), which restrict the sacerdotal functions and authority of presbyters; Carthage 41 (R629), which restricts their authority over material property (more on this canon later). These are some major samples. The Council of Carthage quoted here and after is the one held in AD 418–424, unless otherwise noted. This council was ratified by name in the list in Trullo c.2. The only other Council in Carthage so ratified was the one held in AD 258 by Cyprian, which issued only one canon (R485). 73 Even though the church constantly referred to the dependence of all upon the bishop, the role of presbyter as priest continued to assert a certain autonomy of authority. By the beginning of the fifth century, with the celebration of the Eucharist by a presbyter alone becoming normal, Jerome is able to state that presbyters and bishops are the same: “…the presbyters have always named as bishop one chosen from among their own number and set in a more exalted position, just as an army elects its commander, or as the deacons elect one of themselves known for his diligence and call him archdeacon.” See Jerome, “Letter to Evangelus,” trans. by Jurgens in Faith, vol. 2, 188. The analogies give a clear indication that, as far as Jerome was concerned, no difference existed between the orders of bishop and presbyter; the difference was “merely one of jurisdiction and faculties.” See Jurgens, Faith, vol. 2, 188 n. 25. Note that Jerome globalizes a situation in which the laity are no longer involved at all in the election of bishops,

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reasoning remains the primary pastoral, practical reason given for placing all authority over all things within the local church in the hands of the bishop. This includes not only authority over all the actions of his presbyters and deacons, but authority over all the material goods of the church. These are two of the main canons regarding this aspect of the bishop’s role in the local church: Apostolic Canons 38 (R57) Let the Bishop have the care of all ecclesiastical matters74 and let him manage them, on the understanding that God is overseeing and supervising. Let him not be allowed to appropriate anything therefrom or to give God’s things to his relatives. If they be indigent, let him provide for them as indigents, but let him not trade off things of the Church under this pretext. Apostolic Canons 41 (R62) We command that the Bishop have authority over the property of the church. For if the precious souls of human beings ought to be entrusted to him, there is little need of any special injunction concerning money; so that everything may be entrusted to be governed in accordance with his authority, and he may grant to those in need through the presbyters and deacons with fear of God and all reverence, while he himself may partake thereof whatever he needs (if he needs anything) for his necessary wants, and for brethren who are his guests, so as not to deprive them of anything, in any manner. For God’s law has enjoined that those who serve at the altar and the bishop is always selected from among the presbyterate. Even if this is his experience, it is certainly not the general experience of the church, even by his time. Such an understanding was not possible in the Ignatian church, nor was it accepted by mainstream Orthodox thought. Nevertheless, this became so much the popular view in the West that by the Scholastic period, most thought of the order of presbyter/priest as the “real” sacrament of orders, with bishop and deacon deriving from it as a matter of degree and not necessarily sacramental. See, for instance, Nicholas Halligan, Sacraments of Community Renewal, Vol. 3, The Ministry of the Celebration of the Sacraments (New York: Alba House, 1974), 6: “It is of faith that the episcopacy, priesthood, and diaconate are of divine institution [quoting Trent]; it is certainly of faith that the priesthood is a sacrament. It is commonly taught as theologically certain that the episcopacy and the diaconate are sacraments.” Ludwig Ott, in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford, Il.: Tan Books and Publishers, 1960), 453, states that “…Pius XII presupposes the sacramental nature of the consecration of bishops, which was denied by most Scholastic Theologians, but overwhelmingly affirmed by the post-Tridentine theologians.” The Orthodox Church has consistently maintained that the episcopacy is sacramental in nature, as are the order of presbyter and deacon. 74 “Ecclesiastical matters” equals “things/goods of the church.”

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are to be maintained at the altar’s expense. The more so in view of the fact that not even a soldier ever bears arms against belligerents at his own expense.75

The Interpretation by Nikodemos for canon 41 in The Rudder states the following: “This Canon, too, like c. 38, gives the bishop all authority over ecclesiastical property.”76 These canons and parallel ones address both sides of the issue of episcopal stewardship: first, that the bishop is responsible to God for the souls of those in his care and, therefore, ultimately responsible for all activity in the local church; second, that he is also responsible to God and the church for proper management of the things placed in his care. This is merely the logical conclusion of the sense that the bishop is the locus of unity and fullness of faith. Since unity with the bishop is required of all in his flock in order to maintain communion in the Church (and therefore the possibility of salvation), then the bishop must be held accountable for all who fulfill that requirement. The canons, which were almost always prescriptive, address the very real concern over bishops who through their actions acted as points of disunity by not fulfilling their stewardship properly. During the conciliar age the church was growing rapidly, materially as well as spiritually and numerically. Local churches began to acquire and control more and more material goods through the generosity of wealthy benefactors and through the support of the state. The church used these goods for the benefit of the poor and needy, for the building up of edifices, and for the support of those who worked in the church. With wealth came power, and with both came the temptation to use them for one’s own gain and ambition. Certainly some clergy ordained as stewards for the church succumbed to the temptation.77 Certainly also some people, especially probably those with 75

Related canons include the following: Ancyra 15 (R497); Gangra 7, 8 (R525– 526); Antioch 24, 25 (R548–549); Carthage 34 (R624–625), 41 (R629); Theophilus 10, 11 (R912); Cyril 2 (R918); Chalcedon 26 (R270); II Nicea (7th Coun.) 11, 12 (R440-441); 1st-&-2nd 7 (R464). See also 1 Cor. 9:13–14, and also 9:7. 76 The Rudder, 62. The Interpretation, written in 1800, based on thirteenth century canonists and given quasi-canonical status even today, demonstrates that this understanding of episcopal authority over all the material goods of the church is considered the norm, even through the modern era. 77 One sign that the church was and is plagued by those who seek clerical orders for their own ambitions is the number of canons which address the issue of giving and receiving ordination and clerical offices for money. Chalcedon 2 (R246) specifically says that any bishop doing this is deposed, the ordination itself is

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wealth and power, withheld their support of the church because they suspected that the bishop or other clergy were misusing the material goods of the church. The church not only wished to prevent such misuse, which created more discord and division; it proscribed against even the appearance of misuse: Chalcedon 26 (R270) As we have learned, in some churches, the bishops administer the material goods of the church without a treasurer [oikonomos]; it has seemed right and proper that every church with a bishop should also have a treasurer taken from the clergy who will administer the church’s goods with the advice of his own bishop. In this way, the administration of the church will not be without checks and balances, the goods of the church will not be dissipated, and the priesthood will be free from all suspicion. Let anyone who will not follow these instructions be subjected to the divine canons.78

On the diocesan level, as Chalcedon 26 states, the bishop’s authority over the material goods of the church was to be shared with an economos, or treasurer, and the canon emphasizes that this person had to be a cleric— specifically, a presbyter or deacon. By sharing his administrative duties, the bishop could ensure proper management of the goods of the church while forestalling any concerns which might be raised about that management. Nevertheless, the economos still had to function within the authority of the bishop. The bishop was the one who made the appointment and he remained the ultimate authority.

annulled by the very act, and anyone involved in the transaction is deposed if a cleric, excommunicated if a layman or monk. See L’Huillier’s commentary on Chalcedon 2, Church of the Ancient Councils, 214–218. Morever, Apostolic Canon 29 (R43) prescribes not only deposition, but also excommunication for both the bishop and the buyer. Apostolic Canon 30 (R45) does likewise for those who use secular government officials for the same purpose. Double penalties for the same offense were later prohibited by the canons. 78 This text is from L’Huillier, Church of the Ancient Councils, 264. The version in The Rudder has a major error and poor translation. See L’Huillier’s commentary 264–65. See also the following canons: II Nicea 11 (R440 - 441); Carthage 40 (R628) [“with Bishops, Presbyters, Deacons, or any Clerics whatever, who owned nothing to begin with, that if in the course of their service … they buy any fields or any territories whatever in their own name, they are to be considered as though guilty of having made an inroad upon the Lord’s business or the Lord’s things…”]; Cyril of Alexandria 2 (R918–919). Antioch 24 and 25 (R548–549) shows that the presbyters and deacons are both given authority over material goods by the bishop, and are to function as a check and balance on the bishop’s authority.

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Both Zonaras and Balsamon, the twelfth-century canonists who are considered quasi-authoritative, opined that the clerical qualification for this post was very important.79 This qualification makes sense on both the theological and practical levels. The presbyters were traditionally the councilors of the bishop, while the deacons were his aides, both functioning as extensions of the episcopal authority. Since the bishop retained ultimate responsibility for the goods under his care, he necessarily had to retain the authority to fulfill that responsibility. The management of the material goods of the church seems to have been treated as an extension of, and part of, the spiritual leadership of the bishop. In fact, it would be difficult to say that the church had any real concept of “spiritual authority” separated from “material authority.” There was only the authority of the bishop over his church, and if different persons were ordained to serve in various capacities, then it was not a matter of a spiritual capacity versus a material one, but merely one person doing this job and another that job. Most jobs, as already noted above, required an authorization which consisted of a laying on of hands, whether the job was mundane or sublime. The post of economos appears to have been treated in this fashion. Theophilus of Alexandria (AD 380) prescribed in canon 10 that the economos must be elected by the presbyteral council and appointed by the bishop. This process is very much the same process which he prescribes for ordaining presbyters in canon 7.80 There may be a distinction between the two functions, but not a separation. Likewise, in Constantinople, by the time of Zonaras, both the Great Economos and the Skeuophylax81 were ordained by the Patriarch himself.82 The Great Economos was the chief administrator for the patriarchate, and his role was a crucial one, especially when the patriarchal throne was vacant, when it would be crucial to the

79

Quoted in L’Huillier, Church, 265. Theophilus c. 10 (R912), 7 (R908). See above, note 75. 81 Skeuophylax: Keeper of the Treasury, who was also the Chief Sacristan of the Great Church (Hagia Sophia). The Skeuophylakion was the place where all the sacred vessels and precious objects of the church were kept. It was also the place where the clergy vested and prepared the eucharistic gifts. The Skeuophylax held a very important post in the heyday of Constantinople, being charged with both the protection of and the proper use of the Great Church and all it contained. 82 The Rudder, 270, n. 1. Presumably, they are ordained at that time if they are still laymen. 80

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good order of the church that the patriarchate be run within the lines of authority already established through the laying on of hands.83 On a practical level, the fact is that both presbyters and deacons had for centuries been the middle-management, as it were, of the church. From the time of Ignatius, the men who held these offices had had charge over various administrative tasks, including management of church goods. This would be the most likely place, then, to find capable and trustworthy stewards. Unfortunately, the problem of proper stewardship was an ongoing problem in the church. II Nicea was forced to remind the bishops that they must have an economos. Moreover, it provided that if a Metropolitan refused to appoint one, the Patriarch of Constantinople had the right to do so for him ex officio. Likewise, a Metropolitan could do the same for his suffragan bishops.84 Obviously, the problem would not go away. The Council of Carthage85 states in two separate canons that bishops may not sell church property, especially land, without the knowledge and approval of the local Synod of bishops and/or the knowledge of his presbyters. Again, the concern is as much for preventing the appearance of impropriety as it is for preventing actual impropriety.86 In the same vein, a number of canons call for a proper public accounting of the bishop’s personal property. This was intended to ensure that while he was alive there would be no hint of impropriety regarding church administration, and that when he died there would be no intermingling of church and personal property when probating the estate.87 Within the local assemblies, it is clear that the presbyter alone had authority over the goods of the church delegated to him by the bishop. Carthage 41 (R629), already noted above, says, “Presbyters shall not sell any property of the Church without the consent and approval of their own Bishop…” The Council of Ancyra in AD 314, in canon 15 (R497), among others, discusses misuse of church goods by presbyters, presuming thereby 83 Emperors were not above trying to control the church as much as possible, and, in fact, managed occasionally to appoint their own man as Great Economos. These were, then, laymen, answering to the emperor before the patriarch. Perhaps these occurrences helped color Zonaras’ and Balsamon’s commentaries. For an excellent summary of the Constantinopolitan administration, see Hussey, Orthodox Church, 316–318. 84 II Nicea 11 (R440–441). 85 The Council of 418–424. See n. 72 above. 86 Carthage 34 (R624–625), Carthage 41 (R629). 87 Apostolic Canon 40 (R60–61); Cyril of Alexandria 2 (R918–919).

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presbyteral authority over those goods. Laity, on the other hand, are never addressed in such a manner in any of the canons. The canons which do speak of the laity in this regard specifically exclude them from authority over material goods: II Nicea 12 (R441–442) If any Bishop or any Abbot be found disposing of productive property of the bishopric or monastery respectively into the hands of lay rulers, or of any other person, the transfer is to be invalid and void.

Gangra addressed the issue of laity helping themselves to offerings made to the church: Gangra 7 (R525) If anyone wants to take or to give ecclesiastical fruits or produce outside the church against the advice of the bishop, or of the persons in whose hands such things have been placed, and do not want to act with his consent and approval, let him be anathema. Gangra 8 (R526) If anyone gives or takes any fruit or produce, except the bishop or the man appointed to act as steward of almonry, let both the giver and the taker be anathema.

The forgoing multiplication of canon upon canon has this point: what emerges out of the conciliar era is the clear sole authority of the bishop and concomitant responsibility over the material as well as the spiritual goods of his local church. That authority was not without checks and balances, including input from his nearby fellow bishops, but it was his by right of office. No matter how often or how badly the office was abused, the church’s response was to correct the instances of abuse rather than to create new divisions of authority or responsibility. The bishop shared that authority and responsibility only with others who had also had the laying on of hands, and those who had not received this sign were excluded from that authority. The clergy under the bishop, whether working on the diocesan level or on the “parish” level, themselves had authority over material goods, but that authority was certainly a delegated one from the bishop and not their own by right of office. Throughout the conciliar period, the church was still driven by the need to express in a real way the oneness and fullness of the faith. Both of these were necessarily sought as the church found itself combating heresy and dissension within the church, and secular and societal forces outside of the church. The hinge pin upon which unity and fullness turned was the bishop. On one level, he was one with all other bishops who shared the fullness of the faith, and it was in their unity, their communion, that the

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church found the full expression of the faith. The frequent councils held during this period were the most obvious manifestation of the need for the church to express itself “with one heart and one mind” on this level. At the same time, the bishop continued to provide the central unifying point for the local church, as he did in Ignatius’ day. The church during this time continued to grow geographically and numerically. It was also increasingly beset by doctrinal problems which often threatened to break it apart. All of these factors tended to stretch the lines of unity, so to speak, and they needed to be strengthened. This was done by strengthening the authority of the office of the bishop even as more authority needed to be given to others in orders, especially presbyters as they exercised the usual pastorship of each assembly. As the church moved further and further from the holistic experience of the post-apostolic church, something had to give way. That something was the personal closeness of all members of the local church with each other and especially with the “father” of the church, the bishop. No longer was the leadership of the eucharistic assembly chosen out of and ordained solely for that assembly; now that leadership came from somewhere else. The bishop and all the clergy became distanced from the laity; it is from this period on, that the separation, rather than distinction, of clergy and laity became a reality. Nevertheless, the practice of the church through this period shows the church’s reluctance to let go of the visible, local unity of an earlier age, and some ambivalence toward this new state of affairs. The ordination prayers for a presbyter in the East which are still extant reflect some of this ambivalence. The Apostolic Constitutions, a late fourthcentury reworking of the Apostolic Tradition, still says nothing about celebration of the Eucharist or leadership in the presbyteral ordination prayer. It does say, “multiply those who preside in it and give them strength,” and specifically notes that the presbyter has been chosen by “the vote and judgment of the whole clergy,” which coincides with the Alexandrian witness noted below.88 The reference to “presiding” points toward the presbyter’s new, occasional role as leader of an assembly, while still allowing for his traditional role as a “co-presider” with the bishop. The Testament of the Lord, another reworking of Hippolytus, which could be as late as the fifth century, is worded differently. It makes little reference to liturgical duties, not even the “presiding” of the Constitutions. However, it does reference a major episcopal function—that of shepherd: “Make him 88

Apostolic Constitutions 8.16. Text from Paul F. Bradshaw, Ordination Rites of the Ancient Churches of East and West (New York: Pueblo, 1990), 115.

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worthy, being filled with your wisdom and your hidden mysteries, to shepherd your people in the holiness of a pure heart…”89 The presbyter’s shepherding function is still tied to being filled with the “hidden mysteries,” that is, the Eucharist. This is still the source of all authority, although the presbyter here is “filled,” not specifically presiding, as with a bishop. All of this indicates that the church still viewed the presbyter’s main function to be councilor and aid to the bishop. His shepherding, his presiding, are derived from his connection to the bishop and the needs of the people of the church, not from authority in his own right. The canons of this period reflect the same thought. For instance, ordination is not given as a personal honor or award,90 nor is it subject to personal whim, even that of the one ordained.91 Bishops, presbyters, and deacons were ordained for, and were to stay in, a particular local church.92 While this made for good order in the church, it is also a reflection of the tradition that the people of the local church (laity and clergy) elected their pastors to lead them and not to lead someone else. Likewise, no bishop was permitted to ordain any presbyter or deacon “at large,” without a specific parish or church to serve. Not only was the bishop to be penalized, but the ordination itself was declared “null and void” by Chalcedon.93 This last canon, like a number of others, reflects the fact that bishops did not necessarily require election or approval of presbyters and other ministers by the church as a whole, but could elect and ordain on their own. However, the involvement of the laity in selection was still part of the ordinary ordination at least in Alexandria at the end of the fourth century: As concerns those who are about to be ordained, let the following form be observed: all the Priesthood is to agree and choose [the ordinee], and then the Bishop is to lend his approval. And with the Priesthood consenting to it, let him be ordained in the midst of the church with the laity present and the Bishop delivering his inauguratory address, though 89

Testament of the Lord 1.30. Text from Bradshaw, Ordination Rites, 119. II Nicea 3 (R431): “Every appointment of a bishop or of a presbyter or of a deacon made by civil rulers shall remain void…” Other canons also show the church constantly denying this “awarding” of places of honor to political buddies. 91 Apostolic Canon 36 (R55): “In case any Bishop who has been ordained refuses the office and the care of the laity which has been entrusted to him, he shall be excommunicated and remain so until such time as he accepts it. Likewise as touching a Presbyter and a Deacon.” 92 Nicea 15, 16 (R188–189); Apostolic Canons 14, 15 (R25–27); Chalcedon 6 (R251). 93 Chalcedon 6 (R251). 90

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the laity may also stand witness thereto. But let no ordination be performed clandestinely.94

More than a century earlier, Hippolytus had stated specifically that the bishop was to be elected by the assembly95 and so were the deacons. No specific mention was made, however, regarding the presbyters. Nevertheless, it is probable that they also were elected. The fact that the deacons were chosen by the assembly may allow the inference that presbyters were also elected. This is because the deacons were essentially the bishop’s personal assistants, directly responsible to him alone: “A deacon is not ordained for the priesthood but for the service of the bishop, that he may carry out the bishop’s orders.”96 The election of deacons by the whole assembly would seem to be less necessary than that of a presbyter and so would imply that the latter would also be elected. Either way, the ordinary presider of the eucharistic assembly in Hippolytus’ day was selected by the assembly. A hundred years later, Theophilus witnessed that the role of the laity in the selection of presbyters, who were becoming the ordinary eucharistic presiders, was still necessary but reduced in scope. The need for the presence, support and prayer of the laity for whom the ordination was being performed remained, but in a diminished role. Even in the modern liturgy of ordination, the laity are called to give their approval of and pray for the ordinand (especially for the sacramental orders). The approval comes with the exclamation, “Axios,” which means, “He is worthy.” The exclamation has become, since at least the eighth century, an acclamation of a decision made and accomplished rather than an election.97 It has been moved from the beginning, when the candidate is presented, to the end, during his vesting. Although often considered to be merely a ritualistic formula today, this is not necessarily the mind of the church. The prayer of the faithful for the ordinand is a special litany for him, now interpolated between the two prayers of ordination. Both of these parts of the ordination rite are expressions of the necessary, if very reduced, role of the laity in the ordination of those who are called to serve them. Through the canons and the liturgy, the church continued to maintain the sense that the person and the office of the pastor of the assembly were not separable. Ordination remained the sign that a particular person had been elected and empowered to lead and serve the church in a particular 94

Theophilus of Alexandria 7 (R908). Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 2. 96 Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition 8. 97 Bradshaw, Ordination Rites, 25. 95

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place, for a particular assembly. Nevertheless, the circumstances of the expanded church created a certain distance between the person and the office. For the sake of manifesting a one and catholic church, “person” was to an extent sacrificed to “structure.” More emphasis was placed on the value of the office for the church, regardless of who held it. John Chrysostom, for instance, found it necessary to defend the reality of the mysteries and the true grace given through them, regardless of the worthiness of the minister, for God gets to do whatever He wants: …if everywhere grace required worthiness, there could neither then be Baptism nor Body of Christ nor the sacrifice priests offer. But as it is, God is accustomed to operate even through the unworthy, and the grace of Baptism is in no way hindered by the priest’s life.98

Augustine speaks in the same way numerous times. Here he compares the worthy recipient with the unworthy minister: …all the Sacraments, while they are injurious to those who administer them unworthily, are beneficial to those who receive them worthily, which is the case, too, with the word of God.99

The line of authority, of connection through ordination, became in the lived experience of the church the tie that binds all into one. The person who holds the office is never lost, but the structure, to a certain extent, begins to stand alone.100 As this happens, there is a new growing separation 98 John Chrysostom, Homily on First Corinthians, 8, 1(2), trans. by William Jurgens in Faith, vol. 2, 116. See also Chrysostom’s Homily on the Gospel of John, 86, 4, in Jurgens, Faith, vol. 2, 109. 99 Augustine, Against the Letter of Parmenian, 2,10,22, trans. by William Jurgens in Faith, vol. 3, 64. See also for Augustine, De baptismo contra Donatistas, 3,10,13, idem, 66; 5,20,28, idem, 68; and In Ioannis evangelium tractactus, 5,18, idem, 117, where he says that while those baptized by John the Baptist were baptized again, those baptized by Judas were not: “For those whom John baptized, John baptized; but those whom Judas baptized, Christ baptized. So too, then, those whom a drunkard…, a murderer…, an adulterer baptized, if the Baptism was of Christ, Christ baptized.” 100 A case which comes to mind is the mutual excommunication and anathematization between Cardinal Humbert and the legates of Pope Leo IX of Rome and Patriarch Michael of Constantinople in 1054. Excommunicated and anathematized in their persons, as pastors of their respective churches, they carried those sentences with them to all their people. How differently person and office are viewed 900 years later is manifested by the fact that Pope Paul VI of Rome and Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople could lift the personal excommunications from each other without a concomitant re-communion of their churches: “Their

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in the church, already noted as the division between the clergy and the laity. However, it is not simply a matter of placing all clergy on one side and laity on the other, with a growing gulf in between. In fact, the divisions are more complex in nature. If there is a distance between clergy and laity, there is also one between lower clergy and upper clergy, between nobility and commoner, between celibate and married clergy, between educated city priest and uneducated country priest.

UNITY AND CATHOLICITY IN THE MODERN ERA By the end of the conciliar period, the authority structure of the church reached its final stage of development. From the eighth century through the mid-nineteenth, the church did not alter substantially its theology of church authority. There was especially no sense that the unordained had any right to authority over the church, including over its material goods. Those places and times in which such authority was given to, or more usually taken by, the laity were always viewed as anomalies, not as the norm, and the church worked to restore the normal authority structure wherever and whenever it could. The most blatant example of the encroachment of lay authority upon the church occurred in Russia in 1700. Patriarch Hadrian of Moscow died and Tsar Peter the Great forbade the election of a new patriarch, with the intent of weakening potential opposition from the Church to himself. The patriarchal throne remained empty for twenty-one years. In 1721, Tsar censures were aimed at the persons concerned and not the Churches; they were not meant to break ecclesiastical communion between the sees of Rome and Constantinople.” “The Common Declaration of Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras, December 7, 1965,” in Doing the Truth in Charity, ed. Thomas F. Stransky and John B. Sheerin (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), 179. Michael Dahulich in his “A Comparative Study of ‘Sobornost’ and ‘Reception by the Faithful’” (Ph.D. diss., Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, 1998): 3–7, summarizes the modern argument which supports this distinction between person and office in this event. I am not convinced by this argument. The subsequent history of the two churches, and the fact that each church as a whole has consistently pointed to the events of 1054 as signaling the formal break of communion between them seems to point in another direction. I think it is very doubtful that either Humbert or Michael saw their actions as not intending to break communion between churches. Certainly their respective churches interpreted this event as a formal break. That the respective churches have been able to rethink the meaning of this event for the sake of seeking unity is a wonderful thing, but that does not change the historical understanding.

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Peter promulgated the text Spiritual Regulations which abolished the patriarchate and replaced it with the Holy Synod of Russia, consisting of bishops and a few priests, all of whom were nominated—a euphemism for appointed—by the Tsar. A layman appointed by the Tsar, called the overprocurator, was “required to take part in all discussions (without formally being a member of the Synod) and gradually became the head of the administrative organization of the Church.”101 In 1723, the other Eastern Patriarchs recognized this bizarre college as “their beloved brother in Christ.”102 All of the Patriarchs were, at that time, very dependent upon Russia for support in many ways, since it was the only free Orthodox Christian nation. By 1817, the overprocurator was the only person allowed to speak directly to the Tsar for the Synod.103 In 1839, Tsar Nicholas I issued a series of ukazi (edicts) which placed the administration of all church properties and monies, at all levels of the church, from the parish on up, in the direct hands of the state.104 Even though the Russian Synod lasted almost two hundred years, and even though the Eastern Patriarchs had no choice but to acknowledge the Synod as the governing body of the Russian Church (although it took them two years to do so), this situation was never considered normal or acceptable. Zernov calls it a “grotesque caricature of ecclesiastical government.”105 Meyendorff notes that the Synod “is frequently cited as a classical example of the worst that can happen when a church is enslaved by the state.” He also says, “Contemporaries [i.e., during the Synodal period] themselves recognized the uncanonical nature of the new ecclesiastical regime, but they were powerless to do anything except tolerate it.”106 101 John Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church, 4th rev. ed. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), 100. For a summary history of the event, see Nicolas Zernov, Eastern Christendom: A Study of the Origin and Development of the Eastern Orthodox Church (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1961), 155–159. See also a very useful compendium of studies on the 19th century developments of the Russian Synod, Robert L. Nichols and Theofanis George Stavrou, ed., Russian Orthodoxy Under the Old Regime (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978). 102 Zernov, Eastern Christendom, 158. 103 Marc Szeftel, “Church and State in Imperial Russia,” in Nichols and Stavrou, Russian Orthodoxy, 132. 104 David W. Edwards, “The System of Nicholas I in Church—State Relations,” in Nicholas and Stavrou, Russian Orthodoxy, 161. 105 Zernov, Eastern Christendom, 158. 106 Meyendorff, Orthodox Church, 103.

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This unique church structure remained in place until the Russian Orthodox Church was able to hold its first National Council in 1917. This was the first council in two hundred years in Russia, and the first opportunity the Russian Church had to correct this condition. In the preconciliar debates and discussions, one of the first and most important statements was made by Metropolitan Antonii Vadkovskii of St. Petersburg, who, among other things, called for the “freedom [of the Church] to administer its ‘internal affairs,’” and for “granting the parish the status of ‘legal person’ with the right to own property.”107 Against all odds, the council not only was held, but restored the Patriarchal throne and authority in November 1917;108 even many of the more reactionary bishops were in favor.109 The fact that only two months later the Bolsheviks took away by force all church properties does not negate the Church’s stance regarding its material goods: the Church alone has authority over the goods of the Church.110 The Church did not change its opinion regarding church authority throughout the two hundred years of rule by the Tsar through the Synod, and though coercion by the state can force things to be different, it cannot change the canons. From about the sixteenth century up into the twentieth, Orthodoxy struggled with the encroachment of Western theology upon itself. The term “encroachment” is used here judiciously, because this was not a healthy dialogue of Christians enriching each other, but rather the attempts both by Orthodox and by Catholics and Protestants to replace traditional Eastern

107

Meyendorff, “Russian Bishops,” 172. Ibid., 206–207. For the major circumstances surrounding this council, see also these two articles: John Meyendorff, “Russian Bishops and Church Reform in 1905,” and Paul R. Valliere, “The Idea of a Council in Russian Orthodoxy in 1905,” both in Nichols and Stavrou, ed., Russian Orthodoxy, 170–182, 183–201. Tikhon Bellavin, former bishop of North America, was elected Patriarch. He was glorified as a saint in 1989. 109 See James W. Cunningham, “Reform Projects of the Russian Orthodox Church at the Beginning of the XXth Century,” in J. Breck, J. Meyendorff & E. Silk, ed., The Legacy of St. Vladimir: Byzantium, Russia, America (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1990): 107–138. Cunningham makes the point that the majority of those who voted against the patriarchate did so because of concerns over the seeming haste of the decisions, 117, 121. 110 The Bolshevik move was a reaction to Patriarch Tikhon’s courageous stand against them in an encyclical, ratified by the Council, dated January 19, 1918 (Theophany). See Cunningham, “Reform Projects,” in Breck et al., Legacy, 130. 108

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ways of thought with Western ones.111 This trend began in the Mediterranean countries especially after 1453 when Constantinople fell to the Turks and the theological schools were closed, forcing students to attend Western universities. They brought back with them an entirely different theology, having lost touch with their theological and spiritual roots, and superimposed this other way of thought upon their own tradition. For example, Cyril Lukaris, Patriarch of Alexandria 1602–1620, is well-known for the Calvinist tenor of his Confession of Faith published in 1629.112 According to Zernov, Those Orthodox who desired higher education could obtain it only in Western universities, and both Roman Catholics and Protestants were ready to accept a certain number of Eastern students, for both parties were anxious to increase the number of their supporters among the future leaders of the Church in Constantinople. This training in the West was purchased in most cases by temporary apostasy, though most Greeks were staunchly Orthodox and looked upon their studies abroad as a means of arming themselves against their teachers’ propaganda. Once they returned home, therefore, they resumed membership in their own Church. Nevertheless, few altogether escaped the theological impact of their heterodox training: intellectually they lost touch with their own tradition; their opposition to Rome was based on Protestant principles, and that to the Reformers on Jesuit teaching. The Orthodox could no longer speak with their own voice and the rest of Christendom stopped listening to their message.113

111

This encroachment has somewhat unfairly been tagged as the “Western Captivity” by Georges Florovsky. Florovsky seems to have invented the term, according to John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology (New York: Fordham, 1974), 128. While the Catholics and Protestants were not above pursuing their own agendas vis-à-vis the Orthodox (see the quote from Zernov below), including outright proselytism, Orthodox theologians and hierarchy all too often embraced and even sought out the western influence, as shall be shown below. It was not so much a captivity of the Orthodox by the West as a capitulation by the Orthodox to the West. Nevertheless, the slur has gained hold in Orthodox circles and is often used even today by many. A more accurate term for this phenomenon was also invented by Florovsky; he calls it in another place “crypto-Romanism,” and even “pseudomorphism of Orthodoxy.” The terms are more accurate, but apparently not as interesting. See Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, Part One, in Collected Works, vol. 5, trans. Robert L. Nichols (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1979), 77. 112 Zernov, Eastern Christendom, 138. 113 Ibid., 139.

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The influx of Western thought began in Russia especially under the influence of Peter Mohila, Metropolitan of Kiev from 1633 to 1647,114 who was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris where he was imbued with scholasticism. He was a strong and able hierarch, who instituted a number of needed reforms, especially in the seminaries and theological academies; these reforms, needless to say, were based on a Western theology and mentality. The encroachment of Western thought was given great impetus by the tsars, especially Peter the Great, and nobility, who more and more favored Western European thought, style, and culture over their native culture and tongue. Through the early 1800s, seminary classes were taught in Latin, while the nobility often spoke French.115 Scholasticism was the strongest current in theology and provided the basis for theological and seminary instruction,116 although here again, like the Greeks, some favored a Protestant theology (actually, an anti-Catholic theology)—in fact, Tsar Peter’s idea for the Holy Synod had roots in the British, German, and Swedish Protestant churches.117 Nothing is completely one-sided, of course, and currents of a more traditional theology remained, along with some new understandings of church which had ties to the slavophile movement of the nineteenth century. Periodically there were calls for reform, especially in monasticism and spirituality which had some impact.118 Two Russian theologians of the period include Platon, Metropolitan of Moscow (1737–1812) and Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (1782–1867). Platon is credited with writing the first attempt at a systematic theology in 114

Zernov, Eastern Christendom, 148. See also Florovsky, Ways, 64–78. Ibid., 175. An overview of the condition of Russian Orthodoxy during the high point of this period can be found in Robert L. Nichols, “Orthodoxy and Russia’s Enlightenment, 1762–1825,” in Nichols and Stavrou, Russian Orthodoxy, 65–89. See also Meyendorff’s article, “Russian Bishops and Church Reform in 1905,” in Nichols & Stavrou, ed., Russian Orthodoxy, 170–182, for a summary of the understanding of the church in regard to the Synod during the preparation for the 1917 Council. The article was reprinted in Meyendorff’s Catholicity and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1983), 143–156. 116 Jean Gagarin, a Russian Jesuit from the mid-1800s, defends and tries to prove the Orthodoxy of the scholastic theology embedded in the academies in The Russian Clergy, trans. Ch. DuGard Makepeace (New York: AMS Press, 1970, reprint of London 1872 ed.). See Ch. 3, Ecclesiastical Schools, 100–154, where he even lays out curricula and authors to be studied. Gregory Freeze calls Gagarin “the most famous of Russian Jesuits” in The Parish Clergy in Nineteenth-Century Russia: Crisis, Reform, Counter-Reform (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 212. 117 Szeftel, “Church and State,” in Nichols & Stavrou, Russian Orthodoxy, 131. 118 Zernov, 175–184. 115

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Russian, with his Orthodox Doctrine, or a Short Compendium of Christian Theology in 1765.119 Platon favored the use of Latin in the schools and looked at the use of Russian as denoting “an erosion of scholarly prestige.”120 His text is pure Catholic dogmatic manual, including a discussion of “transubstantiation,” where he “Orthodoxizes” it by making the epiklesis the exact moment of change.121 The catholicity of the church is the sign that the church is “a society of all true Christians that believe the right way, scattered over the whole world … in whatever age they live in,” a purely universalist understanding of church. Under the title, “Of the Government of the Church,” he merely notes that some pastors “are greater, such as bishops, and others are lesser, such as presbyters or priests.” He relegates ultimate authority to ecumenical councils.122 Filaret was the next generation of theologian. Educated in a school which leaned to the Protestant side,123 he nevertheless grew beyond that and became, in Florovsky’s words, “one of the most influential and prominent representatives of the new ‘theology of the heart’ taught in the reformed ecclesiastical schools.”124 He, together with many contemporaries, was interested in searching out and defining new ways of doing theology, because neither Protestantism nor Catholic scholasticism was able to address the needs of the Russian Church. Filaret’s Catechism, originally published in 1823, went through a number of editions through the 1830s.125 Filaret, trying to break out of the scholastic mold, wrote his catechism using the virtues of faith, hope, and love as his outline. After an introduction in which he discusses the “two source” theory of revelation, he moves on to the subject of faith, where he uses the Nicene Creed as his framework. This 119 Florovsky, Ways I, 144. Platon’s text, “Pravoslavoe uchenie ili sokrashchennoe khristianskoe bogoslovie,” has been translated a few times. It can be found in an untitled typescript of translations of three Russian works in John Von Holzhausen, trans. and ed., of “Duties of the Parish Priest,” by Georgii, Abp. of Mogilev (1717–1795); “Orthodox Doctrine, or a Short Compendium of Christian Theology,” by Platon, Met. of Moscow (1737–1812); and “The Long Catechism of the one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church,” by Filaret, Met. of Moscow (1782–1867), with extensive notes and excursus on “The Duties” by Holzhausen (n.p.: n.p., 1952). Available at Antiochian Village Library, Ligonier, PA. References for all these works will be made to “Von Holzhausen, p. #” 120 Florovsky, Ways, I, 146. 121 Von Holzhausen, 398. 122 Von Holzhausen, 389, 391, 392. 123 Florovsky, Ways, I, 213. 124 Florovsky, Ways, I, 220. 125 Florovsky, ibid., 199.

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is the bulk of the text. His next section, on hope, utilizes the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes as topical sections; he finishes with the section on love, where the Decalogue serves him for an outline.126 He offers nothing new to our discussion, even though he is trying to be fresh. Catholicity is defined in the same universalist terms and authority comes to bishops (and priests and deacons) through the apostolic succession of the laying on of hands. The section on holy orders is found with the rest of the mysteries (tenth article of the Creed), separate from the ninth article on the church. For all his trying, Filaret was still, at least on this topic, the product of his age.127 It is in this milieu that Makarii Bulgakov, professor and rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy (1842–1857) and later Metropolitan of Moscow (1879–1882), published his five volume Orthodox Dogmatic Theology.128 Like their Roman Catholic counterparts, Orthodox dogmatic theologians of this period favored and published a number of dogmatic Manuals for use in the seminaries as doctrinal textbooks.129 Some few were beginning to be written on more traditionally Orthodox lines, but Makarii was steeped in the scholastic tradition, and the text’s system was that of a classic school manual.130 Makarii’s text has no surprises in it in his discussion of the church and authority. Following traditional lines of thought, Makarii finds all authority 126

Von Holzhausen, 424–550. On catholicity, Von Holzhausen, 480. On apostolicity, 482. On orders, 498. 128 Makarii Bulgakov, Pravoslavno-Dogmaticheskoe Bogoslovie, 5 vols. (St. Petersburg: Tipographii Grigoriya Trusova, 1849–1853). 129 Meyendorff, Orthodox Church, 106. 130 For instance, under the title: “Part One - On God who Sanctifies,” is found “Section One - On the Church,” “Section Two - On the Grace of God,” “Section Three - On the Mysteries of the Church.” The text became the standard for classroom work, going through many editions and being translated into French almost immediately (A. Cleveland Coxe, compiler of Vol. 5 of the ANF, cites this text in its French edition, 413, n. 2.), although opinion on the text was very divided. It had two great assets: as one result of reforms, it was written in Russian, the first important text to not be written in Latin; also, it was full of concatenations of proof-texts from Scripture, the canons, and the fathers, making it actually a valuable resource tool. It represented both the best and the worst of the scholastic tradition. On the one hand, one contemporary said the book “introduced theology into the realm of Russian literature.” On the other, Georges Florovsky, borrowing from a contemporary of Makarii, says of this text, “Makarii’s Dogmatic Theology possesses all the appearances of a book of theology, but it is only a book” (Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, Part One, 257–258). Florovsky discusses Makarii in some detail, 255–259. 127

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in the church resting in the bishop, from whom it flows to the presbyters and deacons through the laying on of hands. The laity’s job is to receive this authority and obey.131 He offers as proofs all the classical texts: Matthew 16:18, I and II Timothy, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Cyprian, and the like.132 Makarii follows Orthodox tradition in making the episcopacy the root order.133 Even with his scholastic bent, he never calls the ordination of a bishop a “consecration”; rather, he always uses the same word as is used for a presbyter or deacon: rukopolozhenie, which literally means, “laying on of hands.”134 The presbyters receive from the bishop their authority and power to teach, preach, and celebrate the mysteries of the church; however, they may only do so with the bishop’s approval,135 and Makarii says specifically that the bishop has the right to stop the priest from preaching.136 He says, “The bishop is the head ruler in his particular church. First and foremost, he possesses authority over his subordinate hierarchy and clergy.”137 The church consists of two estates, a hierarchical estate and a subordinate estate. Each is sometimes named “church” in different places, but “in the strict sense of the word, the church of Christ consists only from the union of these two churches…” He states specifically that the estates are “united and tied in the Holy Spirit” as one. This is not an egalitarian view of the two estates, however. Makarii is at pains to note that the flock alone cannot be the church, but requires the presence of the hierarchy: “Where there is only the flock, only the faithful, but there is no Godestablished hierarchy, and the hierarchy is rejected, then there is no church.”138 He makes no parallel statement regarding a church consisting of a hierarchy without a flock.

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Makarii, Pravoslavno, vol. 2, sec. 172, p. 162–163. Multiple examples can be found in Makarii, Pravoslavno, ibid., and sec. 174 (“On the relationship of the hierarchical ranks of the church, between themselves and with the flock.”), 172–176. 133 Makarii, vol. 2, sec. 173, p. 167, and sec. 238, p. 374. 134 For example, see Makarii, Pravoslavno, vol. 2, sec. 239, p. 375. 135 Ibid., sec. 174, p. 174. Of course, he cites Ignatius’ Smyrneans, Cyprian and Tertullian for his support. 136 Ibid., sec. 174, p. 173. 137 Ibid., sec. 174, p. 175: “Episkop, nakonets, est glavnyi pravitel’ v svoei chastnoi tservi. Prezhde vsego on imiet vlast nad podchinenoiu emy ierarkhieiu I klirom.” I am indebted to Fr. Sergei Alekseev for his invaluable help in translating Makarii’s text. Any errors in translation are mine. 138 Ibid., sec. 172, p. 166. 132

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Makarii’s discussion of the mark of the catholicity of the church is strictly traditional. The catholicity of the church is found primarily in the fact that it is for all people in all times and in all places.139 He says nothing about the concept of sobornost’, merely equating the term with “catholicity.” Catholicity as a quality is primarily seen by Makarii as the sign that the church can never err or lie.140 For Makarii, the highest authority of the church is that of the ecumenical councils. In a typically universalist pattern, the flock is called to be obedient to its pastor, pastors to the bishops, bishops to the canons and the councils.141 Makarii does not know of an authority vested in the laity separate from the bishop, nor even, as noted above, an authority of the lower clergy which is truly separate from the bishop. The mainstream of Orthodox thought on authority and hierarchy remains clearly marked in Makarii: the bishop possesses all authority which he shares with the clergy. Perhaps the latest example of this particular strand of theological thought is represented by Fr. Michael Pomazansky. His dogmatic manual, first published in 1963, consciously follows the school manual systems of the late nineteenth century Russian scholastics;142 among others, he lists Makarii’s text as a major source.143 Pomazansky’s text is brief and follows Makarii’s thought closely. In his section on the hierarchy, he states plainly that the bishops are the “immediate successors” of the apostles and that the presbyters are the helpers and “hands” of the bishops.144 Pomazansky states that in the ancient church “bishops themselves were representatives of the communities in the cities, while the presbyters were given the ministry of the communities outside the cities.”145 This oversimplification would not be notable except that he calls the bishops “representatives.” Pomazansky does not elaborate on this statement, but it does not appear that he intends to make the bishop dependent upon the laity or lower clergy, or to give them authority over him. Later in the text, while discussing the mystery of priesthood, Pomazansky makes it clear that two separate actions are involved. The first is an election, which he says “is something merely human”; while the second is the laying on of hands, which is “an act of 139

Ibid., sec. 180, p. 185. Ibid., 187. 141 Ibid., sec. 175, p. 177. 142 Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, 2nd ed., trans. and ed. Seraphim Rose (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1997). 143 Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic, 40–41. 144 Ibid., 248. 145 Ibid., 251. 140

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Divine grace.”146 It is clear that the position of the clergy is not dependent upon the laity for its authoritative place, but upon God Himself. In concert with mainline Orthodox tradition, Pomazansky requires that the congregation be involved in ordination, since the laying on of hands is “accompanied by the prayer of the entire congregation of clergy and people who are present at the Divine service.”147 While emphasizing this point, however, he also quotes or references the standard patristic texts such as Ignatius and Irenaeus, already seen in Makarii and others.148 All these underscore the leadership of the bishop and with him the other ranks of clergy, as well as the duty of the laity to obey the bishop and do nothing without him. Pomazansky’s discussion of catholicity brings up nothing new. He mentions the Slavonic sobornaia and even quotes a definition of catholic which seems to have a broad meaning: “it [catholic] signifies the highest degree of all-embracingness, wholeness, fullness.”149 However, in the ensuing discussion he links the idea of catholicity simply with the meaning of universal, unlimited by time, place, or people.150 He does not deal with the topic of unity and hierarchy directly, but it seems clear that he conceives of unity as mainly expressed in the unity of bishops in the church.151 Overall, Pomazansky clearly stands in the tradition of a universal ecclesiology with a strong scholastic background. Pomazansky does not even hint at the possibility of any authority which is separate from episcopal authority. There is especially no hint at all of the laity having any authoritative function in the church. It is impossible to explore the thought of every hierarch or theologian in regard to an Orthodox understanding of church authority. One brief example may be given from the Serbian Church. Nicholai Velimirovich (1880–1956), bishop of Ochrid, was one of the leading figures of the Serbian Church in the twentieth century. He wrote a catechism, utilizing the

146 Ibid., 296. See also 298: “the election by Christ of the Apostles, among whose number was Judas, was not the same thing as the ‘ordination’ which the Apostles subsequently received through the breathing of Christ. The election of certain persons for the priesthood is the work of men; but the ordination of them is not the work of men, but of God.” 147 Ibid., 295. 148 Ibid., 251–253. 149 Ibid., 240. 150 Ibid., 241. 151 Ibid., 235.

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question-and-answer format. In the chapter on the Holy Mysteries, section 5, he writes: Q: Can an Orthodox church community exist without recognizing and obeying a bishop? A: Not at all. For such a church community cuts itself off from the body of the universal Orthodox Church, and deprives itself of the grace of God.152

Within the Greek tradition, scholasticism reigned in the few schools which were permitted to exist under the Ottomans. After the Greek state achieved independence in the early 1800s, the Greek Church began slowly to rebuild its theological tradition. Decimated as the Church was, it took over a hundred years. By the 1950s, scholastic-style manual systems were still in vogue in Greek theological schools.153 Panagiotes Trembelas is perhaps the best known Greek theologian of that era, at least in the West. He published a dogmatic manual in 1959 which became a standard for many years.154 Trembelas represents the end of the scholastic road and the beginning of new directions in Greek theology. On the one hand he is highly critical of Western scholasticism in his Dogmatics. On the other, the text is in form and system a classic school manual, on the same pattern as Makarii Bulgakov’s and others. For instance, Trembelas’ discussion of the matter and form of the sacrament of orders is classic school theology.155 However,

152 Nicholai D. Velimirovich, The Faith of the Saints: A Catechism of the Eastern Orthodox Church (Pittsburgh: Serb National Federation, 1949), 57–58. 153 Zizioulas’ Eucharist, written as his Ph.D. dissertation in 1964 for the Theological School of the University of Athens, is truly a seminal work, breaking new ground in Greek theology. The Greek schools have flourished since then, contributing a great deal to modern Orthodox theological discussion. 154 Panagiotes N. Trembelas, Dogmatique de L’Église Orthodoxe Catholique, 3 vols., trans. from the Greek by Archimandrite Pierre Dumont (Chevtogne: Editions de Chevetogne by Desclee de Brouwer, 1966, trans. of 1959 ed.) Once again, orthography of names is difficult. The Library of Congress standard is Trempelas, a strict transliteration of his name. However, both spellings are often used, and I prefer the one that he used. 155 Trembelas, vol. 3, 325–328. Trembelas, like all other Orthodox writers, states that there is one sacrament of orders with three degrees—bishop, priest, and deacon. Each is the sacrament, as indicated by the fact that the form and matter of each is the same for all, with necessary changes inserted for each degree.

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his discussion of church authority and priesthood departs from this norm, being driven by two paramount issues, one old and one new. The older issue is the ongoing controversy over the primacy of Rome. His treatment of this issue is strictly within Orthodox tradition, occasionally bordering on polemic.156 He replaces the primacy of any one bishop with the primacy of the ecumenical councils, in concert with mainstream Orthodox thought up until his time.157 He does not, however, discuss the broader issue of conciliarity as a sign of unity or catholicity. Nor does he refer at all to the concept of sobornost’, although he knew and used Makarii Bulgakov’s text in its French translation. His understanding of catholicity is essentially quantitative; he emphasizes universality of time and place and says little about catholicity as the quality of fullness.158 His ecclesiology is, therefore, very much a universalist one. He does not discuss in detail the authority structure of the church; rather, he presumes a traditional hierarchical authority. Starting from this assumed structure, Trembelas departs in a new direction, dwelling at length upon the place of the laity in the church. Trembelas, like his contemporary Afanassieff, focuses in a new way on the unity of laity and hierarchy.159 He avoids the same old, virtually clichéd citations of Ignatius and Irenaeus, which emphasize hierarchical authority. Rather, he finds in Chrysostom, the Cappadocians, and John Damascene an equality of being in the church which supercedes the distinction between the ordained and unordained: The fact that the conjunction of those who govern and those who are governed in one unique and indivisible body constitutes the principal goal of the institution in the Church of this special, governing class adds a particular character to ecclesiastical authority; she believes in an equality between all the members of the Church without distinction, for all are members of the same mystical body of Christ.160

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Trembelas, vol. 2, 423–431. Ibid., 432–438. 158 Trembelas, vol. 2, 384–388. 159 The Dogmatics was written before Afanassieff’s major works. According to Zizioulas, in Eucharist, 17, n. 49, Trembelas does critique Afanassieff later, in “Unacceptable Theories concerning ‘Una Sancta,’” Ekklesia 41 (1969): 167f. 160 Trembelas, vol. 2, 400–401. All English translations are mine. “Le fait que la conjonction de ceux qui gouvernent et de ceux qui sont gouvernés en un corps unique et indivisible constitue le but principal de l’instauration dans l’Église de cette classe gouvernante et spéciale ajoute un caractère particulier à l’authorité 157

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Trembelas emphasizes that the hierarchy’s position is one of teaching and counsel, following Chrysostom, and that “all despotic and tyrannical tendencies must be separated from ecclesiastical authority, for such is the will of the Lord.”161 Makarii Bulgakov had said that neither the clergy by itself nor the laity by itself made up the church. Trembelas goes even further. He insists on the integral unity of the two, exemplified by the dependency of the clergy upon the laity. He quotes Chrysostom, “The laity need us and we are at their service; at the same time, we have need of each other, the governing of the governed, the heads of the subjects, for the leaders exist for the sake of the many… No one can know by himself what he must do … this is why the body of the Church can do more, and what one cannot accomplish by himself he can do with others.”162 Trembelas’ insistence on the equality and indivisibility of all members of the church, lay and ordained, leads him to dwell upon the priesthood of all members of the church. He distinguishes the sacramental priesthood of those ordained from the spiritual or royal priesthood of all members of the church, ordained and non-ordained.163 All members of the church participate in the royal priesthood by virtue of their baptism and especially their anointing in chrismation. Candidacy for the sacramental priesthood, therefore, has the prerequisite of membership in the royal priesthood. Even if Trembelas’ discussion of the sacrament of orders is strictly scholastic, he emphasizes that the sacramental priesthood is founded in and requires the royal priesthood.164 Furthermore, as already indicated above, the sacramental priesthood exists only and solely for the salvation of the members of the royal priesthood, that is, all the members of the Body of Christ, including the hierarchy themselves. Thus, there is no division or ontological difference between the two priesthoods. All members of the church are laos, people of God. Some of the laos have different functions, defined by their necessary orders which are designated by the laying on of hands. ecclésiastique; elle crée une égalité entre tous le membres de l’Église indistinctement, puisque tous sont membres du même corps mystique du Christ. 161 Ibid. 162 Ibid. Chrysostom, Homily 37 on Acts. 163 Trembelas, vol. 2, 405–416. This model quickly becomes a leitmotif in Orthodox ecclesiology, especially among the Russian emigre theologians. One of the more recent books which utilizes the model is Alexander Schmemann’s The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom, trans. Paul Kachur (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988), esp. 88–94. 164 Trembelas, vol. 2, 415.

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Trembelas dwells at length upon Paul’s discussion of the church as the Mystical Body of Christ which has differentiated members. Each member needs the other, and the differentiation defines the Body itself while designating the differences of each member. Without that differentiation there would be no Body, just one member, which is not a Body.165 This differentiation does not, however, destroy the fundamental equality of all members, for all are necessary parts of the one Body. This fundamental equality is rooted in the common sharing of the royal or spiritual priesthood. However, the spiritual priesthood is not something taken by the laity, nor does it have any other source but the Head, Jesus Christ Himself, who through the church gives that priesthood in baptism and chrismation. Thus, the authority and function of the spiritual priesthood cannot be separated from or be outside of the sacramental priesthood of the ordained: “The priesthood of the people is not opposed to and does not rival the sacramental priesthood, but it must collaborate indispensably with it, so that each of the faithful would be able to be assimilated to the work of Redemption.”166 The sacramental priesthood is given to some members of the church in order to express and execute the full authority of the church. Membership in the spiritual priesthood does not carry with it that authority, but requires “collaboration” with that authority. Trembelas does not dwell on authority structure. He emphasizes the necessary place of the unordained, and he strongly cautions against a despotic rule by the ordained.167 However, it seems clear that he would not assign to the unordained any authority outside of or divorced from the authority of the sacramental priesthood. More specifically, Trembelas gives no indication that membership in the spiritual priesthood carries with it an authority over the material goods of the church. Ultimately, he stands squarely within the mainstream of Orthodox thought, seeing the hierarchy as those who have received all authority in the church through the laying on of hands.

165

Trembelas, vol. 2, 403. Trembelas, vol. 2, 415. “Le sacerdoce du peuple ne s’oppose pas et ne rivalise pas avec le sacerdoce sacramentel, mais il doit collaborer indispensablement avec lui, pour que chaque fidèle puisse s’assimiler l’oeuvre de la Rédemption.” 167 Ibid., 400–402. 166

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UNITY AND CATHOLICITY IN EUCHARISTIC ECCLESIOLOGY In nineteenth century Russia, not all theology was scholastic manuals and Westernized theology. Some people, especially some linked with the slavophile movement (those seeking to re-connect with their Slavic roots), were reconsidering the concept of church as sobornost’. Sobornost’ is a rich but somewhat nebulous term. It is an odd term in Slavonic theology, because in the fourteenth century it was brought into liturgical use to translate the Greek word katholiken in the Nicene Creed for the Divine Liturgy, replacing katholicheskaia.168 Many Slavonic theological terms are slavish literal translations of the Greek roots (e.g., bogo-slovie = theo-logy), especially the most critical ones, or just transliterations (like the above katholicheskaia). In this case, kath-olikos (on the whole) is translated as sobornyi, the root of which is sobirat, “to assemble, to gather.”169 From this word comes sobor, a direct translation of synodos, which means council. Sobornost’, then, means first “conciliar,” but is also the word used to mean “catholic.” Makarii, for instance, in his exposition on the attribute of catholicity, equates sobornyi with katholicheskyi as meaning universal in terms of space and time.170 Out of the slavophile movement arose the concept of sobornost’ as going beyond the idea of catholicity as an external, quantitative term, and recapturing the idea of catholicity as a qualitative attribute of the church.171 The emphasis was on catholicity/sobornost’ as wholeness, fullness, completeness. Sobornost’ as conciliarity does not indicate parliamentarianism; it is not council as voting body. Sergius Bulgakov, quoting Alexey Khomiakov (the leading light of the sobornost’ movement), says that sobornost’ is opposed to both authoritarianism (i.e., as in a strict monarchy) and individualism (the basis of democracy). Rather, sobornost’ carries the sense of

168

“Vo edinu, sviatuiu, sobornuiu I apostolskuiu tserkov.” “In one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” Michel Stavrou, “The Catholicity of the Church,” Sourozh 72 (May 1998): 21. 169 Sergius Bulgakov, The Orthodox Church, rev. trans. Lydia Kesich of the 1935 ed. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988), 60–61. Bulgakov says that the word “sobor,” which also comes from this root, means “council” or “church.” However, “sobor” is rarely if ever used to mean “church” or “ekklesia.” Most often the word “tserkov” is used, with much the same extended meanings as the English word; i.e., as a building, as the whole Church, as a community, etc. 170 Makarii, Pravoslavno, 185–186, n. 180. 171 The concept of sobornost’ is examined in detail in Michael Dahulich’s work, “A Comparative Study of ‘Sobornost’ and ‘Reception by the Faithful’” (Ph.D. diss., Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, 1998).

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“harmony and unanimity.”172 In the pre-anaphoral dialogue in the Divine Liturgy, the deacon calls the assembly to “love another so that with one mind we may confess…”173 In the doxology which closes the anaphoral prayer, the celebrant prays, “And grant us to praise and glorify your most honorable and sublime Name with one mouth and one heart…”174 The Liturgy expresses a call to an entirely consensual and unanimous praise of God from the assembly rather than a call to vote on whether or not to praise Him. Sobornost’ carries this same meaning into the life of the Church outside of the eucharistic assembly. How exactly this would work out in a practical sense became part of the ongoing debate in the reform movements of latenineteenth century Russia. Sobornost’ was at its core a theological idea, but it also was applied to society as a whole. It called for a reform of all governance, especially in the church. Within the church, it had much the same feel as “conciliarity” did for post-Vatican II Roman Catholics, for many of the same reasons. So, it was a call for the restoration of the episcopal structure of the church against the then present Holy Synod. It was also a call for greater participation in the life of the church, especially in its governance, of not only bishops, but also other clergy and laity.175 As a movement it took a broad hold, with everyone imparting to sobornost’ their own slant on the meaning. Sobornost’ could, for instance, mean a leveling of the hierarchy, favoring a strictly democratic/republican church structure.176 It could also mean participation

172

Bulgakov, Orthodox Church, 61. “One mind” = “homonoia,” (Greek), “yedinomysliem,” (Slavonic), i.e., oneness and singleness of spirit, heart, mind, nous. 174 “One voice and one heart” = “eni stomati kai mia kardia,” (Greek), “yedinimi usty i yedinim sertsem,” (Slavonic), i.e., one mouth (harmoniously, in unison) and one heart (again, singleness of spirit and mind and love). 175 The lower or white clergy (i.e., the married clergy) were in a caste by themselves, especially after Tsar Nicholas I restricted entrance to the seminaries to family of clergy. They had little authority and little in common with either the people they served or the upper, black clergy (i.e., the celibate clergy, who were all tonsured as monks) who looked down on them. For a description of the state of the white clergy, see Gregory L. Freeze, “Revolt from Below: A Priest’s Manifesto on the Crisis in Russian Orthodoxy (1858–59),” in Nichols & Stavrou, Russian Orthodoxy, 90–126, esp. 92–93. 176 See, for instance, Lewis Shaw’s short article, “‘Clerical Liberalism’ in the Russian Orthodox Church: the Failure of Reform,” Sobornost’ 12 (1990): 157–164. He relates the “clerical liberalism” movement to similar events in the Roman Catholic Church in the Vatican II era, although he does not specifically relate it to 173

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on all levels in the decision-making of the church, but only in an advisory capacity. It could mean some type of mixed structure, with laity and/or lower clergy having a real voice, but leaving episcopal authority untouched.177 This last was basically the position accepted at the 1917 Council. So, while the movement itself embraced many possibilities, in the end the only one the church would accept was one which maintained the authority of the hierarchy, while allowing for an authentic voice of the laity and clergy to be heard.178 Out of the sobornost’ movement of turn-of-the-century-Russia came the concept of eucharistic ecclesiology. Nicholas Afanassieff was well acquainted with the thought of Alexey Khomiakov and the slavophiles, but he went a step further in defining the meaning of church. His ecclesiology requires that for the church to be church it must assemble in one place, with all the members present, in celebration of the Eucharist. It is in this act that the church functions as and, in fact, is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Incorporating the conciliar ideas of the sobornost’ movement, Afanassieff requires that all members of the church be not only present but actively participating in all aspects of the life of the church. The eucharistic assembly is the paradigm and fulfillment of the church for two reasons. First, it is a Christ-centered and graced-filled assembly, not just a group of people gathered for a common purpose. The eucharistic assembly is focused on our life in and with Christ, not on being a social, charitable, or fund-raising concern. Second, as Afanassieff notes, Orthodox the larger societal movement of sobornost’. Nevertheless, the liberal movement was clearly part of the larger social call for reform. 177 Paul R. Valliere delineates the major opinions regarding sobornost’ leading up to and applying to the forthcoming All-Russia Council in the early 1900s in “The Idea of a Council in Russian Orthodoxy in 1905,” in Nichols & Stavrou, Russian Orthodoxy,183–201. 178 Meyendorff, “Russian Bishops,” op cit., 178. Joseph A. Loya provides a detailed exploration of the sobornost’ movement and its role in determining the status of the laity in the Moscow Council of 1917-1918. He focuses on the Minority Report of the Pre-Council Committees of 1905, which was written by those who were most influenced by the sobornost’ movement and favored a strong, active voice by the laity in the Council. In the end the report was rejected, although it colored the entire pre-Council effort and the functioning of the Council itself. The laity (not the government) were provided with a consultative voice in the Council; this alone was a major step for the hierarchy to take. See Joseph A. Loya, “Theological Clarifications of Lay Status in the Russian Church Pertaining to the Moscow Reform Council of 1917-1918” (Ph.D. diss., Fordham University, 1985), 143-148, for a summary of hierarchical opinions regarding lay status.

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tradition and liturgical practice require that both clergy and laity must be present in order to celebrate the Eucharist. Liturgical tradition forbids the celebration of “private” liturgies, without the participation of the laity. Afanassieff is certainly aware that the anaphora requires the “Amen” of the people for its confirmation. He also knows that the people cannot celebrate without the bishop (or one appointed by him): “The Eucharist is celebrated by the whole people, but only when its chief is at its head, for without him there is no people; in the same way, there is no head unless the people are present also.”179 Afanassieff looks to the patristic tradition of the church to find the source of this thought. He is required to go back further than the Cyprianic church, with its universalist emphasis, and recovers a sense of local church which existed in the post-apostolic period as described by Ignatius of Antioch. Afanassieff finds in this church a true expression of unity and catholicity within each and every local church, insofar as the local church is the realization of the presence of Jesus Christ, especially in celebration of the Eucharist. The local church gathers together all its members in one assembly for the celebration of the Eucharist. These members include the laity, the deacons, and the presbyters, and the assembly is always presided over by the bishop. Ignatius already called this assembly of the whole church with the bishop “catholic,” that is, whole, complete: Let no one do anything apart from the bishop that has to do with the church. Let that be regarded as a valid Eucharist which is held under the bishop or to whomever he entrusts it. Wherever the bishop appears, there let the congregation be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the whole [katholike] church. It is not permissible apart from the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate the love-feast; but whatever he approves is also pleasing to God, that everything you do may be sure and valid.180

That same complete assembly is also the embodiment of the oneness of the church: Be careful, then, to observe a single Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and one cup of his blood that makes us one, and one altar, just as there is one bishop along with the presbytery and the deacons, my fellow slaves.181 179

Ibid., 258. Ignatius, Smyrneans 8.1–2. All references to Ignatius are quoted from Ignatius of Antioch, A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, trans. and commentary by William R. Shoedel, ed. Helmut Koester (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). 181 Ignatius, Philadelphians 4.1. 180

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For Ignatius, then, both the unity and the catholicity of the church are found in the eucharistic assembly. The understanding of local church expressed by Ignatius is the grounding of the eucharistic ecclesiology developed by Afanassieff and those after him. Afanassieff saw in this type of experience a true expression of both the unity and fullness of the church within the eucharistic assembly. The interaction and active participation of all in this assembly became for him a paradigm of the active participation of all the faithful in the entire life of the church. He is especially concerned, along with many of his contemporaries and followers, with reestablishing the active role of the laity.182 Afanassieff sees the laity as the “people of God,” who have become part of the “royal priesthood” through the “sacrament of aggregation.”183 As members of the priesthood, then, the laity cannot be passive but must be active ministers of the Church. The difference between laity and clergy is not an ontological difference, as if the clergy were somehow separate from the people of God, but a “functional” difference: the laity are called to a general ministry, while those ordained have been called by that ordination to specific ministries.184 In this respect, Afanassieff sounds very much like his contemporary Trembelas. Afanassieff stresses celebration of the Eucharist by the people. He promotes active participation, not just physical presence. A Liturgy celebrated by a priest with a couple of lay people who are passively watching would fulfill the letter of the law regarding liturgical celebration. However, the Liturgy as the fullest expression of the church’s life in Christ requires not just one minister, but many. Together with the priest or bishop, a deacon, subdeacons, candle-bearers, and a cross-bearer have parts to play in the liturgy. Readers, chanters, and choir also play important roles. Sacristans, door-keepers or greeters, and ushers, banner- and fan-bearers, while not official ministers today, give an even fuller expression of the liturgy of the people of God. Of these roles, only two—priest and deacon—absolutely require ordination for their fulfillment. All the rest are ministries of the laity. As the paradigm of community life in Christ, the eucharistic assembly reflects and is reflected by parish life outside of the assembly. A group of passive, uninvolved people, headed by a priest, is called a parish. But a 182 In 1958 Afanassieff had already said, “Today the doctrine of the laity occupies a central position in theology.” See “The Ministry of the Laity in the Church,” Ecumenical Review 10 (1958): 255. 183 Ibid., 258. 184 Ibid., 257.

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parish which is truly living as church, witnessing to the unity and fullness of the church, requires much more. It requires the active participation of all the laity in parish life. The laity are called to a variety of active ministries, each contributing to the life of the community. This is the sense of royal priesthood which Afanassieff sees as the function of the people of God. Afanassieff wants to break down the division between clergy and laity. He sees this division as having created and maintained a passivity in the flock. His solution is to advocate not for more ministry accomplished by an “amorphous mass,”185 but for more differentiation. He suggests the reestablishment of old ministries, such as the didaskalos, and perhaps the establishment of new ministries to fit the needs of the church today.186 In doing so, he does not wish to create further division in the church between clergy and lay, but rather he wishes to bring them back together. A multitude of differentiated ministries in a parish community would help to break down the single barrier which currently divides the one person who is ordained (specific ministry) from the many who are unordained (generalized ministry). In this way, all in the church can again be understood to be the “people of God,” who act as one. The clergy and the laity “cannot act independently, because neither of them constitutes the Church when separated from the other.”187 This last is a crucial point in Afanassieff’s understanding of the church. The clergy alone is not the church, nor is the laity alone the church, but they are together the church. Makarii Bulgakov had made this connection, emphasizing the dependence of the laity upon the clergy. Trembelas had noted it also, while emphasizing the hierarchy’s dependence on the laity. Afanassieff emphasizes the mutual dependence each has upon the other. This mutual dependency is at the foundation of the unified church which actively engages in ministering to itself and to the world. Not content with a church in which the few minister to the many in the church, Afanassieff nevertheless requires that any ministry be a ministry of and to the church; it must be derived from God himself through the church and therefore be grace-filled. This also follows from his eucharistic foundation: all activity of the church, like the Eucharist itself, must be grace-filled and grace-filling, else it is not of the church.188 Afanassieff carries this understanding into his discussion of the government of the Church. Here he has no room for governance by the 185

Ibid., 256. Ibid., 262. 187 Ibid., 256. 188 Ibid., 261. 186

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laity apart from the clergy, for they cannot be separated since neither constitutes the church by itself. Even more, he does not accept a system of electing lay representatives to govern the church by themselves, or even to help govern the church with the bishop/priest. “How can ordinary elections of lay representatives (on the same lines as modern political elections) really endow them with the ministry of government and confer upon them the grace required for this ministry?”189 He questions whether “lay representatives” really represent the people of God, that is, the church, and therefore the will of God: The people cannot transfer this ministry [of government] to representatives, because it belongs to the people as a whole, and not to separate members. Democratic principles, however perfect, have no place in the Church, for the Church is not a democracy; it is the people of God chosen by God and appointed by Him to serve Him in the Church. The activity of God’s people has nothing to do either with universal suffrage or with representative government, for it depends on grace.190

Afanassieff has been criticized for not according to the episcopacy its proper place in the church. He has not done so out of a misplaced sense of congregationalism or lack of understanding of a proper sense of authority. Even as he champions the necessity of active participation in all facets of the life of the church by the people of God, he does so from the understanding that without such participation there is no church. This active participation, however, since the time of the apostles, is not an “amorphous mass” of activity—any and all things done by any and all people. Rather, it requires clear differentiation of ministries by persons who are called to those ministries by God. For Afanassieff, lay participation is not independent of, or to the detriment of, clerical participation; rather, all ministry in the church must be grace-filled. It must, therefore, spring from the church assembly and, like the assembly, must be presided over by the one who has received that grace of presiding, specifically the bishop/priest.191 It is the sole task of the bishop and those whom he appoints, therefore, to govern the church with the participation of the whole church, including those who are known as “laity.” The most frequent critique of Afanassieff’s ecclesiology is that it rests too firmly upon only one leg, the principle that “wherever the Eucharist is,

189

Ibid. Emphasis mine. Ibid., 262. 191 Ibid., 263. 190

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there is the Church.”192 Zizioulas, among others, finds that this leaves no room for episcopal presence or authority. This has two ramifications. It means, first of all, that each parish, not each diocese, could be the local church and be in itself complete and catholic. It means, secondly, that the unity of the church from one place to another, from one bishop to another, is potentially seriously impaired. Afanassieff’s ecclesiology, according to these critiques, risks creating multiple, local churches, each of which is independently one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. By requiring ecclesiology to stand on both a eucharistic and an episcopal leg, Zizioulas and other more recent theologians overcome both difficulties. The parish without the bishop cannot be a local church, for it does not manifest the church in its fullness. And, while the bishop presiding over the Eucharist is the sign and the embodiment of the unity of the local church, he is also that same sign for the whole church in his collegiality with all other bishops. While this is a crucial insight, little thought has been given to why Afanassieff demonstrates a lack of differentiation between a eucharistic assembly led by a priest and one presided over by a bishop as the sign of the fullness of the church, or why he often speaks of the parish as if it, in fact, possessed the fullness of the church. The issue of the eucharistic assembly without a bishop is rarely if ever addressed in current ecclesiology. Granted that the parish assembly is not the full expression of the church, a natural question would be to discuss what the parish is. However, while pointing to the Ignatian church as the model of the fullness of the local church, too much discussion prescinds from confronting the fact that the vast majority of eucharistic gatherings today are not Ignatian.193 They are usually regular gatherings of a eucharistic community around a presbyter, sans bishop. Once in a while they are gatherings of a multitude of people and clergy around a bishop or bishops, come together for a special occasion or celebration. Neither of these types of gatherings is truly representative of an Ignatian church, and the direct application of that model is, therefore, somewhat problematic. This is all too often overlooked, and the necessity of requiring the bishop’s presence places the ecclesiological focus on the church at the episcopal, church-wide, or even ecumenical levels, to the virtual exclusion of interest in the parish level. I would suggest that Afanassieff struggled a great deal in his thought with the problem of the meaning of parish, that is, eucharistic assembly led

192 See Zizioulas, Being, 23–25 for a summary critique. Erickson references the critique in “Concrete,” 12, n. 12. 193 As, for instance, Erickson, “Concrete,” 12–13.

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by a priest, but was unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. His radical “eucharisticism” (to coin a term) led him to often deemphasize the exact status of the liturgical president as he emphasized the necessity of full participation in the Eucharist. But his seeming ambivalence regarding the necessity of the episcopal presence as the mark of fullness may merely be his own uncertainty as to how to fit the pattern of a modern diocese into the Ignatian model. In some respects the diocese as a whole fits that model best, in other respects the parish does. As has been seen, he clearly is not interested in impugning the authority and position of the bishop as president and as first-pastor in favor of either the laity or even of the presbyterate. Afanassieff’s theology may look at first glance like a type of congregationalism, but it is in this sense squarely within the tradition of the church. Metropolitan Maximos Aghiorgoussis is one of the few who have attempted to struggle with the problem the meaning of parish and its relationship to the greater church. He asks whether the diocese or the parish is the local church, meaning, the church in its fullness. His solution is to present an amalgam of both possibilities; he says, “the Church of God is both Parish and Diocese.” Maximos sees the parish as the realization of the diocese in a specific time and place, insofar as it is the local realization of and celebration of the Eucharist, and that Eucharist is presided over by a presbyter who is the “representative and the Bishop’s ‘real presence’ at the parish”: The Diocese cannot exist in abstracto … the Diocese is present in each one and all of the parishes which constitute it, for the Bishop is present fully in each one and in all of the Presbyters who represent him at the parish level, especially in the Eucharistic celebration and communion.194

Nevertheless, Metropolitan Maximos’ solution may not be the final answer; in some ways, it merely begs the question, as the question is immediately raised, “What exactly is the Bishop’s ‘real presence?’” At least Metropolitan Maximos is searching for resolution of this issue, for it is part of the whole question of the authority and governance of the church and to whom that authority has been entrusted. However, the lack of interest in a theology of parish on the part of most theologians may itself indicate what the authority structure of the parish should be. Maximos’ words, reaching back to Ignatius, bring the point home: the presbyter is the 194 Maximos Aghiorgoussis, Metropolitan, “The Parish Presbyter and His Bishop: A Review of the Pastoral Roles, Relationship and Authority,” SVTQ 29 (1985): 55.

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representative of the bishop. Metropolitan Nicholas Smisko of Johnstown puts it succinctly: “The Bishop alone is the one true pastor of every parish,” and “A priest may be in charge of a parish only if appointed, authorized and delegated by his Bishop.”195 The authority of the priest-pastor is a completely delegated one, with the priest having no authority in his own right. This implies a subordination of parish to diocese, with the parish having no real existence in its own right, which is apparently Maximos’ point. The point was made above that in its history the church worked hard to keep the lines of authority in the church well within the grasp of the bishop; even presbyters and deacons were seen to be his assistants, his hands, working only through the delegated authority given them. With this the case, the parish would be no more than a subset, a branch office, as it were, of the local church. Having no existence in its own right, it is merely a subsidiary and incomplete part of the entire local church. From this viewpoint, it would matter little if the eucharistic assembly normally known as a “parish” meets in the basement of the cathedral or in the next town over from the cathedral; both are merely convenient sub-gatherings of the one local church ordinarily presided over by the bishop. In terms of authority structure, then, the parish cannot have a life of its own, nor can it differ in kind from the authority structure of the diocese. If the bishop carries the sole authority for all things in his church, then he does so for each and every parish community. He may delegate a presbyter to “manage” the “branch office.” That branch may have a council of persons who help the bishop’s delegate manage. What is not theologically feasible is to develop a totally different kind of authority structure on the parish level from that on the diocesan level, as if the parish is somehow an independent or quasi-independent entity from the diocese. It is especially not feasible to develop any parish-level authority structure in which all or part of that authority is kept independent of the bishop and his representative. This understanding of the place of the parish in the local church departs from a strict eucharistic ecclesiology, which is probably why Afanassieff had difficulties with placing the bishop firmly at the head of the local church. If the fullness of the church is where the Eucharist is, then present practice in the church precludes the necessity of the physical presence of the bishop in order to express that fullness. It seems, therefore, 195

Nicholas Smisko, Metropolitan, “The Fullness of the Priesthood,” (Johnstown, PA: Diocese of Johnstown, 1995?), 5.

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that current eucharistic ecclesiology contains embedded within itself some universalist elements which provide it a needed corrective. Within the local church, parishes would seem to be parts of the whole whose sum total, together with the bishop, realize the fullness of the church.196 If this is true, then this type of universalist addition to eucharistic ecclesiology would offer a counterpoint to the geographical issue mentioned above in the discussion of Cyprian’s ecclesiology.197 Perhaps the two ecclesiologies have more in common than appears at first glance.

CONCLUSION Regardless of the ecclesiological road taken within Orthodoxy, three points regarding the governance of the church become clear. First, the church is not really interested in dividing the people of God into two separate categories, the laic and the cleric. As differentiations between various types of ministry, these are valid terms, but there can be no ontological distinction. Nevertheless, such a distinction has been assumed by many who accept a definition of laity as passive receivers and the clergy as active givers. Of course, some are not satisfied with such a definition. Congregationalist thought could arise out of such dissatisfaction. Second, the authority to govern the church resides clearly with the bishop of the local church, who functions in communion with all other Orthodox bishops. The bishop is accountable to his peers, as well as to the presbyterate and laity of his own church, but that authority is his through the grace of ordination according to the mind of the Church, not at the sufferance of “the people.” He shares that authority with others who have also been called and ordained to be sharers in that authority, to whatever degree their ministry requires. The laity are not excluded from that authority because they are laity as such, but merely because they have not received that specific grace. Last, in no time and in no place has the church accepted any sense of a separation of authorities, or a division of authorities, each independent of and functioning as checks-and-balances upon each other. Specifically, there is no place in the tradition of the church for the exercise of any authority

196

Alexander Schmemann says this explicitly: “The parish is, on the one hand, only a part of the Church, and only in the bishop and through the bishop is it linked with the fulness of the Church, always receiving this fulness and itself ‘revealing’ it. This is the meaning of the dependence of the parish on the bishop and through him on the ‘whole’ Church.” The Eucharist, 98. 197 See above, p. 30

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apart from the church as a whole and independent of the authority of the Body of Christ. There is no sense ever of a “spiritual authority” being given to the clergy which is apart from a “material authority” given to the laity. All authority in the church derives from its being as the Body of Christ, and requires the unity and fullness of that Body to be effective. In eucharistic terms, that unity and fullness demand that all authority in the church be exercised within the assembly of all the faithful, each in their own role and ministry, presided over, in all its aspects, by the one minister who has received the grace to do so: the bishop. Beginning in the late 1800s, however, while its doctrinal position remained the same, the Orthodox church began to live out a new way of being church in America and other loci of immigration. The church has yet to restore this deviation between its theology and its practice. The next chapters will demonstrate this variance and explore how it came to be.

CHAPTER THREE: DISUNITY IN AUTHORITY – PRESENT PRACTICE That the Orthodox Church was established in a congregationalist manner in America is virtually a truism. Surrency,198 Constantelos,199 Warzeski,200 among others, typically acknowledge it without even trying to prove it. Stokoe and Kishkovsky, for instance, in their 1995 history of the Orthodox Church in America, state categorically, “In administration the Orthodox in North America most closely resemble Protestants.”201 In discussing the beginning of the Church in America, these various authors trace the establishment of one or two early parishes. They then present these parishes as the paradigm for those which came after.202 These authors

198 Seraphim Surrency, The Quest for Orthodox Unity in America (New York: Saint Boris and Gleb Press, 1973). 199 Demetrios Constantelos, The Greek Orthodox Church (New York: Seabury Press, 1967); and Understanding the Greek Orthodox Church: its faith, history and practice (New York: Seabury Press, 1982). 200 Walter C. Warzeski, Byzantine Rite Rusins in Carpatho-Ruthenia and America (Pittsburgh: Byzantine Seminary Press, 1971). 201 Mark Stokoe and Leonid Kishkovsky, Orthodox Christians in North America, 1794–1994 (N.p.: Orthodox Christian Publications Center, 1995), 2. The American Orthodox Church numbers at least 32 distinct jurisdictions, according to Stokoe. The nomenclature of each can be very arcane and confusing to the reader. Hereafter, as each jurisdiction is mentioned for the first time, a brief footnote will follow attempting to describe it, along with any standard abbreviations or nicknames that the jurisdiction uses. Here, the Orthodox Church in America, usually known as the OCA, is the direct descendant of the Russian Orthodox Church established first in Alaska and then in San Francisco. When it received autocephaly from the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970, it took its current name. 202 For example, Constantelos, Understanding, 136.

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generally treat the establishment of diocesan jurisdictions later on in the same way. This congregationalist foundation has not been a debatable point for a couple of reasons. First, in many places such beginnings are almost within living memory. The Orthodox Church is so recently established here that a few founding members from the early days are still living and testifying to that beginning. Most “cradle” Orthodox laity and clergy today either witnessed such foundations themselves or received the stories from parents and grandparents. Second, few have ever really questioned the manner in which the parishes started, and so the witnesses of these beginnings are not controversial. That is, since most laity and many clergy regarded this congregationalist establishment as normal or natural, there is little need to doubt the veracity or accuracy of the witnesses and documentation available today. Just because the Orthodox Church was founded in America in a congregationalist manner does not necessarily mean that it still functions that way. The easiest way to demonstrate that it does is to look at some current jurisdictional bylaws. These bylaws set the norm for diocesan and parochial government within their jurisdictions. So that the text is not overburdened, I will try to keep citations to the minimum necessary to demonstrate the point. No one, as far as I know, has ever discussed or attempted to compare in any detail the regulations of the various American jurisdictions, especially the regulations which refer to parish governance. Erickson’s brief article, already cited a number of times above, is one of the very few studies of any modern regulations. He, however, is looking only at the OCA’s 1971 Statute, and his study only considers the diocesan and jurisdictional levels, without any discussion of the parish level. I am not going to attempt to reference the bylaws for all thirty-two-plus Orthodox jurisdictions. It will suffice to review five, which represent the majority of Orthodox within SCOBA, the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in America. The members of SCOBA are recognized by the majority of Orthodox worldwide as being “canonical;” therefore, the majority of SCOBA jurisdictions are all in communion with each other and in communion with the majority of the patriarchal and autocephalous Orthodox Churches

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around the world.203 The jurisdictions being reviewed here include the Orthodox Church in America, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, the Antiochian Archdiocese, the American CarpathoRussian Orthodox Diocese, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. Two underlying values make these five jurisdictions representative of mainstream American Orthodoxy. They differ in their origins, the makeup of their population, their self-governing status historically and today, and their relationship vis-à-vis their originating Church. Therefore, they represent a broad spectrum of American Orthodoxy. Also, taken together, their population makes up the great majority of American Orthodox; their story and experience is, by and large, the story of Orthodoxy in America.204 A very brief description of each jurisdiction and their governing regulations will set the stage for discussing those regulations. 203 I know that this statement sounds fuzzy to those who are not Orthodox. Everyone prefers definitiveness and often the query is “Who are the real Orthodox?” Unfortunately, the history of the Orthodox Church at which I hinted in Chapter Two precludes being more definite than I am here; America’s situation is actually even more fuzzy than that in traditionally Orthodox countries. See Chapter Two, n. 36 and n. 40. 204 The only two jurisdictions of any size that I am not considering here are the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR, or The Synod Church). I limited my discussion to five mostly for practical reasons: even five turns this chapter into more of a survey than an indepth study. The Serbian Church has much in common with the Antiochians in its origins and history. Both were originally part of the Russian Diocese and both broke off from that diocese. Both had splits within themselves, with one group accepting patriarchal authority from the mother church and one being independent, and both had recent reunions of their groups. I chose to discuss the Antiochian Church mostly because it is the larger group. ROCOR is essentially independent and autocephalous, by its own choice is not in communion with SCOBA and has to a certain extent lived in isolation from the rest of American Orthodoxy in the past fifty-plus years; therefore, their impact on modern American Orthodoxy has been somewhat minimal. These points are already represented by the Ukrainian Church. Further, ROCOR’s origin and early history are also, like the Antiochians, bound up with the Russian Diocese which became the OCA. While both of the jurisdictions have their own history and input to the discussion, I decided that they added little more than can already be seen. Having to cut somewhere, I decided that the inclusion or omission of these two jurisdictions would have little or no impact on my thesis.

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The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is the oldest jurisdiction in America, being the direct descendant of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Kamchatka, Kuril, and the Aleutian Islands, established by the Holy Synod of Russia in 1841, with Bishop Innocent Veniaminov205 as the first resident bishop at Sitka, Alaska. With Alaska being sold to the United States in 1867, the see was split and the Synod established a separate Diocese of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands in 1870. Bishop John Mitropolsky of Alaska moved his see unofficially from Sitka to San Francisco in 1872, with the approval of the Holy Synod.206 This move was finalized in 1900 through the efforts of Bishop Tikhon Bellavin, who had been appointed as head of the diocese in 1898 by the Moscow Synod.207 Tikhon moved the see again in 1903 to New York to better address the growing immigrant population. The jurisdiction received autocephalous status from the Moscow Patriarch in 1970, at which time it changed its name to the Orthodox Church in America. The primate of the OCA is the Metropolitan, whose diocese is officially named the Diocese of Washington and New York. The Metropolitan has residences in both places; however, the chancery and central administration of the OCA is located in Syosset, New York, near New York City. The OCA is the second largest jurisdiction in the United States, having 12 dioceses and 623 parishes, missions, and institutions, and claiming one million members in 1985.208 The OCA has promulgated very detailed statutes. 209 They define the particular law of the OCA regarding all 205

Innocent was glorified as a saint in 1977. Constance J. Tarasar, ed., Orthodox America 1794–1976 (Syosset, NY: Orthodox Church in America Dept. of History and Archives, 1975), 29. 207 Thomas E. Fitzgerald, The Orthodox Church, Denominations in America, no. 7 (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1995), 22. Bishop Tikhon later was elected as the first Patriarch of the restored Throne of Moscow. He was glorified as a saint in 1989. 208 Roberson, Eastern Christian Churches, 51. “Dioceses” is in quotes because in current jurisdictional practice these divisions function more as vicariates of the one Archdiocese than as dioceses proper. This will change in the new Proposed Charter. 209 Roberson, ibid., 101–102. Roberson’s text, frequently updated (it is already in its 6th ed.), is an invaluable resource for anyone who needs to cut through the Gordian knot of Eastern Church jurisdictions, hierarchies, and communions. He includes information on all major Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Far Eastern (Assyrian, Indian), and Uniate Churches. 206

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levels of the church, including the jurisdictional (Metropolitan and Holy Synod), the diocesan and the parish levels. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is the largest of American Orthodox jurisdictions, having its headquarters in New York City. It has eight “dioceses,” 570 parishes, and eight monastic communities. Although Greeks have had a presence in America since the 1860s, the Greek immigration did not really begin until the 1880s. They had no hierarchical presence in America until 1918, when the Holy Synod of Greece established an Archdiocese for Greek Orthodox in America and sent the head of the Synod, Archbishop Meletios Metaxakis of Athens, to make an official trip to the United States to determine the needs of the Greek people.210 Meletios stayed for three months, organizing and assessing the Greek community. Upon his return to Greece Bishop Alexander Demoglou, auxiliary of Rodostolon, was appointed by the Synod as the “synodical representative” to the new archdiocese, while Meletios retained ordinary jurisdiction as Exarch for America while he was still Metropolitan of Athens. Later, in 1922, Meletios became Ecumenical Patriarch, and as one of his first acts, took jurisdiction over America and all the diaspora back from the Synod of Greece. Since then, the Greek Archdiocese has been a province or eparchy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Through the years, the hierarchical structure of the Greek Archdiocese underwent some relatively major revisions. The Charter currently in use was ratified and promulgated by the Ecumenical Patriarchate only in 2003. The previous Charter dated from 1978.211 The current Charter is so recent that its overall impact has yet to be really felt on the parish level, with some notable exceptions. Therefore, the analysis below will refer often to both the 1978 charter and its successor, noting variations between the two where 210 The Ecumenical Patriarchate had given jurisdiction to Athens in 1908. See below, p. 133 for details. 211 The 1978 “Charter of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America” was available at http://www.goarch.org/goa/docs/charter.html, Internet, accessed June 17, 2002, hardcopy in my possession. It is currently available at http://www.goarch.org/en/archdiocese/documents/archivedcharter/charter.asp. The 2003 “Charter of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America,” is available at http://www.goarch.org/en/archdiocese/documents/charter_index.asp, Internet, accessed 9/29/2004, hardcopy in my possession. Herein referenced as GOACh78 or GOACh03, Art. Sec. Para. e.g. “GOACh78 I.7.a.”

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appropriate. Neither charter includes specific bylaws regulating the implementation of the governing bodies of the Archdiocese as called for in the 1978 Charter.212 These regulations were promulgated for the first time in 1996 as the “Special Regulations and Uniform Parish Regulations of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.”213 They are not currently being reviewed for changes and are still in force. The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America was originally a diocese of the Russian Orthodox Diocese (now the OCA), based in Brooklyn, New York. It boasts the first bishop to be ordained on American soil, Raphael Hawaweeny.214 In the 1920s, the jurisdiction split from the Russian Diocese, with most of it accepting the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch, being named the Syrian Antiochian Archdiocese of New York and All North America. A few parishes remained with the Russian Diocese and another small group based in Toledo, Ohio remained independent. Through the decades both sides made numerous attempts to unite the jurisdictions. This union was finalized in 1975. The Antiochian Archdiocese currently claims 204 parishes in the United States and sixteen in Canada.215 The basic governing regulations of the Antiochian Archdiocese are known as “The Constitution.” In 1969, the Constitution was revised and the name of the jurisdiction became the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, with headquarters in Englewood, New Jersey. After the union of the two jurisdictions, the Constitution was again revised in 1976 and has been updated regularly.216 A “Model Constitution for Parishes” was also published in 1976 by the Archdiocese and all parishes were required to conform to the model.217 Finally, a “Priest’s Guide” was included in the same publication, listing duties and rights of 212 See especially Art. XII (Diocesan Clergy-Laity Assembly), XV (Archdiocesan Council), XVI (Diocesan Council), XXI (Regulations). 213 Available from www.goarch.org/en/archdiocese/documents/upt.asp, Internet. Accessed October 31, 2002. Herein referenced as GOASR, Chap. Part. Art. Sec. Para., e.g., “GOASR 2.1. III. 7. 3.” 214 Glorified as a saint in 2000. 215 Roberson, Eastern Christian Churches, 56. 216 Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, “The Priest’s Guide” (Englewood, NJ, 1977): 42–56. Herein referenced as ANT Art. Sec. Para., e.g., ANT I.1.A. 217 See “The Priest’s Guide,” 57–70. References made as ANTMC, etc.

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priests, the setup of deaneries, and some other matters; it carries the same force of law as the other two texts.218 This jurisdiction is also undergoing current change. In 2001 the jurisdiction applied for autonomy from the Antiochian Patriarchate and received it in 2002.219 The impact of this move is only beginning to be felt within the Archdiocese, primarily so far on the supra-parish level. An Amended Constitution was approved at a Special Convention General Assembly in July, 2004. A new “Clergy/Laity Reference Manual,” which will replace the “Priests’ Guide,” is also promised for the near future.220 Both of these will reflect changes due to the Archdiocese’s autonomous status. Neither text was available at the time that this book was going to press, so references here are to the pre-2004 texts. Available at this time are two documents: “The Resolution of the Holy Synod of Antioch,” dated October 9, 2003, which grants self-rule to the Archdiocese; and the proceedings of the Special Convention of the Archdiocese of July 16, 2004, held in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. This convention approved the Amended Constitution and implemented some immediate changes in Archdiocesan structure based on the new constitution.221 I will note the major changes which have already occurred, and try to point out other regulations which also may be affected by the achievement of self-rule. The American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese came into being in 1938. Through the 1930s, a number of Uniate parishes and priests were dissatisfied with their treatment by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1936, a group of Uniate priests met to begin the establishment of a new “CarpathoRussian Greek Catholic Diocese,” independent of the Ruthenian Greek 218

“The Priest’s Guide,” 1–34. References made as ANTPG, etc. Autonomy essentially means that the jurisdiction has the right to govern itself in all matters, including the election and ordination of bishops and a metropolitan/primate, with the Patriarchate or mother church reserving the right to approve the election of the jurisdictional primate. 220 See the official Antiochian Archdiocesan website http://www.antiochian.org. see also the Minutes of the Special Convention in The Word 49, no. 7 (Sept. 2004): 15. 221 Resolution of the Holy Synod of Antioch, in The Word 49, no. 7 (Sept. 2004): 6–9. Referenced hereafter as Resolution, p. #. The Resolution is given in both the original Arabic and official English translation. The proceedings of the Special Convention can also be found in the same issue, pp. 10–15. Hereafter referenced as Proceedings, p. #. 219

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Catholic Diocese which had been established in 1924 by Rome. In 1937, clergy and representatives of forty-six Uniate parishes met at the first Sobor (Council) and formally established the “Carpatho-Russian Greek Catholic Diocese of the Eastern Rite of the U.S.A.”222 This Sobor also led to the canonical acceptance of this group by the Ecumenical Patriarchate as essentially an autonomous jurisdiction under its omophorion in 1938. The diocese is now headquartered in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and is composed of 78 parishes and missions. It is governed by a Constitution and set of bylaws which was adopted at the fourth Diocesan Sobor in 1947 and has been regularly updated since then.223 The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. began in 1924 when the recently established Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (i.e., in Ukraine) sent Metropolitan John Teodorovich to America. The Ukrainian Autocephalous Church was considered non-canonical by most Orthodox Churches, and so its affiliate in America was also considered non-canonical. Former Uniates composed a large core of the original American jurisdiction, as was true with the OCA and the Carpatho-Russian Diocese; a post-WWII immigration of Ukrainians who were mostly Orthodox changed the complexion of the jurisdiction to some degree. Another smaller group of former Uniates was accepted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the same manner as the Carpatho-Russians in 1937. In 1995, the “non-canonical” Ukrainian jurisdiction followed the lead of the Canadian Ukrainian Church and was accepted under the omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as an autonomous jurisdiction in America. It is now accepted as a canonical jurisdiction by the other major Orthodox groups.224 In 1996, the two Ukrainian jurisdictions, now both in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch, merged into a single jurisdiction. 222 The word “Orthodox” was added to the name of the diocese at the second Diocesan Sobor in 1940, and name of the diocese officially changed to the “American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Diocese.” See Lawrence Barriger, “Orthodox and Greek Catholic?” American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Diocese Commemorative Jubilee Journal: Fiftieth Golden Anniversary, 1938–1988 (Johnstown, PA: American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Diocese, 1988), 133. 223 “The Constitutions and Laws of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Diocese of the United States of America” (Johnstown, PA, 1996). Herein referenced as ACROD para. #, e.g., ACROD 33. 224 The Canadian Ukrainians had done this in 1990.

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The Ukrainian Church is governed by a Constitution225 which has been updated at regular Sobors. Because of internal controversy surrounding its communion with Constantinople, the jurisdiction has not as yet incorporated the effects of this move into its Constitution. The jurisdiction is based in South Bound Brook, New Jersey and has about 120 parishes and two monasteries. The majority of its estimated 150,000 faithful live in the United States, although the jurisdiction has parishes in Brazil, England, and Western Europe.226 Three major issues stand out in high relief as one peruses the various jurisdictional regulations. These issues are the place and value of the ecumenical canons of the church; the authority of the hierarchy/clergy and of the laity at the diocesan/jurisdictional level; and the authority of the hierarchy/clergy and the laity on the parish level. For the most part, the various jurisdictions have dealt with each of these issues in similar ways, so the results are likewise similar across the board. These results can be summarized in two parts. First, on the diocesan level and above, the authority structure of the church remains conciliar/hierarchical. The laity and lower clergy have input to a greater or lesser degree, but the bishop and bishops’ synod retain their traditional role as presiders over the church. Second, on the parish level, the authority structure is divided and separated, with the pastor and hierarchy maintaining authority over “spiritual” matters, while the lay congregation enjoys virtually sole authority over all “material” matters affecting the parish. The clergy are generally excluded from the “material” sphere, while the laity are generally excluded from the “spiritual” sphere. Thus, there is a marked dichotomy between the authority structure of the hierarchical level and that of the parish level in all jurisdictions. While the hierarchical levels remain within the tradition of the church, the parishes, by regulation and local law, function within a modified congregationalist model at best. Some detail is necessary to demonstrate this point.

225 “Constitution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America” (South Bound Brook, NJ, 1962?). Herein referenced as UOC Sec. # Para. #, e.g., UOC 24.a. 226 Roberson, Eastern Christian Churches, 115–116.

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THE PLACE OF THE CANONS IN JURISDICTIONAL LAWS A look at the first issue shows that every jurisdiction’s regulations incorporate the canonical tradition of the church in some fashion. The Orthodox Church in America is not very legalistic in its language; the OCA Statute states simply that “its doctrine, discipline and worship are those of the … Church as taught by the Holy Scriptures, Holy Tradition, the Ecumenical and Provincial Councils and the Holy Fathers” (OCA I). The 2003 Charter of the Greek Archdiocese is much more direct. It lists the canons among the primary sources of law for that jurisdiction: The Archdiocese, being Hierarchical, as an Eparchy of the Ecumenical Throne, is governed by the Holy Scriptures, Sacred Tradition, the Holy Canons, this Charter, the Regulations promulgated pursuant hereto, and as to canonical and ecclesiastical matters not provided for herein, by the decisions of the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (GOACh03 I.b)227

The language of the Antiochian Constitution is not as direct. It defines the scope of its jurisdiction as the “governing and advisory authority over all the component divisions of this Archdiocese,” in order to fulfill its purpose of practicing the Orthodox faith “in full accord and unity with the doctrine, rules, ritual, canon law, faith…” (ANT III.2 and III.1). However, the new Resolution of the Holy Synod states more specifically that “The Archdiocese is governed by the Holy Scripture, the Sacred Tradition, the Holy Canons, the Constitution f the Church of Antioch and this Synodical resolution and by its Constitution and Bylaws.” (Resolution, 6) This statement makes the canons directly and clearly part of the governing law of the Archdiocese. The Carpatho-Russian Diocese, like the Antiochian Archdiocese, incorporates the canons in an indirect manner, mentioning them in terms of the jurisdiction’s purpose: “…to sanctify, teach and direct [its members] … under and by the authority of a divinely instituted Hierarchy, and in 227

The 2003 Charter added some important language to the 1978 Charter, which merely says, “The Archdiocese is governed by the holy canons, the present charter and the regulations promulgated by it and as to canonical and ecclesiastical matters not provided therein, by the decisions thereon of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.” (GOACh78 I) The inclusion of Scripture and Tradition corrects an obvious lacuna. The matter of the added term “hierarchical” will be dealt with below.

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accordance to the doctrine, discipline, canons and rites of the Church…” (ACROD 2). It further notes, however, that “in spiritual matters, … the Diocese shall be governed, guided, controlled, directed and administered in harmony with the Holy Canons of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of Christ by the Bishop” (ACROD 6). The restriction of the canons to the “spiritual” realm is very problematic. Certainly a few of the canons are concerned with strictly doctrinal matters; these could be considered to be “spiritual” in intent and content. However, as shown in Chapter Two, the majority of the canons are concerned with the practical application of the “spiritual” ideals of the church to the “material” realm. It is difficult to envision a strictly “spiritual” interpretation of most of the canons reviewed in the previous chapter. The meaning of this statement in the ACROD Constitution is, therefore, itself subject to potentially widely diverse interpretations. Last, the Ukrainian jurisdiction is the most specific in its language. Its Constitution enumerates its sources of law by name. It includes Scripture and the “Sacred Tradition (the 85 Rules of the Holy Apostles; the Canons of the 7 Ecumenical Councils and those of the 10 Local Councils; the Canonical Rules of the Holy Fathers…)” (UOC I.3). Each jurisdiction has incorporated the canons and traditional Church law in some manner. Thus, each has ensured that it would not be able to disregard that tradition in favor of new doctrines or new disciplines, even if specific jurisdictional regulations contradict or seem to contradict that tradition. The potential for the enforcement of the canons over modern legislation has not gone completely unnoticed, especially by those who are opposed to such enforcement.228 Nevertheless, the various jurisdictions

228 See, for instance, James Steve Counelis, who believes the canons to be an outgrowth and reflection of Byzantine imperialism, “not informed by Christ’s agapeic understanding.” Counelis is dissatisfied with the application of the canons to the American Greek Archdiocese by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in recent years. Within an American context, he would therefore, apparently, subject the canons to reinterpretation or even abrogation by application of “American constitutionalism,” characterized especially by “the social compact, representation, constitutional convention, the reign of law and federalism.” See his “The Holy American Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate: Two Ecclesial Cultures,” in The American Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate: Governance, Diaspora, Role of Women, Tenth Annual Meeting of the Orthodox Christian Laity, Nov. 14–16, 1997 (Minneapolis: Light

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have acknowledged the legal force of the canons within their own frameworks.

SUPRA-PARISH GOVERNANCE IN JURISDICTIONAL LAWS Church structures on the diocesan and supra-diocesan levels vary from strictly hierarchical through strongly conciliar to almost congregational; however, all leave hierarchical authority definitely in place. Every jurisdiction has a similar set of mechanisms and structures for its governance, but each tends to use its own nomenclature. First, each has a hierarchy, either one bishop or a number of bishops who may function as ordinaries of dioceses or as auxiliaries to a Metropolitan or Archbishop. If the jurisdiction has more than one ordinary, the bishops may form a Holy Synod, with the senior bishop as presider. The hierarchy has a staff, usually known as the chancery and usually appointed by the hierarchy, to handle day to day administrative tasks. Second, each has a standing council of some sort, composed of both clergy and laity. This standing council generally meets at least once or twice a year and handles a variety of tasks, depending on the jurisdiction. Often a diocese or jurisdiction will have a council of clergy besides, akin to a Roman Catholic consistory. The consistory may be a subset of the standing council or may be a separate body. Third, each jurisdiction has some type of Clergy/Lay Assemblies which meet on a regular basis, anywhere from annually to triennially. These assemblies include both lay delegates elected for the given assembly and all clergy from all parishes in the diocese. They have more or less power to create legislation governing the jurisdiction. These are the four most common mechanisms of authority in American Orthodox jurisdictions. The Orthodox Church in America has developed a supra-parish structure which is consciously conciliar. The Statute of the OCA was based on the model of Church which was ratified at the 1917 Moscow Synod, going perhaps even further in its quest for conciliarity.229 It defines the Holy and Life, 1998), esp. 6–8. See also responses to his paper in the same text by Aristeides Papadakis and Theodore Stylianopoulos. 229 Alexander A. Bogolepov notes that the 1924 All-American Synod in Detroit decided to implement the rulings and intent of the 1917 Moscow Synod by developing a new Statute. The process took thirty years, and the current statute is substantially the one promulgated in 1955. See Toward an American Orthodox Church: The Establishment of an Autocephalous Orthodox Church (New York: Morehouse-Barlow, 1963), 94–100.

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Synod of bishops of the OCA and not the Metropolitan himself as “the supreme canonical authority in the Church.” The Metropolitan presides over the Synod, but does not rule over it (OCA II.1, II.2). The OCA’s Clergy/Lay Assembly, the All-American Council, composed of the Metropolitan (presider), all bishops, virtually all priests, and lay delegates, is named “the highest legislative and administrative authority within the Church” (OCA III.1). The Statute contains no stated limits on the matters which are under the purview of the Council. Once again, though, all council resolutions must be approved by the Holy Synod, who cannot be overruled, in order to take effect (OCA 12). The Metropolitan is “first among equals” of the OCA hierarchy. The All-American Council nominates one or two candidates for the office, but only the Holy Synod of bishops actually elects him.230 Candidates may be bishops, other clergy, or laymen, provided they fulfill all other qualifications for office (e.g., be celibate or a widower, properly educated, etc.) (OCA IV.4.b & VI.9). The jurisdiction boasts the first American-born hierarch in the United States, Bishop Benjamin Basalyga, ordained the bishop of Pittsburgh in 1933.231 Nevertheless, no primate of the jurisdiction was American-born until the election of Metropolitan Theodosius Lazor in 1977.232 The standing council of the Metropolia is the Metropolitan Council. It is the “permanent executive body” of the Metropolia, consisting of the Metropolitan as Chairman, the Chancellor, the Secretary, the Treasurer, two representatives from each diocese, one priest and one layman to be elected by each of the Diocesan Assemblies, and three priests and three laymen elected by the All-American Council. The Statute allows that “a majority of the members of the Metropolitan Council will constitute the quorum” (OCA V.1, V.2). The competency of the Metropolitan Council is spelled out clearly and succinctly with an emphasis on the material administration of the Metropolia, including, specifically, the purchasing and alienation of 230

See the details in OCA IV.4. See also “Guidelines For the Election of the Metropolitan of All America and Canada,” promulgated July 2002 when Metropolitan Theodosius retired, for very detailed instructions on the nominating and election process. Available at http://www.oca.org/pages/ocaadmin/ documents/Official/electionofnewmetropolitan.html; Internet, accessed June 17, 2002. 231 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 204. Bishop Benjamin was born in Olyphant, Pa. 232 Tarasar, ibid., 285. Metropolitan Theodosius was born in Canonsburg, Pa.

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Metropolia properties (OCA V.4.g). The lay delegates, although outnumbered by the clergy, have equal status on the council. The diocesan level of Church authority in the OCA reflects the same values and language as the Metropolitan level. The bishop “possesses full hierarchical authority within his diocese,” (OCA VI.4) convenes and presides over the Diocesan Council (standing council) and Clergy-Laity Assembly (OCA VI.4.k). His election parallels that of the Metropolitan, requiring nominations by the Diocesan Assembly, but election by the Holy Synod alone. The Diocesan Assembly has full authority especially over material matters, including the acquisition and alienation of diocesan properties (OCA VII.3.e). However, all resolutions must be approved by the diocesan bishop in order to take effect (OCA VII.15). The Diocesan Council, composed of both laity and clergy, has the task of administering the diocese. It is presided over by the bishop. Its authority parallels that of the Metropolitan Council, although on this level authority over diocesan properties is reserved to the Assembly. While the principle of hierarchical authority remains intact in the OCA, lower clergy and the laity have a strong voice on the diocesan and metropolitan levels. They participate in the selection of their hierarchy, in the administration of the Church, and in discussion of all questions and concerns without specific exclusion. The OCA Statute has achieved a remarkable level of conciliarity, at least on the hierarchical levels. At the other end of the hierarchical/conciliar spectrum lies the structure of the Greek Archdiocese, representing a hierarchical extreme in its supra-parish structure. The 1978 Charter defined the Archdiocese as being completely subject to the Ecumenical Patriarchate (GOACh78 III), with all diocesan organization and administration requiring patriarchal approval, including the validity and implementation of the Charter itself, and all subsequent regulations based on the Charter (GOACh78 IV, V, XXI, XXIII). The 2003 Charter emphasizes the episcopal nature of church structure by adding the word “Hierarchical” to the definition of the Archdiocese in Article 1.b, as quoted above. This addition helped to create a furor over the promulgation of the 2003 Charter, viewed by some laity as taking away from them their authority in the church. A number of lawsuits in civil court arose from the conflict over the new Charter, a conflict which has roots in other areas of dissatisfaction within the Greek Archdiocese in the last decade. Regardless of these other issues, however, the attempt to have the

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courts declare the Archdiocese non-hierarchical (and therefore potentially subject to a congregationalist lay authority) has failed. In the latest of these decisions, made by the New York State Supreme Court on August 6, 2004, Judge Ira Gammerman says plainly, “I do not think it can seriously be disputed that the Greek Orthodox Church is hierarchical.”233 In the 1978 Charter, the election of the Archbishop and bishops “is the exclusive privilege and right of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate” (GOACh78 XIII, XIV) with an “advisory” input from the Synod of Bishops and the Archdiocesan Council (Clergy/Lay Assembly). Nominations were not restricted to bishops or other clergy; the Charter did specify that the candidates must be ethnically Greek, but fluent in English (GOACh78 XIII). The 2003 Charter adds that candidates must have had a period of successful service in the Archdiocese of no less than five (5) years, or to have proven, direct, substantive and broad knowledge of the life and status of the Church in America (GOACh03 13.b).234

In fact, no born and raised American has ever been appointed as Archbishop,235 and to date only one American-born bishop has been appointed head of an American see, and that only recently.236 233 Pappas, Nicholas, et al. v. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, 2004. A photocopy of the final disposition is available at http://www.goarch.org/en/archdiocese/ documents; Internet, accessed 9/28/04. Hardcopy in my possession. This ruling also references two other decisions regarding Orthodox church structure. Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral, 344 US 94 (1952) recognized the hierarchical nature of the Russian Orthodox Church. Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the U.S.A. v. Milivojevich, 426 US 696 (1976) did the same for the Serbian Orthodox jurisdiction. The other issues I mentioned cover a number of areas. Perhaps the most important have been the appointment of Archbishop Spyridon, a growing concern over the loss of membership, a battle over Greek ethnicity, and a growing movement in favor of jurisdictional self-rule apart from the ecumenical patriarchate. Spyridon replaced the very popular Archbishop Iakovos in 1996. He was viewed by many as so extremely dictatorial that the Patriarchate was forced to remove him in 1999. I will touch upon the other issues in the chapter on analysis. 234 This is much stronger language than the original proposed charter, which did not have the five year rule. 235 Archbishop Spyridon was born in Warren, Ohio, but raised and educated in Greece, spending all of his priestly and episcopal time in Europe. He was ordained bishop in 1985, appointed Archbishop of the GOA in 1996. He was removed from

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Other mechanisms on the archdiocesan and diocesan levels include the Eparchial Synod comprising all metropolitan bishops (i.e., those bishops who are ordinaries of a diocese) of the jurisdiction; the Archdiocesan Clergy-Laity Congress and the Local (i.e., diocesan) ClergyLaity Assemblies. Furthermore, the Charter provides for standing councils known as the Archdiocesan Council and the Local Councils. The 1978 Charter provided little detail regarding the Synod of Bishops (called the “Eparchial Synod” in the 2003 Charter). It merely stated that the synod “has all the authority and responsibility which the holy canons prescribe to the provincial synod” (GOACh78 VI). The canons were again incorporated into the Greek charter, although they were specifically subject to modification by the charter itself (GOACh78 VI). The 2003 Charter eliminates that modifying phrase (GOACh03 5.b). In this way, the new charter strengthens even more the traditional role of the hierarchy in the authority structure. The Congress meets regularly, is composed of both clergy and laity of all parishes in the whole jurisdiction, and is presided over by the archbishop. It is charged with “all matters affecting the life, growth and unity of the Church, her institutions, her finances, her administration…,” “except for questions of a doctrinal or canonical nature” (GOASR I.3). Moreover, all decisions of the Congress must be ratified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be valid. The Diocesan Assemblies (called “Local” in the 2003 Charter) are more consultative in nature, convening so that the “Parishes will have the opportunity to discuss matters of common concern and to submit proposals and recommendations to the Archdiocese for submission to the next Clergy-Laity Congress” (GOASR III.4). In this, as in other matters, the Archdiocese more often functions as one diocese, with diocesan bishops functioning more as vicars or auxiliaries than as full ordinaries in their dioceses. Finally, both the Archdiocesan and Diocesan Councils, composed of both clergy and laity and presided over by their respective hierarchs, are charged with the ordinary administration of their respective areas. Nevertheless, they are specifically restricted to being the “advisory and consultative body to the [Arch]bishop” (GOASR II.1, IV.1).

the Archdiocesan throne in 1999 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and replaced by Archbishop Demetrios, who is a Greek national. 236 Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver, ordained bishop 1986, appointed Bishop of Denver 1992.

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The 1978 Charter granted to the Archdiocesan Council the ability to deal with “matters and problems that affect the life and growth of the church and take such decisions thereon as are required” (GOACh78 XV). It also gave the Archdiocesan Council the ability to create and execute legislation as needed between Archdiocesan Congresses. Interestingly, the same Charter, in describing the Diocesan Council, specifically noted that the Diocesan Council “is a consultative and advisory body to the bishop” (GOACh78 XVI). This phrase did not appear in the description of the Archdiocesan Council. This lapse was rectified, however, by its inclusion in the 2003 Charter, in the descriptions of both the Archdiocesan and Local Councils (GOACh03 17.c and 18.a). On the supra-parish level, the Greek jurisdiction is clearly a hierarchical body with a minimum of authoritative input from the lower clergy and the laity. The 2003 Charter does not change the general thrust of the authority structure embodied in the 1978 Charter; rather, it strengthens the hierarchical nature of the jurisdiction. It specifically calls the Archdiocese “Hierarchical,” and refers all matters not provided for by the Charter to be decided upon by the Ecumenical Patriarchate (GOACh03 1.b). The new Charter has also attempted to strengthen the diocesan structure, making each more a proper diocese with its hierarch having full jurisdiction within his diocese. This is especially the meaning of the change in title of the suffragan bishops. In the 1978 Charter they are known merely as bishops. In the new Charter, all ordinaries are known as Metropolitans. In the Greek hierarchical system, this title is the normal one for a diocesan ordinary, as opposed to, for example, an auxiliary bishop. Further, the diocese is now referred to as the “Local Church.” This would seem to indicate some greater sense of authority based upon a theological understanding of the local church as possessing the fullness of the church. Besides these changes, however, the 2003 Charter adds nothing specifically new to the authority, power, or duties of Metropolitans. It remains to be seen whether they, in fact, exercise more ordinary authority than they have in the past. The articles on Local (Diocesan) Assemblies and Councils reflect almost verbatim the language of the Archdiocesan bodies in the new Charter, emphasizing the authority of the hierarchy.237 Overall, it is clear 237

Compare GOACh03 10.a and 11.b with 17.c and 18.a.

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that both the 1978 and the 2003 Charters of the GOA leave the hierarchy in a traditionally strong authoritative role in spiritual and material matters. The lower clergy and the laity have some voice, but that voice is muted and relegated more to an advisory capacity. The existing Constitution of the Antiochian Archdiocese238 offers an authority picture which lies somewhere between the OCA and the Greek Archdiocese. It retains hallmarks of a congregationalist style of government even on the hierarchical level while ceding certain important points of authority to a more hierarchical model. So, the Antiochian Archdiocese has a Board of Trustees, which has roughly the function of a standing council; that is, it is the permanent governmental body which meets regularly to aid the hierarchy in administration of the Archdiocese. The name itself smacks of trusteeism, obviously, as does the definition of its purpose. This purpose is solely to accumulate and administer all funds and properties belonging to the Archdiocese and such properties shall consist of all funds, properties, insurance policies, trust, foundations, and any other properties regardless of the nature of same. (ANT VI.2.A)

The Board also controls the budget; the Metropolitan Archbishop submits the budget to the Board, but the Board may “revise, modify, increase or decrease any appropriation requested in the proposed budget” (ANT VI.2.A).239 This certainly has all the feel of a classic congregationalist setup, but it is modified by other provisions. First, before autonomy was granted, the Metropolitan Archbishop and all other hierarchs were elected by the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Antioch.240 A General Convention (the Clergy/Lay Assembly) had only the authority to nominate three candidates for the office; those nominations were then sent to Antioch for election of 238 As I noted above, the Amended Archdiocese Constitution of July 2004 has not yet been made available to the general public. My text will follow the latest available Constitution. 239 It is unknown at this point how the new Amended Constitution will affect the Archdiocesan Board or subsequent Diocesan Boards. 240 This will, of course, change now that the jurisdiction has been granted autonomy by the Patriarch of Antioch. No new regulations have yet been promulgated. I doubt that the new situation will yield greater authority to the laity to the detriment of the hierarchical voice.

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one of them. The Constitution made no provision for the possibility of all three candidates being rejected (ANT I.E–F).241 Furthermore, among the qualifications for candidacy for either Metropolitan or bishop has been that he must be “one of the canonical clergy who has served in this Archdiocese for at least five years” (ANT I.C.1). Neither the OCA nor the Greek Archdiocese restricts the laity from candidacy; in fact, the OCA specifically refers to the possibility that a layman may even be elected Metropolitan. In practice, no Antiochian primate has been born in America; the first American-born bishop is a former auxiliary and now ordinary of the new Diocese of Wichita, Bishop Basil Essey. The Antiochian Archdiocese’s new status as an autonomous jurisdiction affects both the process of election and the qualifications for candidates in the future. Possible changes in qualifications will await the new Amended Constitution. However, the election process has already been changed by the Resolution and the Special Convention. The Archdiocese was broken up into nine new dioceses, one of them being the Archdiocese. The four current auxiliary bishops were each appointed as ordinaries of one of the new dioceses by the Holy Synod, without recourse to the Archdiocesan General Assembly (Resolution, 6–7). Under the Metropolitan, these bishops (and later on any new diocesan bishops) form a newly created Eparchial Synod. This Eparchial Synod is now the governing authority of the Archdiocese. (Resolution, 7) Candidates for bishops of the other new dioceses were selected by a process similar to that already in place. Nominations were made by the General Assembly of the Archdiocese, as per the old Constitution.

241 Each jurisdiction’s regulations reflect a variety of idiosyncratic concerns which are obviously the result of some issue in the past. The Greek Archdiocese, for instance, is the only one to insist on a specific ethnicity for its hierarchy (the Antiochians merely require the candidate to “have a knowledge of Arabic”). On the other hand, the Antiochians are the only ones to make specific provision for the disposal of the Metropolitan’s property after his death or retirement, reflecting perhaps the concern addressed by Apostolic Canon 40 (see above, p. 40): “Thereafter [death or retirement] all properties or investments registered in his [Metropolitan’s] name as the head of the Church become the property of the Archdiocese” (ANT I.D).

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(Resolution, y and Minutes, 15)242 These names, however, were then given to the Eparchial Synod. This body, together with three Metropolitans from the Patriarchal Synod of Antioch, elects the new bishops. The Metropolitan of the Archdiocese presides over the elections. The election of the Metropolitan remains the same as in the old Constitution; that is, candidates are nominated by the Archdiocesan Assembly, but the Patriarchal Synod of Antioch elects the new Metropolitan. (Resolution, 8) Another major factor which modifies the congregationalist ‘feel’ of the Constitution is the authority of the Metropolitan. His authority is placed in very broad terms: he is “to have complete jurisdiction over and guidance of the Archdiocese” (ANT VI.1.A). The Metropolitan presides over the Board. The Vicar General, Protosyngelos, Executive Secretary, Chancellors, and Comptroller are all appointed by the Metropolitan, and all are on the Board of Trustees, along with all auxiliary bishops. The Archdiocesan Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer must be laymen and are appointed by the Board, but are not members of the Board. The Board also consists of the following members: the President of SOYO [the official jurisdictional youth/young adult organization], the President of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Women of North America, and thirty additional members, of which nine are appointed by the Metropolitan and twenty-one elected by the General Convention. (ANT VI.2.B)

Thus, the Board consists of a minimum of sixteen members who are of the hierarchy or appointed by the Metropolitan, while twenty-one are elected by the General Convention. An interesting note concerning the quorum sums up this description: “Twelve voting members of the Board of Trustees at any meeting duly called shall constitute a quorum” (ANT VI.2.C). The Archdiocesan General Convention is the Clergy/Lay Assembly of the jurisdiction, charged with the legislative authority of the Archdiocese. No specific limits are placed on its area of interest, but neither are any specific duties or competency delineated. The Convention is chaired by the Metropolitan and, although the language is somewhat unclear, it seems that all acts of the Convention must be approved by the Metropolitan for validity: “All legislative authority is vested in the general convention of the 242 Once the new dioceses are formed and develop their own Diocesan Assemblies according to the Amended Constitution, these Assemblies in the future will nominate their own bishops. (Resolution, 7)

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Archdiocese as approved by the Metropolitan Archbishop” (ANT IV.3 [Emphasis mine]). Future Diocesan Assemblies most likely will follow much the same pattern for legislation affecting their own dioceses. While the Antiochian Archdiocese has some of the form of a modified congregationalism, it sufficiently acknowledges the traditional authority of the hierarch to keep the jurisdiction, at least on the hierarchical level, from degenerating into a cleric/spiritual-versus-lay/material division. The hierarchy retains the authority it needs to function as the leadership of the jurisdiction. On the other hand, while the language of the Constitution is dated and Protestant-looking, it does provide for a strong input from the lower clergy and laity which cannot be overlooked. Two features of the Constitution remain very striking: first, the input of laity along with the clergy in the nominations of bishops and the Metropolitan Archbishop, a point the Antiochians share with the OCA and the Ukrainian Church; second, the very narrow competency of the Board of Trustees, limited in very specific language to the administration of funds and properties. The thrust of the Constitution is that the Board is certainly not a synod, a group of elders, or any such conciliar body. It is merely a controller of material goods. The Constitution of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese also designates a Diocesan Board of Trustees as its standing council to “have complete guidance, control and administration of the material affairs of the Diocese” (ACROD 7). A very clear line is drawn between the spiritual and material arenas of church governance, as the Constitution specifically allocates the spiritual realm to the clergy: It shall be understood that in spiritual matters, all that pertains to faith and worship, and in the administration of all spiritual affairs pertaining to the salvation of souls, the Diocese shall be governed, guided, controlled, directed and administered in harmony with the Holy Canons of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of Christ by the Bishop of the Diocese with the advice of the seven clergy members of the Diocesan Board of Trustees, hereinafter referred to as the Consistory or Hierarchical Board. (ACROD 6)

While the laity are completely excluded from any voice in the spiritual realm, the clergy are not excluded from the material realm. The Board consists of the Bishop who presides, plus seven clergy selected by him and

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seven laity elected by the Diocesan Council.243 As with the Antiochian Archdiocese, the statement of quorum is interesting in its minimal size: “The quorum of the Diocesan Board of Trustees … shall be at least seven members of the Board, with the Bishop or Vicar General, and the majority vote shall rule” (ACROD 14.a). The Bishop presides over the Diocesan Council (Clergy/Lay Assembly). This Council, like the Board, is specifically relegated to legislating only the “material affairs” of the Diocese, like the Greek Archdiocese (ACROD 32). The Bishop does not have the authority of final ratification of the acts of the Council. However, the Constitution does not specifically delineate the competency of the Council or of the Board of Trustees, especially in regard to the control, acquisition, and alienation of real and financial properties. In practice, the Board has exercised this power with the approval of the Council if it was possible to obtain it in a timely fashion. The Bishop is elected by a Special Council, at which, apparently, both clergy and lay delegates are present, although the language is somewhat unclear (ACROD 33, 34, 44). However, the Constitution appears to only allow priests to vote: At least two-thirds of all the priests of the Diocese being present at the Special Council, each shall write down the name of his choice for the office and shall place his name in an unconsecrated chalice in the sight of all delegates, lay or sacerdotal present. (ACROD 44)

Not mentioned at all are the other ordained clergy—deacons, subdeacons, and readers—who are in practice excluded from the voting process along with the laity. Furthermore, candidacy for the episcopate is limited, like in the Antiochian Archdiocese, to a priest who has been ordained for at least five years. This is the only jurisdiction to require that candidates be United States citizens (ACROD 36).244 The Bishop-designate has his election 243

ACROD 8, 9. The clergy include as ex officio members the Vicar General and the Dean of the Cathedral, both of whom, of course, are appointed by the Bishop. The laity include six members elected at the Diocesan Council, and the Financial Secretary of the Cathedral Parish as an ex officio member. He is elected by the Cathedral parish. 244 The first American-born ruling hierarch of any American Orthodox jurisdiction was Bishop John Martin, who was elected the successor of Metropolitan Orestes Chornak in 1970. See Lawrence Barriger, Glory to Jesus Christ:

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confirmed by the Ecumenical Patriarch, signifying the autonomous character of the Diocese, as noted specifically in the Constitution (ACROD 45). The Carpatho-Russian Constitution contains one other minor twist unseen in the above jurisdictions, which points, perhaps, to a divisive clergy versus lay stance underlying all of these various jurisdictional bylaws. Ordinarily the Diocesan Council deliberates and votes as one group, clergy and laity together. However, if requested by at least five members of the Council, the clergy and laity vote on a given motion as two distinct “Orders,” with a majority vote in each Order required for ratification (ACROD 29.b). Changes in the Constitution require the same type of bicameral vote (ACROD 35). This procedure, which certainly addresses voting on the most crucial issues of the Diocese, would seem to assume that the clergy and laity are inherently separated and in opposition to each other. It would provide, therefore, a certain check and balance upon each Order by the other without allowing one Order to swallow up the other by virtue of sheer numbers. The Carpatho-Russian Constitution, like the others already reviewed, maintains the authority of the Bishop and hierarchy on the diocesan level in all matters whether spiritual or material. The language of the Constitution carries the congregationalist tone of the Diocese’s origins, but the actual power and authority remains with the hierarchy. The laity are excluded from any participation in the election of the hierarchy or the spiritual administration of the Diocese. At the same time, the governing bodies of the Diocese are presided over by the Bishop. The majority of seats on the Diocesan Board consist of clergy: the Bishop himself, plus his appointees. On the other hand, the voice of the laity cannot be dismissed lightly. It has a real voice on the Board of Trustees, and represents the majority voice in the Diocesan Council. The least hierarchical jurisdiction on the diocesan level is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. It stills functions under the Constitution it had before the Ecumenical Patriarchate accepted it into communion. The A History of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2000), 100, 105–106. Interestingly, the Greek Archdiocese is the only one to allude to the possibility that they may be citizens of another country: “Those fulfilling the above conditions are candidates regardless of the place of residence or service during the time of election” (GOACh78 XIII, unchanged in GOACh03).

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Constitution declares the jurisdiction as “autocephalous” which it defines as “independent” (UOC 2). Therefore, it is not surprising that its hierarchy are elected within the jurisdiction. The guidelines for the election of a Metropolitan or his Vicar are remarkable for their brevity: A Metropolitan, and a Vicar of the Metropolitan, shall be elected by the Church Sobor from among the Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America. (UOC 19)

Outside of UOC 5.e quoted below, nothing else is said about the form, manner, or qualifications for candidacy of elections of the metropolitan or other bishops. The Ukrainian Church is the most restrictive of these five jurisdictions, however, in its qualification for candidates for Metropolitan or Metropolitan Vicar. It is the only one requiring them to be bishops, not just clergy. The supreme authority of the jurisdiction, however, is not defined in the first place as residing within the jurisdictional primate. The Constitution’s second article, immediately after stating the general principles of the church’s existence, establishes and defines the Church Sobor (Clergy/Lay Assembly) as “the supreme organ of government” (UOC 5). The competency of the Sobor is defined in the same paragraph. This paragraph is worth repeating because of its extraordinary nature. The Church Sobor convenes for the following purposes: a) to safeguard the purity of Faith, Traditions and the canonical Church order; b) to promote and to develop the life of the Church and the religious life; c) to have care of the affairs pertaining to administration and to religious education, and of the financial needs of the Church; d) to pass final decisions on cases of a judiciary character; e) to elect a Metropolitan, a Vicar of the Metropolitan, Bishops, a President of the Consistory, and members of the Metropolitan Church Council, those of the Church Court, and those of the Control Commission; f) to establish Episcopal Sees; g) to solve problems of an interchurch character and those pertaining to relations with other Churches, and

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h) to deal with other matters foreseen by the present Constitution. (UOC 5)

The traditional structure of the church requires that all these purposes are functions of episcopal authority. Most of these purposes are limited in the other jurisdictions to the authority of the ranking hierarch himself, or in consultation with advisors, as being included as part of the “spiritual” concerns of the church. This is especially true with (a), (d), (f), and (g), and also matters such as religious education (c) and the Church Court (e). The empowerment of the general Sobor with these functions is without parallel in Orthodoxy. Even in this structure, however, the hierarchy retains some check upon the supreme authority of the Sobor. The Metropolitan presides over the Sobor and so retains a traditional authority over the Sobor’s proceedings (UOC 10). Also, the Constitution provides for a Pre-Sobor Commission which sets the agenda for the Sobor and vets all proposed resolutions and actions for the upcoming Sobor. The Metropolitan has final approval of this process (UOC 8, 15). On the one hand, neither the Metropolitan nor any other hierarchy has the right of ratification of Sobor decisions. The hierarchy of the Ukrainian Church can, therefore, at least in theory, be overruled in matters of faith, doctrine, and judicial discipline. On the other hand, the Metropolitan controls the Sobor agenda and, therefore, makes such an occurrence very unlikely. The Constitution does allow questions to be raised from the floor during the Sobor, but if they are outside of the agenda, they require a two-thirds majority assent to be considered. This makes it difficult in practice to move the assembly off the official agenda. The Metropolitan Church Council is the major standing council of the jurisdiction (UOC 25–38). Like other diocesan boards and councils, it meets once or twice a year. It is composed of the Metropolitan and all bishops, who are all ex officio members, and seven clergy and seven laypersons, who are all elected by the Sobor. The quorum for the Council is a simple majority (UOC 34); although the laity have a real voice on the Council, the inclusion of the hierarchy tips the balance away from lay control. Furthermore, the Metropolitan has the right to defer execution of any decision of the Council. Such a decision must be reconsidered at the next meeting of the council and re-passed by a two-thirds majority in order to override the Metropolitan’s veto.

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The Metropolitan Council is also named the Board of Trustees for the jurisdiction (UOC 29), with the power to alienate and acquire property. On this point, however, the Constitution gives the Consistory the executive power over such property, as well as the authority to borrow money and handle all finances, all of this with the approval of the Metropolitan Council (UOC 121, 122). The Consistory is the real anomaly in the Ukrainian jurisdiction’s government. The Consistory here is the executive and administrative body of the Ukrainian Church, having the responsibility of overseeing day to day operations (UOC 39–52). The anomaly is not so much the name or duties of the body, since it covers much of the responsibilities of both a chancery and a consistory, including priest assignments, organization of new parishes, and acceptance or expulsion of parishes. Rather, the Ukrainian Consistory differs from parallel bodies in other jurisdictions in its composition (UOC 41). It is composed of a President, four clergy, and two laymen. The clergy and laity are elected by the Metropolitan Council from among their own members (UOC 39). In most jurisdictions the clergy, at least, are appointed by the presiding hierarch. Moreover, the President of the Consistory is not the Metropolitan. He is elected by the Church Sobor. Only bishops are supposed to be eligible for the position, except “in the event of an extreme necessity” (UOC 39), but in the 1990s a priest was President of the Consistory for a number of years. So, the Metropolitan is not necessarily involved in the day-to-day administration of the jurisdiction. The current Metropolitan, Constantine, does not even live near the jurisdictional seat in South Bound Brook, New Jersey, but lives in Pittsburgh; the President of the Consistory is currently Archbishop Antony, a suffragan bishop. Also, the Metropolitan is not, as has been seen, defined as the supreme authority of the jurisdiction. The Metropolitan’s major functions are to convoke and preside over the Sobor, the Council of Bishops, and the Metropolitan Church Council (UOC 18.c). Besides this, he has the usual duties of approving candidates for Holy Orders, providing the Holy Myrrh and antimensia to the parishes, and presenting reports on the spiritual state of the Church to the Sobor. Otherwise his duties are more honorary than not: to represent the Church on public occasions, give clergy awards and honors, to “have his own seal” (UOC 18). Nevertheless, even within this tripartite structure of Sobor, Consistory, and Metropolitan, the hierarchy retains, in practice, most of its traditional role. The Metropolitan and his suffragan bishops retain vital

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checks on the proceedings of the Sobor and the Council, and if the primate himself has not been the President of the Consistory in recent years, it is not because the post was not offered to him.245 All of these jurisdictional regulations retain a strong hierarchical authority structure on the diocesan and jurisdictional levels. Even the Ukrainian Church, which is the most congregationalist in its structure, retains vital hierarchical powers. The jurisdictions vary in the openness of their structures, permitting more or less input by the laity and lower clergy. All, however, require some such input, giving the impression of a certain sense of conciliarity—laity and clergy working together for the common good of the Church. However, even the most conciliar, such as the OCA, or the most hierarchical, such as the Greek Archdiocese, betrays a fundamentally adversarial posture between the clergy and the laity. This posture underlies the regulations themselves (for instance, when one group or the other is excluded from a specific authority), and even their language (“Board of Trustees,” “exclusive privilege and right”), with each order striving for ascendancy in governance. In all these examples, by the end of the twentieth century the hierarchy obtained that ascendancy, at least on the supra-parish level. Perhaps this was possible because, for most laity, most diocesan affairs historically have been a secondary concern at best. In the minds of most, the Church exists almost exclusively in its local embodiment as their parish, not as a diocese or jurisdiction much less as the universal Body of Christ. That which does not directly affect their parish polity holds little interest for the average layperson most of the time. The situation is very different, however, when it comes to parish polity.

PAROCHIAL GOVERNANCE IN JURISDICTIONAL LAWS The jurisdictional regulations just reviewed show a clear sense of traditional authority on the hierarchical level for all jurisdictions. The same regulations are just as clear that on the pastoral level, authority is divided between the priest/pastor, whose sphere is spiritual matters and the congregation, whose 245 In the early 1990s Fr. William Dyakiw was President because Metropolitan Mstyslav’s health was failing. Even before Metropolitan Constantine was elected, it was the practice to have each of the three hierarchs reside in different regions of the country. Metropolitan Constantine declined the Presidency of the Consistory, preferring to remain in Pittsburgh where he was already residing.

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sphere is material concerns. In one crucial matter the hierarchy has retained or regained its traditional authority: the making of pastoral appointments. Some jurisdictions may allow some input from the parish, but only the hierarchy has the power of appointment. Three aspects of parish governance are of interest in this discussion. The first is the connection of the parish to the jurisdiction to which it belongs. This connection deals with the limits placed or not placed upon the parish in its subordination to the authority of the jurisdiction. This connection is defined and enforced in three areas in most jurisdictional regulations. Most jurisdictions have regulations requiring parishes to accept and conform to all jurisdictional laws, which take precedence over parish bylaws. Most also include some guideline which states that in the event the parish closes, all parish property, real and otherwise, reverts to the jurisdiction. Last, most jurisdictions also have a stipulation that the parish cannot leave the jurisdiction and go to another jurisdiction, or become independent.246 If it does so, it is generally treated in the same way as if the parish had closed. The second area of interest on the parish level is the rules for the establishment of a parish. The provisions made in various jurisdictional regulations regarding the manner in which parishes are established can be very telling in terms of a congregationalist mentality, so these will be explored briefly in each jurisdiction. The last aspect is the rules for the administration of a parish. All jurisdictions have similar parish structures. Each parish has a pastor or administrator, ordinarily a priest.247 Each parish has a standing council, which in most places is called the Parish Board. The terminology comes from the original founding of most parishes; civil requirements for incorporation required the establishment of a Board of Trustees to take charge of the parish. In some modern regulations, the name of this group has been changed to “Parish Council.” Each parish also usually has a parish assembly of all adult members at least once annually. The assemblies 246

This is a very real problem within American Orthodoxy where there are multiple jurisdictions having territories which overlay one another. 247 In some jurisdictions, when a parish is too small to support a priest, or if the jurisdiction has an insufficient supply of priests, a deacon may be assigned to a parish as the administrator. The other more common solution is to assign a priest to multiple parishes. These details are usually not addressed in the various regulations.

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generally approve budgets, discuss major issues, and elect the parish board. While all jurisdictions provide for these elements, each jurisdiction has its own particularities in regulating their function and authority. The OCA Statute includes only one article regulating parish structure. The issue of subordination of the parish to the diocese is directly addressed at the beginning of article ten: “Being subordinate to the Diocesan Authority, it [parish] is a component part of the Diocese” (OCA X.1). The next section clearly subjects parish bylaws and administration to the OCA Statute (OCA X.2). This is reiterated in section three. While the Statute does not state specifically that the parish cannot leave the diocese (as some other jurisdictional regulations do), the language is clear enough that the parish is a part of, and subject to, the Diocese. The regulation regarding disposition of the property of a defunct parish, however, is less rigorous. It allows that such disposition may be made according to provisions made in the parish’s bylaws, if such provisions exist; else, the property reverts to the Diocese. The only exception made is that all the sacred vessels and the antimension go to the Diocese no matter what (OCA X.9). The establishment of a new parish is addressed in part of one paragraph, article ten, section three. It is “established by decision of the Diocesan Bishop,” but only “after the local group petitioning him has satisfied the Bishop that it is self-supporting and stable…” (OCA X.3). The Statute makes no provision for hierarchical or clerical leadership in the founding stages of a parish. The laity are left to lead themselves until they can prove they will not be a financial drag on the diocese. The priest assigned to a parish is called a “rector.” Only the Diocesan Bishop has the authority to assign clergy to parishes (OCA X.3, 4). The Statute states that the priest is “the spiritual father and teacher of his flock…” (OCA X.4). The parish may not initiate any activity without the priest’s knowledge, nor is he to do anything without the parish’s knowledge; the language here, like that concerning the diocesan levels, is conciliar in nature. Nevertheless, the priest is to “have final authority over the church school,” one of the few definite areas of authority assigned to him (OCA X.4). The Statute has not established a jurisdiction-wide uniform salary policy for clergy, unlike some of the other jurisdictions. The new priest must negotiate his compensation with the parish board at the time of his appointment (OCA X.4). On a practical level, this negotiation process strengthens the often prevalent view of the laity that the parish hires the professional cleric; the priest thus becomes an employee rather than a

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leader. For this reason, most jurisdictions have in place a jurisdictional-wide clergy salary scale which is more or less enforced. The OCA Statute discusses the parish meeting briefly in section seven of article ten. It requires that each parish hold meetings, during which “all matters pertaining to the life of the parish should be discussed and acted upon.” Thus, no area of discussion is excluded from the parish meeting. The Parish Council is to be elected during a parish meeting. Parish meetings are presided over by the parish rector, potentially an important point. No mention is made of the priest’s right to vote or participate in discussion. If the priest disagrees with any decision made at the meeting, both he and the parish officers are to state their case to the Diocesan Bishop, presumably for a decision. The Parish Council is also dealt with rather summarily in article ten, section eight. Its makeup and duties are regulated by parish bylaw. The restrictions or stipulations upon the Council are few. One is that the officers must be installed by the rector. The rector must know about and approve the scheduling of all meetings. But, in regard to the priest’s relationship with the council, the Statute specifically states, “While the priest is the head of the parish, he does not have to be Chairman of meetings. Laymen may be Chairmen.” Disagreements on decisions between the priest and the council are referred to the parish meeting. The property of the parish is owned solely by the parish. However, no specific guidelines touch upon whether the authority to acquire or alienate parish property belongs to the council or to the parish as a whole. Presumably this is to be dealt with in parish bylaws. Overall, the OCA Statute gives merely broad guidelines for parish operation. The Diocese retains the right to appoint clergy, but the parish retains virtually all other authority. The parish functions in a modified congregationalist mode, regardless of the conciliar language often used in the Statute. The priest’s job is to celebrate services and run the church school. He also presides over the parish assembly; however, without further guidelines, it is difficult to say what authority is actually being recognized here. This position is presumably governed by each parish’s bylaws, and so could vary from being a position of strong leadership to one of mere figurehead. The somewhat apologetic statement that the priest does not have to be chair of the parish council could incline one to the latter conclusion.

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The Greek Archdiocese, as might be expected, expresses the subordination of the parish and its bylaws to the Archdiocese and its laws in relatively strong and specific language. The parish accepts this subordination from the very outset of its existence as part of the Archdiocese: The assignment of such appointed priest [by the Archbishop or local Bishop] shall bind the Parish to the Archdiocesan Special and Uniform Parish regulations with the same force and effect as if the same were formally approved and adopted by the Parish. (GOASR II.1.I.2)

In the event that a parish does not conform to jurisdictional laws, the Archbishop has the power to revoke a parish charter and/or remove a Parish Council (GOASR II.1.I.5, 6). If a parish closes, all properties devolve to the Archdiocese (GOASR II.1.XVII.1). Moreover, in the event of “heresy, schism or defection from the Archdiocese,” the Special Regulations provide in the strongest language that the Archbishop has the power to take over the parish completely, including control of its properties. If such problems are resolved, the parish regains its former status. If not, the parish is dissolved and all properties revert to the Archdiocese (GOASR II.1.II.6). The “Special Regulations” of the Greek Archdiocese give the outline for the establishment of new parishes in one article having five sections (GOASR II.2.I). A new parish is started when existing Greek Orthodox laity in a certain locale band together with the intention of starting a parish. These laity, having proved they have enough people to financially support this endeavor, file a petition with the Bishop for permission to organize. The “prospective parish” then forms an Organizational Committee on their own to gather funds, set plans and budgets, find property and more members. After all this is done, the Bishop, if satisfied, then grants permission to organize and grants the new parish an ecclesiastical charter. At this point a priest is appointed to the parish. The assumptions which undergird this process are expressed by what is both stated and not stated. Not stated is any sense that the Diocese or jurisdiction may be taking an active, leading role in starting up new parishes. As in the OCA Statute, the Diocese’s job is to react to a petition from the laity. On the other hand, it is clearly stated that the Diocese essentially provides little involvement and no leadership until the group has already created the foundation for the parish. From the very beginning the parish is expected to be a self-sufficient organization of laity exclusive of the clergy

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(it is called a “Parish” even before a priest is assigned). The addition of a priest is granted as a result of, almost as a reward for, the laity having accomplished their task of organizing their parish. The Special Regulations base their language and their thought on a congregationalist mentality even in regard to the beginnings of a new parish. That the regulations were not promulgated until 1996, and so cannot be said to be directly based upon the experiences of the immigration of 1900, makes their congregationalist underpinnings even more problematic. The “Special Regulations” of the Greek Archdiocese also stipulate the rules governing parish structure. The Bishop alone has the authority to assign and transfer clergy; the parish is specifically excluded from dismissing the pastor (GOASR II.1.III.3), although nothing is said about the parish searching for a pastor (this is also excluded in other jurisdictions). The Archdiocese publishes a minimum salary scale which is well-enforced. Moreover, the parish is forbidden to withhold or lower the pastor’s remuneration without the consent of the Bishop (GOASR II.1.III.7, 8). This is an important point, since it addresses the practical issue of parish non-compliance to a hierarchical appointment. The priest has all authority over the spiritual matters of the parish, including worship, spiritual life and growth and, specifically, “the personnel connected therewith and the use of all Parish property relating thereto” (GOASR II.1.III.4). Once again, the practicality of the issue is spelled out; the authority of a pastor to baptize or marry whomever he decides is greatly limited when the parish board has the authority to deny him access to the church. All of this so far is very clear cut. Article IV, on parish administration, however, betrays the true division of parish authority. First, it states that the pastor is the head of the parish. He, together with the Parish Council, is “ultimately responsible to the Bishop for the whole life and activities of his Parish” (GOASR II.1.IV.1). The parish is to be “administered by the Priest and a Parish Council cooperatively” (GOASR II.1.IV.2). Problems which arise between Council and priest must be referred to the Bishop and may not be adjudicated by the Parish Assembly, unlike the OCA (GOASR II.1.IV.3). The Parish Council is equated within the regulations themselves with the parish’s “Board of Trustees” or “Board of Directors.” The Council consists of the Priest and elected lay members, but the Priest is specifically excluded from voting (GOASR II.1.VII.1). The priest has the right to call

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council meetings, as does the council president (GOASR II.1.XI.1). The priest chairs (without a vote) the first meeting of a newly elected council; at this meeting council officers are elected, including a Council President (GOASR X.1-2). The relationship of the priest and council is left vague in the regulations. They state merely that “the Parish Council under the leadership of the Priest shall have the following duties” (GOASR II.1.XII.1). However, the fact that the Council has a President separate from the priest indicates that the norm is that the President is expected to chair the meetings, and this is ordinarily what happens. The stipulation that the council minutes are signed by the priest, president, and secretary is another indication of the dual leadership roles of priest and president. In terms of spiritual life, the council is called merely to “set an example for the parish” by their regular attendance at divine services and reception of the sacraments. Their administrative duties include all the material affairs of the parish, including the acquisition and alienation of property (GOASR II.1.XII.1), although the last has two specific limits on it. First, such property decisions require approval of a two-thirds majority vote at a Parish Assembly; second, they require the consent of the Bishop. This last, however, must be granted within thirty days or else the consent is assumed to have been granted (GOASR II.1.II.3). The Parish Council also has the authority to hire and fire all other personnel in the parish, “with the consent of the Priest,” again indicating a dual authority of council and priest (GOASR II.1.XII.2). The election of the Parish Council must be ratified by the Bishop to be valid, and all members must take an oath to uphold the “dogma, teaching, traditions, holy canons, worship and moral principles of the Greek Orthodox Church…” for their membership on the council to be valid (GOASR II.1.IX. 1, 4). The Parish Assembly meets at least semiannually (GOASR II.1.VI.2). Eligibility for membership in the Assembly includes fulfillment of both spiritual requirements (baptism, reception of the mysteries) and financial ones (meeting a “stewardship obligation”) (GOASR II.1.V.1 and VI.4). The quorum is determined by parish bylaw. The Chairman of each assembly is elected by that assembly. The priest or priests are non-voting members (GOASR II.1.VI.4). Few duties or purposes are defined for the Assembly; an exception is the one noted above concerning the acquisition or alienation of property. Another is the approval of financial reports and budgets (GOASR II.1.XV). Otherwise, the Assembly is merely the “general

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meeting of the members in good standing of the Parish.” Elections for the Parish Council are not held at an Assembly, but are a separate issue. In fact, the Special Regulations give much more detail regarding the issues of election and ratification of the Council, and the election of Council officers (three articles, totaling eighteen sections) than on the Parish Assembly (one article, seven sections, all of which are concerned with the requirements for a valid meeting; e.g., who can vote, when does it happen, etc.). The Special Regulations of the Greek Archdiocese retain some hierarchical influence on the governance of the parish. Besides the episcopal right of placement of pastors, they require the Bishop’s ratification of certain acts of the parish (especially property issues), and they require his ratification of the election of Council members. They even spell out the Bishop’s or Archbishop’s authority to remove a Parish Council or suspend the charter of a parish (GOASR II.1.II.6). Nevertheless, the regulations clearly separate out the authority of the laity, who govern and administer the material goods of the parish with very little interference, from the clergy. The priest or pastor is kept at arm’s length in these matters and has no legal voice. The modified congregationalism which underlies these regulations assumes dual, equal but disjunctive authority roles for priest and council, roles which are presumed to hold the potential for becoming adversarial. This oppositional stance is even clearer in the other jurisdictions. In the Antiochian Archdiocese, regulations governing parishes and clergy are mainly found in the “Model Constitution for Parishes,” and in the “Priest’s Guide.”248 The Archdiocesan Constitution declares its governing authority “over all the component divisions of the Archdiocese, hereinafter mentioned” (ANT III.2). The next article states that “The Constitution and Canons shall be the governing code for this Archdiocese” (ANT IV.1). The parish Model Constitution reprises this article almost exactly (ANTMC IV.1), binding the parish to the Constitution and the Canons. The language binding the parish to the Archdiocese is somewhat different from what has been seen: “The [parish name] owes its ecclesiastical allegiance to the aforementioned Archdiocese and such ecclesiastical authority and jurisdiction cannot be changed, altered, modified 248 It is unknown at this point whether or in what way the proposed Clergy/Laity Reference Manual will change things. Given that there has been little or no discussion of changes on the parochial level, it is doubtful that substantial changes will be made which will affect the issues presented here.

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or revoked” (ANTMC I.3.B). Furthermore, while the parish property is owned by the parish, as is the case in all these regulations, if the parish is dissolved, the property reverts to the Archdiocese (ANTMC IX.3). Finally, each parish constitution and any amendments to it must be approved by the Metropolitan Archbishop to be valid (ANTMC X, XI). Like the OCA and the Greek Archdiocese, then, the Antiochian Archdiocese binds each parish in a general way to the Archdiocese itself. The only mention of establishment of new parishes to be found in these regulations is in the section called “The Priest’s Guide,” under article XVII entitled “Statutes Governing Deaneries.” One of the dean’s duties is to take care of faithful “residing in areas of the Deanery where no organized parish or mission exists.” The dean is expected to take the lead in exploring “the possibilities for establishing such parishes or mission, working in close cooperation with the director of the Archdiocese Department of Missionary Activities and Parish Development” (ANTPG XVII.9). Unlike the OCA and Greek regulations, then, the Antiochian guidelines expect clergy who are out working in the field to take an active leadership role in establishing new parishes. However, no other guidelines are given in the regulations. Presumably they are part of the Missionary Department’s internal protocol. Appointments of all clergy, not just priests or pastors, are reserved to the Metropolitan, with, however, “the advice of the Parish Council” (ANTMC V.1). The priest, called Pastor, is specifically designated “the official representative of the Metropolitan Archbishop” (ANTMC V.2, ANTPG I.2). Furthermore, the pastor is declared to be only under “the direct supervision of the Metropolitan Archbishop and not subject to any rules or regulations of the Parish,” for spiritual and priestly matters only (ANTMC V.2, ANTPG I.3). This guideline clearly creates a separation between the spiritual authority of the pastor and other authority of the parish. Antiochian regulations make no mention whatsoever of the pastor’s compensation, although they give detailed instructions regarding other parochial financial obligations (ANT VI.4, ANTPG XVI). The pastor’s governing authority and his relationship vis-à-vis the Parish Council are not clearly defined. The pastor does preside over parish assemblies, as in the OCA (ANTMC VII.A). As in the Greek jurisdiction, he also presides over the first meeting of a newly elected council; the purpose of this meeting, however, is to elect council officers, one of whom is the Chairman of the Council (ANTMC VI.4.A). So, while Antiochian

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parishes do not have the office of “parish president” as most do, the pastor still does not preside over the council itself. On the other hand, the Antiochian regulations are unique in directing the makeup of the parish council. First, the pastor is included in the Council, not considered an adjunct to it; nor is he necessarily denied a vote on council (ANTMC VI.1). Second, three members of the council are appointed by the pastor; while this is often seen on the supra-parish levels in most jurisdictions, it is never seen on the parish level. Also never seen is the inclusion on the Council of other ex officio members: the director of the Church School, a member of the Choir, and the presidents of any parish organizations (ANTMC VI.1). The rest of the Council consists of a number of members elected by the parish assembly; the number is decided upon by each parish (ANTMC VI.1). These guidelines, more than most, seem to be striving toward some type of real conciliarity in their parish government. As with the other jurisdictions reviewed above, however, no mention at all is made about whether or not other clergy—assistant priests, deacons, subdeacons, chanters—are permitted or expected to be members of the Parish Council. The Model Constitution says little about the duties of the Parish Council. The only one specifically defined is that it represents the parish in the administration of the parish’s property and affairs. Also, the Council is “responsible for the receipt and disbursement of all general and special funds” (ANTMC VI.4.B). All other details regarding the Council’s duties revolve around the handling of financial matters (e.g., ANTMC VI.4.E and VI.5). This reflects the Archdiocesan Constitution’s view of the standing council as being a “Board of Trustees.” The Parish Council is specifically excluded from the power to acquire or alienate property; this belongs to the parish assembly with, interestingly enough, approval of the Metropolitan Archbishop, as in the Greek Archdiocese (ANTMC IX.2). Nevertheless, it is difficult to say whether other duties and leadership are intended to be excluded from the Council’s purview, or were merely left unsaid. Overall, Antiochian guidelines seem to attempt to make parish government more conciliar in its nature. However, the line between the spiritual and material is still clearly drawn. The pastor, while possibly having a vote, has a minimal voice in matters of day-to-day administration, as well as major and minor matters of finance. On the other hand, the laity is again completely excluded from any spiritual leadership. These are the hallmarks of modified congregationalism.

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The American Carpatho-Russian Diocese has many similarities with the jurisdictions already reviewed. Parishes are integral parts of the Diocese, are bound by Diocesan law, and cannot separate themselves from the diocese (ACROD 120, 121, 123, 124, 126). However, no provision is made within the diocesan bylaws for disposal of parish property in the case of the dissolution of the parish. The establishment of new parishes is regulated in three separate sections (ACROD 120, 121, 123). Sections 120 and 121 seem to suggest an active participation by the Diocese in the founding process, stating that “Parishes are established by the Bishop…” and “New Parishes which are established or organized by the Diocese…” The thrust of the sections is the regularization and incorporation of the parish into the body of the diocese, attempting to minimize the congregationalist impact upon parish governance, but they seem to acknowledge some diocesan leadership in parish establishment. As with the other jurisdictions, the sole right to appoint and transfer pastors belongs to the Bishop (ACROD 64.d). The bylaws do say, however, that the Bishop is expected to consult with his Consistory in this matter. Also, parishes may present their own candidates, and a procedure is outlined for that possibility; however, the Bishop is not bound in any way by a parish choice (ACROD 65). Compensation for pastors is clearly set out in detail in Sections 68–73. They include a minimum salary scale and other benefits and are relatively strictly enforced. This reduces the need for the pastor to negotiate with the parish for his sustenance. A congregation or parish is defined as being composed of a pastor, the “spiritual head,” and lay members (ACROD 134). This is the only set of bylaws which requires a pastor as an integral part of the parish. A pastor’s duties are laid out in great detail in Section 75. All of them are spiritual or liturgical in nature. Further duties are specified in the part headed “Parochial Board” (ACROD 143–165). Under this heading, the pastor is named as a member of the Board. Nothing is stated regarding his right to vote; in practice it is usually denied. The pastor calls all meetings of the Board or of the parish, however the President chairs them (ACROD 154). The pastor’s participation in the decision-making process is strictly circumscribed: “The Pastor is the chief officer of the congregation in spiritual matters and is only an overseer in material matters” (ACROD 147

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[Emphasis mine]).249 His presence is nevertheless required at all board or parish meetings, “that he may give to each the benefit of his wisdom and counsel” (ACROD 148). Parish governance in the American Carpatho-Russian Diocese is perhaps the most congregationalist of the ones reviewed here. The description of the Board is limited to brief duties of each officer, with little prescribed in the way of authority or purpose. The Board ordinarily handles the regular material operations of the parish, including the finances. Only the parish, however, has the right to acquire or alienate property. Such right is denied to the parish board itself (ACROD 145). This right is also strictly prohibited to the Diocesan Bishop and Diocesan Board of Trustees in a text that borders on belligerence in tone: The material wealth of the Parishes, real or personal property, is under the complete and full ownership of the members of the respective Parishes. Neither the Diocesan Bishop nor the Diocesan Board of Trustees has the right to interfere in such ownership, sell, transfer, barter or mortgage any such property. (ACROD 125)

Strangely, although all material governing power resides in the congregation, there are no provisions or guidelines whatsoever in the Constitution regarding parish assemblies. No details, no regulations, not even any stipulations regarding the minimum frequency of holding a parish assembly are part of the Diocesan Constitution. Presumably these are to be taken care of in each parish’s bylaws. Given the great detail often describing and circumscribing diocesan level governance in the Carpatho-Russian Constitution, it would be difficult to conclude that its great lack of detail regarding parish governance was due to an oversight or lack of thoroughness on the part of the diocese. For instance, a great deal of detailed description is used to define the parish’s obligations to the diocese, to the support of the pastor, to certain spiritual and canonical concerns (ACROD 119–142).250 These are matters the diocese controls, however. 249

The use of the word “overseer” in this context is a problematic one. It does not indicate the ordinary dictionary definition, much less the scriptural one. It is apparently used in a literal sense as “one who looks over,” as if from afar—a detached observer who may proffer similarly detached opinions or advice, which may or may not be heeded. 250 For instance, the Constitution contains regulations regarding canonical marriage (137, 138), joining sects or societies, etc.

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Internal matters are strictly ignored. One conclusion, although perhaps not the only one, is that the parishes of this jurisdiction are so congregationalist in their mentality that they will brook no interference from the diocese, not even a helpful one, in what they consider to be their internal affairs. The regulations for parishes in the Ukrainian Church are very similar to those found in the other jurisdictions reviewed, reflecting similar needs and concerns. However, they depart in some respects from these other norms, much as they do for the diocese. In terms of the relationship of the parish to the diocese, they emphasize that the parish is a component part of the Ukrainian Church (UOC 83), that jurisdictional laws are binding upon parishes (UOC 84), and that parish constitutions must be in conformity with the jurisdictional constitution and the canons of the Church and must be approved by the Consistory (UOC 84, 85, 100). Also emphasized is that no parish may withdraw from the jurisdiction (UOC 86). However, the Constitution makes no provision for the disposal of parish property in the case that the parish is dissolved. It does note the right of the Church to expel or sanction a parish for cause (UOC 88, 41.f, 41.l) without stating anything further. The establishment of new parishes is addressed simply. The Consistory has the power to “organize and to admit new parishes” (UOC 41.f). In the section on parishes, a reference is made to this power: “The admission of parishes to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church … shall be subject to the decision of the Consistory…” (UOC 88). Nothing further is noted about this issue. Given that the context of both sections is merely to establish the sole authority of the Consistory to admit or expel parishes, it does not seem likely that missionary activity by the diocese is envisioned in this Constitution; rather, the diocese’s job seems to be to react to an application by a new community or by a parish coming from another jurisdiction. The priest assigned to a parish is called a Rector. The diocese has sole authority to assign priests and deacons (this is the only jurisdiction to mention deacons specifically), although a parish may nominate one (UOC 41.b, 84, 92). Only the Consistory is named in these sections as the authority, but section 74 requires the approval of the Metropolitan. Minor clerics (chanters, readers) may be hired and fired by the parish, but only with approval by the Consistory (UOC 93). The language of the Constitution does not seem to envision priests and other clerics as integral members of the parish, as the Carpatho-Russian bylaws do.

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The rector’s authority and obligations are spelled out in ways that are similar to the other jurisdictions. His is the spiritual authority of the parish: he is to promote morality, render “religious offices,” educate the faithful. It is specifically noted that “matters of a Liturgical character and those pertaining to the Ritual, shall be exclusively within the competence of the Priest who shall be governed by the decisions and instructions of the Council of Bishops” (UOC 75). As in the other bylaws already reviewed, the rector has the right and duty to participate in all parish assemblies and board meetings. However, in a clear departure from all other jurisdictions, the rector has the right of a deciding vote at these meetings, in case of a tie (UOC 76). The General Meeting (i.e., parish assembly) is the “supreme organ of government” in the parish, having oversight of all temporal affairs. It has the power to acquire or alienate real and other property of the parish (UOC 102.i), although this is not an exclusive right. The Parish Board (i.e., the parish standing council) also has the same power (UOC 105.s); nothing is said about the board requiring parish approval for such acts, nor is anything said about the General Meeting requiring Board approval. The Parish Board is the ordinary administrative body of the parish. It includes the Rector as an ex officio member and titles him “President of Honor” (UOC 104). He is also to be a member of the parish Trustees. There is no lay president of the board; nevertheless the ranking lay member is the Chairman, and he presides over board meetings. The Board has the usual functions already seen in other jurisdictions, with the inclusion noted about control over the real property of the parish. Also included, however, is the authority to admit new members to the parish (UOC 105.a), something which is usually within the purview of the pastor. One last variation should be noted: the board is not excluded from “spiritual affairs,” but is specifically charged to “deal with questions pertaining to the moral, civic and social interests of the parish, to care for the sick and for the orphans, to aid the poor, and the like” (UOC 105.u). Such detailed spiritual obligations placed upon the parish board are unusual in the various regulations that have been looked at. This brief review of these five jurisdictions reveals broad similarities between them in the delineation of the authority and limits of pastors, parish boards and parish assemblies, the three cornerstones of parish government. While some variations do exist—and even some anomalies— the mainstream of parish government is clearly a modified

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congregationalism, dividing up “spiritual authority” and “temporal authority” between the priest and the laity respectively. The parish has two heads, the pastor and the president/board, with fewer or greater restrictions upon the pastor’s “interference” (to re-apply the quote from ACROD 125) in temporal affairs, and likewise fewer or greater restrictions upon the laity’s “interference” in spiritual affairs. The conclusion of the last chapter was that a parish, whatever else it might be, is a component part of the local diocese. It is a subset of the larger group. The parent group, the bishop and the diocese, would be expected, therefore, to set the standard for parish function and administration. It runs contrary to logic that the parish would set a different standard instead of adhering to and following the norm of its diocese. Nevertheless, by jurisdictional regulation parishes do not follow the norm of their dioceses. The dioceses are all governed on a hierarchical or hierarchical/conciliar model, while the parishes follow a different norm. It can be argued that since most jurisdictions have rules requiring parish property to revert to the diocese in the case of dissolution, the diocese actually owns the property anyway. It can also be argued that since diocesan regulations require the subordination of parish bylaw to diocesan law, and especially to canon law, in reality the dioceses could enforce hierarchical authority even on the parish level. However, the safeguards built into the diocesan regulations can be acted upon only in extreme cases and usually have involved protracted litigation in civil court. These do not affect the day-to-day operations, functions, goals, and purposes of a parish, nor do they affect the ordinary understanding of most parishioners and most clergy. In almost all ordinary times and places, parishes function as lay congregations who have a spiritual chaplain to lead and guide them. How American Orthodoxy arrived at this point is the topic of the next three chapters.

CHAPTER FOUR: MORAL ABSENCE OF THE HIERARCHY

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congregationalism, dividing up “spiritual authority” and “temporal authority” between the priest and the laity respectively. The parish has two heads, the pastor and the president/board, with fewer or greater restrictions upon the pastor’s “interference” (to re-apply the quote from ACROD 125) in temporal affairs, and likewise fewer or greater restrictions upon the laity’s “interference” in spiritual affairs. The conclusion of the last chapter was that a parish, whatever else it might be, is a component part of the local diocese. It is a subset of the larger group. The parent group, the bishop and the diocese, would be expected, therefore, to set the standard for parish function and administration. It runs contrary to logic that the parish would set a different standard instead of adhering to and following the norm of its diocese. Nevertheless, by jurisdictional regulation parishes do not follow the norm of their dioceses. The dioceses are all governed on a hierarchical or hierarchical/conciliar model, while the parishes follow a different norm. It can be argued that since most jurisdictions have rules requiring parish property to revert to the diocese in the case of dissolution, the diocese actually owns the property anyway. It can also be argued that since diocesan regulations require the subordination of parish bylaw to diocesan law, and especially to canon law, in reality the dioceses could enforce hierarchical authority even on the parish level. However, the safeguards built into the diocesan regulations can be acted upon only in extreme cases and usually have involved protracted litigation in civil court. These do not affect the day-to-day operations, functions, goals, and purposes of a parish, nor do they affect the ordinary understanding of most parishioners and most clergy. In almost all ordinary times and places, parishes function as lay congregations who have a spiritual chaplain to lead and guide them. How American Orthodoxy arrived at this point is the topic of the next three chapters.

CHAPTER FOUR: MORAL ABSENCE OF THE HIERARCHY

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The previous two chapters have demonstrated that, on the parish level, American Orthodoxy has not put into practice its traditional understanding of ecclesiastical authority. How such a divergence from the norm came about is the focus of this chapter. I have found three proximate causes and sources of this change in church practice. The three proximate causes are the “moral absence” of hierarchical authority; the Toth schism and its aftermath; and the presence of lay societies as models for trusteeism. There are other underlying factors, of course. These other factors represent attitudes of the people involved, or situations which formed the background against which the Orthodox established themselves in America. The most important of these may include ethnicism, the effects of civil legislation based on a Protestant model, and the effects of social upheavals of the nineteenth century. However, these are not immediate causes of the establishment and maintenance of congregationalism in American Orthodoxy, and are best dealt with in the chapter on analysis. The term “moral absence” is used here in the sense of “practical” rather than in an ethical sense. For a variety of reasons to be explored, most of the core American Orthodox parishes were founded with little or no effective input from Orthodox hierarchy. By the time the hierarchy became involved, parish structures were already fixed in a congregationalist mode. At that point, even if the hierarchy wanted to change this mode, it was pastorally very difficult if not impossible. I am arguing here that the foundations of American Orthodoxy were laid in a congregationalist manner precisely because they were formed by groups of Orthodox laity without the leadership of, or even input from, the Orthodox hierarchy. The Orthodox Church first entered the New World through the Russian exploration and exploitation of the Alaskan frontier beginning in the 1740s. The actual establishment of the Church, however, had to wait until September 24, 1794, when ten monks sent by the Holy Synod of Moscow, four of them priests, arrived at St. Paul Harbor (the modern-day town of Kodiak). These monks served the needs of the Russian traders, but more importantly evangelized the Aleuts and other indigenous peoples. Although the Russian population in Alaska never reached more than 900 total,251 this missionary activity was so successful that a diocese was established in 1841 for Kamchatka and the Kuril and Aleutian Islands. Its

251

Michael Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska: A Theology of Mission (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), 165.

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115 initial see was in New Archangel (Sitka), Alaska, and St. Innocent Veniaminov of Alaska was named its first bishop.252 In 1863 the Russian-American Company folded.253 Four years later Alaska was sold to the United States and almost all the Russians went home or to San Francisco, a growing port city. Financial support for the work of the Church dwindled.254 As the Holy Synod back in Russia was becoming pre-occupied with more immediate concerns within its own country, its spiritual interest waned. Because the mission was now on foreign territory, the Synod established a separate Diocese of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands in 1870.255 This date marks the beginning of the first official Orthodox diocese on American soil. By this time, only four priests remained in the Alaskan Territory to tend to over 10,000 Orthodox Christians.256 252

Tarasar, Orthodox America, 15–16. Alexander Doumoras, “Foundations for Growth,” in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 32–33. 254 Ibid. 255 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 20. 256 Even with dwindling support from Russia or the American diocese, the Alaskan Church remained a going concern. The majority of its membership was Native or Creole. Oleksa quotes the following statistics as of 1902: By 1902, the Orthodox Diocese of Sitka consisted of 11,758 members, 17 priests, one deacon and dozens of readers, with 87 Russians, 2257 Creoles, 2147 Tlingits, 2406 Aleuts, 4839 Eskimos and 22 other of various ethnic backgrounds (Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska, 168). The question of who and what an Aleut or Creole is, as well as the place of Orthodox Christianity in the indigenous Alaskan culture, is just beginning to be explored. For further discussion, see Oleksa, Alaskan Missionary Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 4–5, and his Orthodox Alaska, chapter 7. Aleuts and Creoles had served the Church as clergy since 1828; by 1920, they constituted almost all the clergy (Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska, 195). However, the bishop was Russian throughout this period, and non-native American until the present day. From the 1920s until the 1970s, official and unofficial government policies towards Native Americans virtually destroyed the peoples and crippled the Orthodox Church, which was in many ways the Native religion. Assimilationism, monolingualism, Protestantism, and unwanted welfare imposed the will of the majority upon the few, doing great damage in the process (Oleksa, Orthodox Alaska, 171–186). In the 1970s, a revival of the Church began and continues to today. The Alaskan Church today consists of 88 parishes, missions, and chapels. While no current diocesan census exists, Fr. Michael Oleksa estimates the current membership at about 30,000, virtually all of whom are Native or Creole. This represents about twenty percent of the total Native population. In some areas, Orthodoxy is the only Christian tradition. Ninety percent of the clergy are Native Alaskan. ( I am indebted to Fr. Michael for the statistics in a personal note dated 253

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The Alaskan Church and its bishop had little impact on the establishment of the first Orthodox parishes in the United States. The diocese and its bishop were virtually unknown in the continental states. The first known Orthodox parish in the continental United States was founded in Galveston in 1862. It was originally started by a group of Greek laity, without any apparent reference to any Orthodox bishop anywhere, either in Alaska or in Greece. It became pan-Orthodox, counting Russians and Serbs among its congregation, and even celebrating services in both Greek and Old Slavonic. How the community acquired its first pastors and who they were is unknown. In the late 1880s the people must have realized that there was an Orthodox bishop in America, because they applied to the Alaskan diocese for a priest. In this way they acknowledged in some sense the diocese’s authority.257 Within a few years the parish lost its pan-ethnic character and eventually became a Serbian parish. Similarly, in 1864, a group of Greek merchants led by the Greek consul organized a parish in New Orleans. This parish also originally included Serbs and Russians. In fact, parish records were kept in English until 1906 because at least some of the parish officers could not read Greek.258 The congregation first found and hired a Fr. Agapios Haranchenko to serve in 1864. The community was aware of the Alaskan diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, even receiving a donation of vestments from Tsar Alexander II.259 Nevertheless, it neither sought pastors from Alaska, nor did it in any way acknowledge the diocese’s jurisdiction.260 In 1867 the congregation went directly to Greece to find and appoint Fr. Stephen Andreades as pastor. The next pastor hired was also Greek, followed by a Bulgarian.261 There is no mention of any involvement of any 08/30/2002.) He states further, “It has proven very difficult to count accurate [sic] our Faithful because of their frequent movement to and from the cities and back to their villages.” 257 Doumoras, “Foundations,” in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 37. 258 Theodore Saloutos, The Greeks in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), 122. 259 Demetrios Constantelos, introduction to The History of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, by Miltiades B. Efthimiou and George A Christopoulos, eds. (New York: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, 1984), 2. Constantelos claims that Haranchenko was a non-canonical priest working for the Russian Orthodox Mission. Doumoras states that the Russian Diocese had nothing to do with Haranchenko—that he was a free-lancer picked up through strictly lay connections. See Doumoras in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 38. 260 Doumoras, ibid. 261 Constantelos, ibid., Doumoras, ibid.

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117 hierarchy in America or abroad in any of these appointments. This parish eventually became a Greek parish. While Alaska was losing its Russians, San Francisco began to acquire an Orthodox population and became the center for the next known parish. A mixed group of Greek, Russian, Serb, and Syrian gold-miners in the 1850s, Russians from Alaska in 1863, and some immigrants brought by the Russian Imperial Pacific Fleet also in 1863 all contributed to the community’s growth.262 In 1867, a group of laity, including the Russian and Greek consuls, founded the “Greek-Russian-Slavonic Church and Philanthropic Society” and was granted a charter by the State of California in that year.263 The major purpose of the Society was to establish an Orthodox parish. When it was ready, it asked for a priest from the Holy Synod of Moscow and a priest was transferred from Sitka in 1868 to serve this parish. The first building used for worship here was known as the “Prayer House of the Orthodox Oriental Church.” Bishop John Mitropolsky of Alaska moved his see unofficially from Sitka to this parish in San Francisco in 1872, with the approval of the Holy Synod. He had two reasons for the move. First, since Alaska was no longer Russian territory, other places in America could function just as well, if not better, as the center of the Church’s mission. This was especially true since Alaska was now ruled by a military dictatorship.264 Second, Bishop John apparently had an evangelistic bent, especially toward the “heterodox.” He recognized the growth in California as a potential base from which he could spread Orthodoxy through America: In the midst of the large American population of San Francisco, Bishop John said, the Orthodox Church would be able to reveal her truth to the heterodox, all sectarians and the American society in general with greater effect and impact.265

This move was finalized in 1900 through the efforts of Bishop Tikhon Bellavin, who had been appointed as head of the diocese in 1898 by the Moscow Synod.266 At this time the Synod also changed the name of the

262

Doumoras, “Foundations,” in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 33. Fitzgerald, Orthodox, 24. 264 Konstantin Simon, “Alexis Toth and the Beginnings of the Orthodox Movement among the Ruthenians in America (1891),” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 54 (1998): 396. 265 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 29. 266 Fitzgerald, Orthodox, 22. 263

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diocese to “Diocese of the Aleutians and North America,” with the emphasis on the “North America” part. Even though Bishop John had moved the diocese to San Francisco, his actual sphere of influence and authority was very limited. The diocese’s major concern was still Alaska, with some little growth on the West Coast. Meanwhile, other parishes were being established in the states with little if any connection to the Russian diocese. Most parishes were established in much the same way as Galveston, New Orleans, and San Francisco, with a group of laity founding the parish and then looking for a priest or a bishop. One major exception was the establishment of a chapel in New York City by the Holy Synod of Moscow in 1870. Although the chapel was not apparently officially a stauropegial267 parish, it does not seem that it had any connection to the San Francisco Diocese. Its purpose was to serve the needs of the Russian consulate and to function as a “show-place where Protestants could view Eastern Orthodox rites in their proper setting.”268 Fr. Nicholas Bjerring, a convert from Catholicism, was assigned to the new congregation.269 Fr. Bjerring took seriously what he saw to be an evangelical mission. His pastorate was characterized by outreach to the non-Orthodox. From the beginning, all services were celebrated in English (Bjerring could not speak or read Russian or Greek). Bjerring published English translations of various liturgical and theological texts and published a periodical, The Oriental Church Magazine, between 1879 and 1881.270 Even with all this activity, the parish seems to have been mainly composed of 267

Stauropegial means that the parish is directly under the jurisdiction of the patriarch or synod, and the local bishop has no official jurisdiction over that parish. For an excellent explanation of the practice, see Maximos, Metropolitan of Sardis, The Oecumenical Patriarchate in the Orthodox Church: A Study in the History and Canons of the Church, trans. Gamon McLellan (Thessaloniki: Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies, 1976), 247–250. 268 David Abramtsev, “Father Nicholas Bjerring,” in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 40. 269 Bjerring was an American of Danish birth and a professor at St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He could not accept the papal decree on infallibility and so converted to Orthodoxy. He was received into the Church in St. Petersburg and ordained a priest there in 1870. From there he received his commission to begin the parish in New York. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1909 states that Bjerring reconverted to Catholicism before his death. No other source confirms this, not even K. Simon, S.J., who generally is very punctilious about pointing out which priests returned to the Catholic Church after their move to Orthodoxy. See Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 397 (Bjerring) as vs. 413, 418 (others). 270 Ibid.

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119 members of the Russian and Greek consulates.271 The congregation never became firmly established, possibly because it was not really addressing the needs of its actual membership. In 1883, the Russian government pulled its financial support and directed Fr. Nicholas to close the Chapel. The congregation had lasted only thirteen years. These first few parishes came into being just before the floodgates of immigration opened. Started in port cities, these parishes had consuls and merchants as their founders, not missionaries sent by church authorities. These parishes actually began during or right after the Civil War, when Orthodox immigrants were still relatively scarce. However, the Church experienced its greatest growth during the Great Immigration between 1875 and 1920. Beginning especially in the late 1880s the immigration turned into a flood. The Slavic/Arabic stream and the Greek stream of that flood flow in more or less separate channels and are most easily dealt with separately. Since this chapter is concerned with the causes of congregationalism, and not with the comprehensive history of Orthodoxy in America, I will be recounting events which are most pertinent to the issue. If it seems that short shrift is given to such major jurisdictions as the Serbian and the Antiochian (Arab) Churches, it is because they share a common history with the Russian diocese, being part of it until after World War I. Thus, nothing new is added to my argument by attempting to dwell upon their history in detail, except when pertinent.272 Apart from the beginnings of the Alaskan mission and the few congregations established by or for consulate personnel, the Russian Church did not establish itself primarily with people from Imperial Russia. Few Russian Orthodox ever immigrated to America. The majority of its future membership was actually composed of immigrants from the AustroHungarian Empire who were not Orthodox, but Uniate or Eastern Catholics.273 These people came from two main areas in Eastern Europe:

271

Tarasar, Orthodox America, 39–41. While there are a number of historical studies of American Orthodoxy available today, perhaps the most comprehensive and concise is Fitzgerald’s Orthodox Church. He does an admirable job of tracing and simplifying the various tangled strands of ethnic immigration and jurisdictional establishment in America. 273 Fitzgerald, Orthodox, 28f. “Uniate” refers to the fact that these people were historically former Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox who united with the Roman Catholic Church. Most of these unions occurred between the mid-1500s and the mid-1700s. Virtually every Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Church has a Uniate counterpart. However, the vast majority of those Uniates who emigrated to 272

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those from the area called Galicia, today Western Ukraine and southern Poland, were known as Galicians or Ukrainians; those coming from the Carpathian Mountains and surrounding areas were known variously as Rusyns, Rusins, Carpatho-Russians, or Ruthenians.274 When the Uniate Catholics immigrated, they established new congregations in the same way as their Orthodox counterparts. These people had no hierarchy of their own in America until 1907; they were left to their own devices, just as the Orthodox were. Like the Orthodox, they had the tradition of establishing supporting brotherhoods and societies to help them start and maintain their parishes. To form these parishes they also had to form legal corporations so that they could procure land, build churches, and operate as parishes. Finally, like the Orthodox congregations, parishes hired clergy from their home dioceses in Europe to serve them. During the Toth schism from 1890 through 1914, to be discussed below, many of these Uniates entered Orthodoxy. Through the efforts of Fr. Alexis Toth,275 most of them joined the Russian Diocese of Alaska and North America, forming the core of that diocese. Despite the evangelistic intentions of Bishop John Mitropolsky and his successors, the hierarchy of America during this period were Orthodox in their origin—Ukrainian, CarpathoRussian, or Arab. “Eastern Catholic” is a slightly more politically correct term used today for all Uniates. It refers to the fact that their Mother Churches were from the Eastern half of the Roman Empire or further East. So, although the terms “Uniate” and “Eastern Catholic” refer to any and all of these groups, they are used here in reference only to the Chalcedonian Uniates. “Greek Catholic” is a term which was invented specifically for those Uniates who resided in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that is, Ukrainians and CarpathoRussians. It was intended to distinguish Catholics whose lineage traced back to Constantinople and used the “Greek rite,” from those who lineage traced back to Rome and used the “Latin rite.” Often seen in the literature, the term is rarely used today in America, although it is still used in Europe. 274 The variety of names reflects the non-defined character of this group of people who, being mostly serfs or peasants, tended to be more interested in survival than nationalistic ethnicism. The term “Ruthenian” derives from the Latin version of their name (Rutheni). Many of them named themselves as Slovak, Hungarian, by their local tribal name (e.g., Lemko, Boyko, etc.) or even just “Slavish.” The term “Uhro-Rusin,” already seen above, means “HungarianRussian,” another designation for these people. Under the impetus of the slavophile and pan-Slavic movements, both groups were often referred to as “little Russians” as opposed to the “great Russians” of Russia proper. 275 Glorified as a saint in 1994.

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121 the Russian diocese had little impact upon the founding of the majority of the parishes formed during this period. Many of these parishes began as Uniate parishes which looked to their bishops in Austro-Hungary and Poland for authority and for clergy, if they looked anywhere at all. Later, either the entire parish came into Orthodoxy and was received by the Russian hierarch as an established unit, or the parish split and the Orthodox group built a new parish, perhaps with the involvement of a priest who may also have been a former Uniate. The involvement of the Russian diocese was generally limited to receiving petitions of acceptance, some financial support, and the appointment of a pastor.276 From their beginning these parishes were owned by the congregations, not any diocese. However, from the beginning of his Orthodoxy campaign, Toth advised Bishop Nicholas to begin to take ownership of parish properties in a quiet way, “so that it would not make much discord.” Toth especially wanted Bishop Nicholas to be the owner of record, not just one of the trustees.277 Toth himself placed the deed of the Wilkes-Barre parish in the bishop’s name in 1893, although the court awarded the property to the Uniates anyway for other reasons.278 Whether or not Toth influenced the policy of the diocese, there seems to have been at least some effort to bring parish property ownership in line with traditional Orthodox practice. The 1918 directory of the Russian diocese lists 276 parishes in the United States, Alaska, and Canada, excluding Albanian, Serbian, and Syrian Antiochian parishes. Of these, 115 apparently were deeded to the Bishop of the Russian Diocese. Unfortunately, by the mid-1920s all of these were apparently deeded back to the parishes.279 A complete discussion of this issue is beyond the scope of this work. In brief, the Moscow Synod annually budgeted aid for the American mission; this went to the support of the diocesan administration and to the Alaskan mission. Later, it went to help pay pastors’ salaries. Minimal at first, Russian subsidies reached over $550,000 by 1916 (although the American 276 Rumormongering within Roman Catholic and Uniate circles led to highly exaggerated accounts of the vast amounts of money the Tsar was contributing to Orthodox evangelizing. Any financial aid was certainly gratefully received, but it seems to have had minimal overall impact on the conversion of Uniates or the founding of more parishes. Much more important was the supplying of pastors to the parishes. See Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 402–403. 277 Letter to Bishop Nicholas, 12 March 1896, in Alexis Toth, vol. 1, 21. 278 Letter to Bishop Nicholas, ibid., 25. Keith S. Russin, “Father Alexis G. Toth and the Wilkes-Barre Litigations,” SVTQ 14 (1972): 147. 279 Directory, reproduced in Tarasar, 340–349. See also 177–78, 180, 188.

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mission had requested $1,000,000 for that year). This over-reliance upon subsidies from the Mother Church contributed greatly to the financial collapse of the diocese in 1918.280 The loss of financial support from the Russian Synod in 1917 left the diocese, already over $100,000 in debt, in dire straits. Archbishop Evdokim, the head of the diocese at the time, went to Moscow for the Great Sobor and placed an auxiliary, Bishop Alexander Nemolovsky of Canada, in charge of the diocese. Evdokim never returned, having joined a radical reform movement in Russia which eventually became known as the Living Church.281 Alexander’s administrative capacity was, unfortunately, minimal at best. Russian Ambassador Boris Bakhmetev’s most diplomatic description of Alexander was as “a hierarch totally deprived of economic and administrative ability.” Matusiak and Kishkovsky, in their recounting in the OCA’s official history, were reduced to referring to Alexander’s “gross mismanagement.”282 In order to alleviate the growing financial crisis, Alexander could think of only one solution. In 1918 he mortgaged the parish properties in Cleveland, Ohio and Gary, Indiana. Then he could not make the mortgage payments. Fr. John Kedrovsky, leader of a reform movement with roots in the Bolshevik revolution, sued for control of the 115 parishes on the basis of negligence.283 By the Second All-American Sobor in 1919, the diocese was over $200,000 in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy. Even so, Alexander was officially elected Archbishop of the jurisdiction at the council. Measures were passed at that council to deal with the situation; since they essentially consisted of taxation of the parishes, they were completely ineffective: the total diocesan income for 1922 was $2,557.284 Archbishop Alexander again resorted to loans and mortgages. As Kedrovsky’s group continued to fight for acquisition of the parishes, a special Diocesan Economic Council, composed of Metropolitan Platon,285 280

Tarasar, 177. This aid was already being relied on as part of the regular budget at the Mayfield Sobor in 1907. See below, p. 193. 281 The Living Church is discussed below, p. 141. 282 Tarasar, 180, 177. 283 Kedrovsky’s group linked up with a major radical reform movement in Russia which had many of the same objectives. This movement, the same which Archbishop Evdokim joined, became The Living Church in 1922. 284 Tarasar, 180. 285 Platon had succeeded Tikhon from 1907–1914, then returned to Russia. Archbishop Evdokim was appointed by the Russian Synod to replace Platon. In 1917 he went to Russia to participate in the Great Sobor, leaving his auxiliary, Bishop Alexander of Canada in charge of the diocese. Evdokim never returned,

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123 three clergymen, and three laymen, convened in 1921 to combat Kedrovsky. As a result of this council, Alexander promulgated statutes which put all the parish properties back in the names of the parishes themselves, with the Archbishop retained as a trustee. In 1922, Alexander resigned as head of the Russian Archdiocese; Metropolitan Platon was elected to replace him. The financial savior of the diocese was the “Society for the Help of the Russian Church,” organized by Ambassador Bakhmetev in 1920. It raised $200,000 in aid for the diocese, which resolved the immediate financial crisis and gave the diocese sufficient time to get onto a more solid financial footing. Meanwhile, Kedrovsky’s Living Church continued to create major problems for the diocese in the 1920s. By 1928, with the civil courts finally ruling against Kedrovsky, the immediate danger from that side was over. However, during the intervening years, parish properties were returned to the parishes in order to forestall their loss: Throughout the country further protective actions were taken. Properties were sold back to the parish for nominal fees by the bishops; deeds were returned; new trusteeships or corporations were set up in the parishes; holding power for properties was granted solely to trustees elected from the parish, whose duty became to protect parish property from Kedrovsky and others like him in the future. But such protective actions, though necessary at the time, could be directed not only against usurpers but against any bishop whatsoever. Hence the rise of “independent” parishes and clauses limiting episcopal authority exclusively to the “spiritual.”286

In the end, diocesan ownership of these parishes did not affect either diocesan policy regarding lay trusteeism, or the laity’s attitude toward diocesan ownership, except to reinforce the laity’s distrust of diocesan management and firm resolve to retain complete control of their parish property. Part of the reason for the lack of hierarchical presence in parish formation in this crucial period was the temporary status of the hierarchy. From 1872, when Bishop John moved the diocesan see to San Francisco, until 1907, the year of the first All-American Church Sobor, the diocese was having joined a reform movement which became the Living Church in 1919. Bishop Alexander was elected by the All-American Sobor of 1919 as the new primate, with Patriarch Tikhon confirming that election the same year. Platon had just returned to America as a refugee when he was asked to head this finance council. See Tarasar, 128, 131, 174. 286 Tarasar, 188.

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ruled by five successive hierarchs. During eight of those thirty-five years, the see was vacant and was administered from St. Petersburg.287 The hierarchy, diocesan staff, and even some pastors were only assigned temporarily to America. They were not themselves immigrants, but served these positions as stepping stones to higher positions back in Russia.288 Regardless of intentions, such a temporary status made it difficult to accomplish much in a pro-active fashion. Thus, during the most intense period of immigration and parish founding, there was no consistent, permanent leadership whose focus was strictly on American Orthodoxy. This lack created a tremendous leadership vacuum on the parish level which was filled by the laity themselves. The point is illustrated by the fact that the greatest impact on church growth was made by the last two bishops of this period, Nicholas Ziorov (1891–1898) and Tikhon Bellavin (1898–1907). Their rather lengthy stays in America created a more stable hierarchical environment and a somewhat more accessible leadership for the parishes. Bishop Nicholas started with only five parishes in the continental United States, one of which was the former Uniate parish of Minneapolis. By the time he left America, he had received twelve more from the Uniate Catholics. Nevertheless, this growth seems to be due more to the efforts of Toth and his former Uniate confreres than to those of Bishop Nicholas. His focus was still more upon the Alaskan mission, and he apparently looked askance at Toth.289 Bishop Tikhon took major steps to try to increase the presence and role of hierarchical leadership in parish development and life. Nevertheless, his return to Russia prematurely stifled this growth in hierarchical leadership. Geographical distance was another factor in the lack of hierarchical presence in the early, critical years. In the late 1800s, San Francisco was very far away and very isolated from the east and even midwest regions where the immigrants settled. No one would even think to look out there for an Orthodox bishop.290 The faces of the immigrants were turned eastward, toward their home countries and churches. They had closer ties to Europe 287

See the chronology in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 331-332. Sable, 102. 289 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 31. See also Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 405, and Toth’s letter to Bishop Nicholas, dated 12 March 1896, in Alexis Toth, vol. 1, 23–25, where Toth defends himself to Nicholas. 290 The Russians’ invisibility is highlighted by Toth’s search for a bishop. Toth was surprised to learn that there was an Orthodox bishop in San Francisco. Concerned that the bishop might be some kind of renegade, he sent a layman out to investigate before cautiously making a formal approach. See below p. 151. 288

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125 than to an unknown bishop on the other side of the continent. Even those who accepted the authority of the Russian diocese were basically on their own. Distance made regular communication difficult enough; serious oversight and involvement by the diocese in parish affairs would have been virtually impossible, no matter how often the bishop may have traversed the continent. Bishop Tikhon was the first bishop who seemed to truly understand the American situation. Tikhon was appointed bishop of North America by the Holy Synod of Moscow at the age of 33 in 1898, remaining in that position until 1907 when he was transferred by Moscow to the See of Iaroslav in Russia. He arrived in New York from St. Petersburg in December of that year and was met there by members of both the Russian and Arab Orthodox communities. Although at least two Greek parishes already existed at this time in New York City,291 they did not send representatives to this event. At the head of the Arab contingent was Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny. Archimandrite Raphael had been a professor at the Kazan Theological Academy before coming to America with Bishop Nicholas in 1895.292 Like many in the Arab community, therefore, he had close ties with the Russian Church.293 He not only knew of the existence of the San Francisco diocese, he unquestioningly accepted the authority of the Russian hierarch as having sole jurisdiction in North America.294

291

Holy Trinity parish, est. 1891; Annunciation, est. 1893. Constantelos, Introduction to Efthimiou, History, 4. I will discuss these parishes a little later on. 292 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 95. 293 In the late 1800s, the Holy Land and the Arab Orthodox Church were a cause celebre in Russia, especially among the Russian nobility and the Tsar’s family. For instance, the body of St. Elizabeth the New Martyr, sister-in-law of Tsar Nicholas II, lies in the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene, a Russian community at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Russia and Russian individuals provided a great deal of financial support for the Arab Church during that era. Also, a number of Arab students (and Greek students, also) went to Russia to study for the priesthood when their own schools were closed by the Ottomans. For a brief resume, see Lubov Millar, Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia: New Martyr of the Communist Yoke, trans. by author (Richfield Springs, NY: Nikodemos Orthodox Publication Society, 1991), 48–50. 294 Leonid Kishkovsky, “Archbishop Tikhon in America,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19 (1):9–31; reprinted as Chapter 3, “Archbishop Tikhon and the North American Diocese 1898–1907,” in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 83. Page references will be to the reprint edition.

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Bishop Tikhon spent two weeks traveling from New York to San Francisco to take up residence in his new see. At the time of his appointment, he apparently thought that he was going to be bishop of St. Innocent’s Alaskan diocese like his predecessors. In his inaugural address, he calls his people his “Aleutian flock” and says that he has been called to the “apostolic ministry” of evangelizing “the pagans that people the remote regions of Alaska and the Aleutian islands.”295 However, his first trip across the American continent (and his subsequent numerous journeys back and forth) brought him to understand that his task was much larger than he originally thought. He had to shift the focus of the Church’s primary mission from evangelization of indigenous peoples to fulfilling the needs of newly immigrant Orthodox and Uniates.296 Responding to this situation, in 1903 Bishop Tikhon recommended to the Holy Synod that it move the diocesan see to New York City, where there was an already established parish, St. Nicholas. In the early 1890s, Russian immigrants had established a new congregation in New York City in the same way as they had in San Francisco. First they organized a brotherhood; this led to founding the parish itself. They then applied in 1893 to Father Alexis Toth (already becoming well-known), who came to celebrate the first Divine Liturgy of their new parish and to bless their brotherhood.297 The Holy Synod of Russia sent a pastor in 1896. This parish became the Cathedral and the new seat of the Russian diocese.298 At the same time, the Synod also established a separate Alaskan vicariate with its own auxiliary bishop; the seat of the vicariate was once again Sitka.299 This move was not necessarily an obvious one, at least to Tikhon’s predecessors, including Bishop Nicholas. First, the major concern of the Russian Church had been Alaska and the West Coast, with their few Russian immigrants and large indigenous and Creole population, which was generally viewed as a Russian population by the Church. Second, the primary focus of this effort had been evangelization rather than coming to 295

Tarasar, Orthodox America, 90. Kishkovsky, “Archbishop Tikhon,” 92. 297 Alexis Toth, Archpriest Alexis Toth: Letters, articles, papers and sermons, vol. 1, trans. and ed. George Soldatow (Chilliwack, B.C., Canada: Synaxis Press, 1978), 19, n. 30. The founders of this parish apparently were actually Russians, since the parish was established from its beginning as Orthodox, not Uniate. 298 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 42. 299 Kishkovsky, in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 93. While Tikhon seems to have begun residing in New York upon his return from Russia in January 1904, the move was not made official until 1905. See Fitzgerald, 31. 296

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127 the aid of new immigrants. Last, a large part of the growth in the East was composed essentially of two elements: former Uniates who though Slavic were not Russian and who needed to be brought to Orthodoxy; and nonSlavs such as Arabs and Greeks. Since its inception, the Russian Mission on the West Coast had been set in a fixed pattern. Breaking out of such an established pattern and being open to brand new possibilities required a totally different focus by Bishop Tikhon. While not abandoning the few West Coast communities which then existed, Bishop Tikhon shifted the center of the American Church to the East Coast where there was opportunity for real growth. Closing the geography gap was an essential first step, but only the first, and already in some ways too late. The 1906 parish directory of the diocese lists forty-seven Russian/former Uniate parishes, six Arabic parishes, and six Serbian parishes.300 Constantelos lists another nine Greek parishes established by 1904.301 All of these parishes were established without the benefit of a local hierarch. When the diocesan see officially moved to New York in 1903, Bishop Tikhon needed to continue to provide for the welfare of the original Orthodox population—hence the auxiliary for Alaska. His next step in providing for the new immigrants was to recognize the variety of backgrounds of all those he considered to be within his jurisdiction. He was well aware that though he saw the Orthodox in America as a unity, the people did not. One unfortunate side-effect of the temporary status of the Russian hierarchy was that they remained “Russians”—in their own eyes and in the eyes of all permanent immigrants. They were certainly not in any sense considered “Americans.” Some people were able to accept the Russian hierarchy, even if they themselves were not Russian, but some were not. For instance, while the Arab community in New York acknowledged Tikhon’s authority, the Greek parishes there did not. After Tikhon visited the Holy Trinity parish of New York City in 1904, claiming his rights as a diocesan bishop, it incorporated itself as an independent entity to avoid being taken over by the Russians.302 On the other hand, Holy Trinity Greek 300

Reproduced in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 337–338. The Russian listing includes two Greek/Russian parishes: the one in Galveston already mentioned above and one in Seattle. 301 Constantelos, Introduction to Efthimiou, History, 4. Another three parishes that he lists are included in the Russian diocesan directory: Galveston, San Francisco, and Holy Trinity in Chicago. 302 Leonid Kishkovsky, “Archbishop Tikhon in America,” in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 91.

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parish in Chicago requested that he come and celebrate Divine Liturgy with them and he willingly went in 1901.303 Despite the best efforts of Tikhon and his predecessor Nicholas, very few Greek parishes accepted his authority. Bishop Tikhon’s predecessor, Nicholas, had already actively tried to provide for the Greek population, organizing parishes and providing Greek clergy to minister to them. He had very limited success, however. The Greek laity feared being sucked into a vortex of pan-Slavism and often regarded the Greek clergy who served the Russian diocese as traitors to Constantinople and “tools of the Slavs.”304 Nevertheless, Tikhon intended to pursue a path of uniform jurisdiction and service to all, including the Greeks.305 Saloutos claims that later, in 1908, when Tikhon had already returned to Russia, in continuing pursuit of this goal the Church of Russia tried to “pressure” Constantinople into turning over the Greek churches in America to its American diocese, but to no avail. Constantinople gave jurisdiction to the Church of Greece instead.306 Of all the various ethnic groups in America, the Greeks had the most difficulty in acknowledging the authority of the Russian diocese of North America. The Greeks, like the Russians, did not begin sustained church activity until about 1890. This is because until then very few Greeks had emigrated from Greece to America. In 1873 there were only about 400 Greeks in all of North America. By 1900, still only 15,000 Greeks had immigrated to America.307 After a slow start, however, the Greek population exploded. By 1913 there were about three hundred thousand Greeks in America,308 and by 1922 between 350,000 and 500,000.309 Except 303

Ibid. Kishkovsky does not give the name of the Chicago parish, but Constantelos, in his list of earliest Greek parishes, shows only one Chicago parish before 1904, and that is Holy Trinity. See Constantelos, Introduction to Efthimiou, History, 4. 304 Saloutos, 127–128. 305 Report of Archbishop Tikhon, from “Opinions of diocesan bishops concerning Church reforms, submitted to the Preconciliar Commission of the Holy Synod, St. Petersburg, Dec., 1905,” Part I, 531, reproduced in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19 (1975): 49–50. This will be explored more in Chapter 5. This report was in preparation for the Great Sobor in Moscow in 1917. See above p. 47. 306 Saloutos, 120. See also below n. 339 307 Thomas Burgess, Greeks in America (New York: Arno Press, 1970, reprint of 1913), 16, n. 1. Burgess uses the “Annual Reports of the Commissioner General of Immigration” for this table. 308 Ibid. On p. 51, Burgess quotes a total of 253,000 Greeks in 1913. The variation could certainly be due to inaccuracies in immigration statistics. 309 Constantelos, Understanding, 131.

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129 for the few merchants and diplomats who had come in the 1860s, the vast majority of Greek immigrants were poor peasants from the Peloponnesus, the islands, and elsewhere. The Chicago area spawned one of the first of the new Greek communities. Christos Tsakonas310 had brought close to a hundred compatriots from his home village of Tsintzina, near Sparta, to Chicago between 1875 and 1882. There they formed a Greek society known as the Therapnean Society around 1887.311 Five hundred more Spartans immigrated to Chicago in 1891. They also formed a group known as the Lycurgus Society, which Saloutos says indicated a predominance of Spartans in the Greek community. This Society, in turn, founded Annunciation Church, the first Greek Orthodox church in Chicago in 1891.312 In the same way, in 1892, about five hundred Greeks in New York formed the Society of Athena whose function, among other things, was to secure a priest and establish a church. … The enthusiasm for establishing a church was great. As soon as a sufficient number of pledges and money had been collected, the society

310 Tsakonas is credited as the one person who started the Greek emigration to America. Saloutos calls him the “Columbus of Sparta,” Saloutos, Greeks, 24. 311 Aurelia [Sandy Smeltz], “From Arcadia to America: the Remarkable Odyssey” The Hellenic Voice (Natick, Mass.), Jan. 30, 2002, 9. Aurelia is quoting Peter Dickson, historian of the Tsintzina Society. Dickson tells me that the originating date for the society is around 1887, and for the church 1891. Burgess is vague on the dates (p. 53). 312 Saloutos, Greeks, 123. The exact relationship between the Therapnean Society and the Lycurgus Society is unknown, but the Therapnean Society (named after the township of Therapne in which Tsintzina lies) would fit the description of what Saloutos calls a topikos or local society with limited aims, open probably only to Tsintzinioti. According to Peter Dickson (in private correspondence), the Therapnean Society later morphed into the Tsintzina Society of Jamestown, New York, which still exists. Burgess (p. 53) implies that earlier group merely renamed themselves, presumably as they expanded their membership to include all Spartans. The Lycurgus Society was what Burgess and Saloutos call a kinotitos, or community society, which were broader-based in membership and purpose. Regardless of the exact relationship, it would not be unusual for individuals to belong to both societies simultaneously, and the earlier, smaller society could have been the springboard for the startup of the later one. See Saloutos, Greeks, 74, 75, and Burgess, 52–53. These types of societies will be discussed in greater detail later.

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arranged to build a church and appealed to the Holy Synod of Greece for a priest.313

Holy Trinity parish in New York City was born. The same pattern developed in the Greek parishes as has already been seen in the Slavic parishes. This pattern does not include any hierarchical involvement in the founding of the parishes. Greek churches paralleled the Slavic churches in another way. If the Slav parishes were beset by splits and court fights between Orthodox and Uniates (see the Toth schism below), many Greek parishes split over regional rivalries and political differences. Holy Trinity in New York received its first pastor from the Synod of Greece, an Archimandrite Paisios Ferentinos. Soon after the parish was established, the church Board of Trustees and the society Board had differences. The parish membership decided to separate the church administration from that of the Society of Athena. The disaffected group then decided to form a new parish and this time applied to the Ecumenical Patriarchate for a priest. The patriarchate was unaware of the situation and sent Fr. Callinicos Dilbaes to be the new pastor of Annunciation, the new parish.314 In Chicago the issue was regional rivalries. In 1893, two years after the Spartan society founded Annunciation Church, the Holy Synod of Greece sent an Ithacan priest, not a Spartan.315 Meanwhile, parish membership included both Spartans and Arcadians (i.e., from around Tripolis). Internecine rivalry between the two groups ultimately prompted the Arcadians to bring over their own priest, an Arcadian named Fr. Papatheodorou. This group formed their own parish, Holy Trinity.316 Annunciation parish folded in the late 1890s, but a new Annunciation parish reappeared a few years later.317 Before Bishop Tikhon began crisscrossing the country visiting parishes, most Orthodox people, especially Greeks, had little knowledge of the presence of an Orthodox hierarch on American soil. Tikhon’s predecessor, Bishop Nicholas, was able to reach only a few communities, 313

Saloutos, Greeks, 123. Saloutos, Greeks, 123. Note the influence of the lay society even after the parish is established. 315 Saloutos, Greeks, 124. Saloutos notes that Bishop Nicholas of the Russian Diocese also celebrated there that same summer. 316 Saloutos, Greeks, 125. 317 Constantelos does not include the first Annunciation parish when he lists the first Greek parishes in the country, perhaps because it did not survive. See Constantelos, Introduction to Efthimiou, History, 4. 314

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131 mostly in the West and Southwest. Certainly Fr. Alexis Toth spread the word within the Uniate world as he brought them into Orthodoxy, but few others knew. This situation is perfectly understandable: newly arrived Greek immigrants, fighting a double language barrier (English and Russian), looking for pastors, would hardly see San Francisco as the obvious place to start searching. They knew there were no Greek hierarchs here; no Greek hierarch even officially visited America until 1918.318 With Bishop Tikhon building upon Nicholas’ activity, and with the move of the Russian see to New York, the Russian Diocese had become well enough known in Orthodox circles by the early 1900s. The Russians had worked hard to minister to the Greek communities, even providing Greek pastors whenever possible.319 Nevertheless, most Greek communities were unable to accept the authority of the Russian hierarchy. Saloutos claims that the major reason was ethnic/nationalistic rivalry,320 and Constantelos acknowledges this.321 However, Constantelos adds that another reason may have been “inefficiency, lack of unity and turmoil within the Russian church that persuaded the Greeks to seek their own leadership.”322 Certainly after 1908 this could well have been a factor. These factors would only have been compounded by the tendency, already mentioned, to automatically look straight back to their homelands for clergy and guidance. Few Orthodox communities of any ethnicity ever really gave any serious consideration to being served by anyone other than their own clergy. In a very real sense, then, the Greeks had no hierarchy available to them in their formative years. The establishment of parishes by Greek communities took one main path with a few exceptions. The exceptions consisted of the few Greek groups, especially in the south and the west, who joined with other Orthodox to formed pan-ethnic parishes, as has already been seen in New Orleans and Galveston.323 This even happened in 318 There is a record of Archbishop Dionysios Lattas of Zante celebrating Liturgy at the Annunciation Greek Church in Chicago in 1893. However, he was in town as a delegate to the World Congress of Religions there, not as a visitor to the American Orthodox. 319 Saloutos, 127–128. 320 Saloutos, ibid. 321 Constantelos, Understanding, 138. 322 Constantelos, ibid. 323 Matusiak and Doumouras, “A Survey,” in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 143. They list seven parishes including New Orleans and Galveston; none of them except New York City are in the northeast.

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Chicago, when St. Vladimir’s was formed in 1892,324 although there were already two Greek parishes there. Saloutos confirms that Bishop Nicholas of the Alaskan Diocese worked with Greeks in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Galveston, but these were all ethnically mixed congregations, not Greek ones.325 Nevertheless, every one of these communities eventually split, with the Greeks usually leaving to form their own parish.326 The main track in the development of Greek parishes was to look for jurisdiction and clergy either to the Holy Synod of Greece or to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Until 1908, parishes sent for clergy from both Churches, and even from the Patriarchate of Alexandria, usually depending on the place of origin of the people of the parish.327 It is unclear whether, up until that time, either Constantinople or the Holy Synod of Greece actually believed that it had any jurisdiction over the New World territory. No mention is made in any of the literature that either Constantinople or Greece actively sought to establish the Church in the United States, as the Russian Church did. On the other hand, when asked for a priest, both jurisdictions would willingly send one if at all possible, as happened in New York City. No evidence exists that either jurisdiction was reluctant to send help to their compatriots in America. On the other hand, neither jurisdiction made any kind of official statement regarding its relationship with American territory and the American Orthodox communities until 1908. So it is difficult to say whether, for instance, the Holy Synod of Greece felt obligated to render help to a people and/or a place over which it felt itself to have jurisdiction, or whether it was just glad to lend a helping hand. The same was true for the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Given such a fluid situation, Saloutos can categorically state that the early Greek immigrants were “under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Holy Synod of Greece,” as opposed to the Slavic

324 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 56, lists the founding of St. Vladimir’s without mentioning Greeks. Saloutos, Greeks, 128, identifies the same pastor (Ambrosios Vrettas) for the same year (1893) as Tarasar, when he discusses the pan-Orthodox parish in Chicago. 325 Saloutos, 127–8. The Chicago and New York parishes were not the Greek ones mentioned above, but Russian ones. 326 Matusiak and Doumouras, op. cit. As already noted, New Orleans actually became a Greek parish and the other ethnic groups scattered. 327 Constantelos, Understanding, 136.

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133 churches, which “came under the surveillance of the Church of Russia.”328 Saloutos thus acknowledges that the Orthodox in America were already gathering into separate entities along ethnic and nationalistic lines, even before most of them were officially a diocesan or jurisdictional body. At the same time, Saloutos also notes that the Holy Synod of Greece, in its bid for autocephaly from Constantinople in 1850, accepted that its new selfgoverning status would be for the nation of Greece only, without infringing on the “spiritual jurisdiction that the Ecumenical Patriarchate wielded over the churches of ‘the diaspora.’”329 So Saloutos, Constantelos, and other Greek historians ultimately declare that Constantinople had jurisdiction over all Greek Orthodox communities in the United States until 1908.330 The year 1908 was a watershed, for it marked the beginning of official, multiple, yet geographically concurrent, jurisdictions in the “diaspora.” The erection of more rival Orthodox jurisdictions happened often in the next few decades, but this first one set the precedent, making it much easier for the later ones to happen. The events, therefore, require some detail. In 1908, political conditions in the Ottoman empire and Western Europe led Patriarch Ioakim III of Constantinople to issue a tomos placing the Greek churches in the “diaspora,” that is, in North and South America and 328

Saloutos, 119. Joint jurisdiction by two Churches over a single territory on the basis of ethnic origin is canonically impermissible. It was most recently condemned by Constantinople in 1872 as the heresy of “ethnophyletism.” The condemnation was based in part on Nicea 8, which forbade two bishops in one city. For explanation and commentary, see Maximos, The Oecumenical Patriarchate, 303–309. Maximos quotes the 1872 Council at length. Nevertheless, Saloutos is accurately describing the actual state of affairs. 329 Saloutos, 120. The “Diaspora” is the term used especially by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but also by other Orthodox, to indicate all those Orthodox throughout the world who are not living within the boundaries of traditional Orthodox countries. In its broadest sense, it could be used to include all those territories not originally in the Byzantine Empire; so, for example, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine could all be considered part of the diaspora. It is used more often today to indicate the “New World” and Western Europe. The point of using the term in an ecclesial context is to support an autocephalous Church’s claim to jurisdiction over emigrants from their own area—for example, the Serbian Church over all Serbians throughout the world, etc. Constantinople uses it to refute all those claims and to make its own claim to jurisdiction over all the “varvari,” or barbarians. (Chalcedon 28). See below, n. 332. A strong critique of the use of the term to describe the Orthodox Church today is offered by John Meyendorff, “Orthodox Unity in America: New Beginnings?” SVTQ 35 (1991): 13–15. 330 Saloutos, ibid. Constantelos, Introduction to Efthimiou, History, 5.

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Europe, under the jurisdiction of the autocephalous Holy Synod of Greece.331 The 1908 tomos is the first official notice taken of the American Church by Constantinople. The tomos refers to “canonical order” which is a reference to canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon:332 As per canonical order and as has been the practice for centuries, all Orthodox communities outside the canonical geographical boundaries of the Holy Churches of God are under the pastoral governing of the Most Holy Apostolic and Patriarchal Ecumenical Throne. 333

The wording specifically refers to all Orthodox communities. However, even if Constantinople did, in fact, view its prerogatives in this fashion, the reality is that this 1908 tomos is intended solely for Greeks, not all of Orthodoxy, in the diaspora, as the tomos continues in the next sentence: Since it has become more practical for administrative reasons to unite the Greek communities of Europe, America and elsewhere, to the Most 331 Constantelos, Introduction to Efthimiou, History, 5. The issues with which Constantinople was struggling were highly significant to the status of the Church there but not germane to the issue at hand. 332 For a short explanation of Constantinople’s position, see George Bebis, “Metaxakis in Profile,” in Efthimiou, History of the Greek Orthodox, 99. For a detailed commentary defending Constantinople’s position on Chalcedon 28, see Maximos, Oecumenical Patriarchate, 203–233, esp. 219–229. Here Maximos contradicts the view of S. Troitsky, who represents the view of those who deny that the canon gives Constantinople jurisdiction over the entire world outside of the original five patriarchates. Maximos invaluably sets out Troitsky’s argument in great detail before refuting it. The Russian North American Diocese, and its later incarnations as the Metropolia and then the OCA, denied Constantinople’s universal claim not on the basis of ethnicity, but of “who got there first.” Thus, the OCA also condemns ethnophyletism and calls for one united American Orthodox Church. However, it views itself as that church since it was already here when the Greek jurisdiction was created. The Greek Archdiocese, in turn, expects submission and assimilation of the OCA and other jurisdictions to its authority, based on its reading of Chalcedon 28. For a modern argument in favor of the non-Constantinopolitan position see Archbishop Peter L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils: The Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996) 267ff, esp. 278–281. 333 Silas, Metropolitan of New Jersey, “Greek-Americans in Crisis,” in Efthimiou, History of the Greek Orthodox, 40. Note that a typographical error has interchanged this quote with the next one on page 41, which is from the first charter for the Archdiocese of America, authored by the Holy Synod of Greece.

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135 Holy Autocephalous Church of Greece, it has proved necessary to transfer the pastoral responsibility for these communities to the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece.334

It seems clear that the Greek Church’s primary concern was for its own emigrants. However, the timing of the tomos is also interesting, coming less than a year after Archbishop Tikhon had held his Clergy-Lay Congress in Mayfield, Pennsylvania. The timing in this case seems to be coincidental, for there is no indication that either Greece or Constantinople was aware of Russian activity in the United States for the next decade. Actually, both the Greek Synod and the Ecumenical Patriarchate were too busy with World War I and internal problems in Greece to do anything at all in or for America. However, in 1918 two events took place which directly affected the American Greeks. First, Archbishop Meletios Metaxakis, who had just been elected the Archbishop of Athens and head of the Holy Synod of Greece, chaired a synodal meeting on August 4, 1918. At this meeting the Synod created the “Archdiocese of America” to govern “all Greek Orthodox of permanent and/or temporary residence in North and South America.” The new archdiocese “shall be considered as one of the Dioceses of the Autocephalous Church of Greece.”335 In that same meeting, the Synod appointed Archbishop Meletios the Exarch for the American parishes.336 This decree did not appoint a resident bishop for America; Meletios was still Archbishop of Athens and resided there, so the ordinary authority for this new diocese was located outside of the diocese itself. The second event began the same day, August 4, 1918. That day Archbishop Meletios set sail for the first official visit of a Greek hierarch to America, to determine the needs of the Church there. This visit was the occasion for him to discover that a Russian bishop and diocese already preceded him: During my visit to America, I was informed of the presence of a Russian Bishop on American soil without the permission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.337

334

Ibid. My emphasis. Silas, “Greek-Americans in Crisis,” in Efthimiou, History of the Greek Orthodox, 41. 336 Ibid. 337 Meletios Metaxakis, report to the Holy Synod of Greece, January 13, 1920, in Archimandrite Theocletos Strangas, History of the Church of Greece from True Sources: 335

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Nevertheless, it is hard to believe, even with the internal upheavals in the Greek and Constantinopolitan Churches, that the hierarchy were completely unaware of the Russian presence. In fact, Constantelos, speaking of the situation in 1908, states that this very awareness may have been a reason for the Greeks’ hesitation in sending a bishop: One of the reasons why both the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Greece were reluctant to appoint a bishop for the Greek Orthodox faithful in America may have been canonical. Canon law forbids the appointment of a bishop in a province or district where a canonical bishop already exists, and there were in the New World Orthodox bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate.338

Already noted above is the claim by Saloutos that the Russian Synod tried to get Constantinople to place the American Greek parishes under its own diocese.339 The conflicting witness that is seen here is difficult to explain. However, whether or not the Greeks had prior knowledge of the Russian diocese did not matter in the end. In the same report, Metaxakis states that he attempted twice to make contact with the Russian bishop without avail. He expected the other bishop to come to him for the meeting; this would show that the Russian conceded jurisdiction to him. Of course, Metaxakis notes that the Russian expected the same in reverse, with Metaxakis acknowledging Russian jurisdiction. The relevant text of Metaxakis’ speech is quoted at some length because of its importance: The Patriarchal Tome of 1908 directed the immediate assignment of a Greek Bishop in America. However, I learned in America that for a decade, diplomatic pressures prevented the implementation of the Patriarchal Tome. Upon my arrival, I waited for the Russian Bishop to come to me; however, he did not. In order to give him the opportunity, I sent Archimandrites Chrysostom and Alexander to him. He, in turn, 1817–1967, vol. 2, 847, quoted in Silas, Metropolitan of New Jersey, “GreekAmericans in Crisis,” in Efthimiou, History of the Greek Orthodox, 38. 338 Constantelos, Introduction to Efthimiou, History, 11–12. 339 See above n. 306. Matusiak and Doumouras claim that a Fr. Michael Andreades, one of the pioneer Greek priests working within the Russian Diocese, visited the Ecumenical Patriarchate (not the Greek Synod) in 1912 to request a Greek bishop for America. It is unclear if his was a private visit or if he had been officially sent by the Russian hierarchy. Presumably the Greek’s status would have been as an auxiliary to the Russian bishop, like the Syrian’s and Serb’s. Also, presumably, this would have been why the mission failed. See Matusiak & Doumouras in Tarasar, Orthodox, 144.

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137 reciprocated by sending an Archimandrite to visit me. I then realized that he expected me to visit him, thus recognizing him as the canonical Bishop in America, under whose jurisdiction the Greek Church ought to belong. I held a press conference with the Greek and English language newspapers, in which I quoted Orthodox teaching relative to lands outside the existing Patriarchal boundaries that canon law places them under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Thus the Church in America is under the canonical authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and only by its authority can certain actions be taken. Our presence in America is by virtue of the permission granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the Tome of 1908, rendering us the only canonical jurisdiction. No other such permission has been granted. We are aware only that the Patriarch of Antioch requested the permission of the Patriarchate to send the Bishop of Seleucia to America for the needs of the Syrian Orthodox. Prior to this, Efthymios, who was ordained by the Russians for the Syrians, but never recognized by the Patriarchate of Antioch, was abandoned by the Russians. This event reinforced our position regarding canonicity in America. The position which Efthymios held was subordinate to the Russian Bishop. Throughout our presence in America, the Russian Bishop attempted indirectly to impose this position of hegemony, yet never openly or officially.340

Although the 1908 Tomos refers specifically to Greek Orthodox, Meletios states that it refers to all Orthodox. In this report, Metaxakis states that he made a public statement reinforcing the point that only the Ecumenical Patriarchate had canonical jurisdiction over Orthodox Christians in America, and that only he (and perhaps a Syrian bishop) as Exarch of the Greek Synod, by virtue of the Tomos of 1908, had the right to exercise that jurisdiction. Nevertheless, having asserted his right of jurisdiction in America, neither Metaxakis nor any of his successors demonstrated any interest whatsoever in any Orthodox communities except Greek ones. In fact, there is no source which mentions any interaction between the Russian and Greek jurisdictions until the beginnings of World War II. Metaxakis stayed in America for three months, then appointed Bishop Alexander Demoglou as the “Synodical Representative” to the new Archdiocese.341 As 340

Meletios Metaxakis, report to the Holy Synod of Greece, January 13, 1920, in Archimandrite Theocletos Strangas, History of the Church of Greece from True Sources: 1817–1967, vol. 2, 847, quoted in Silas, Metropolitan of New Jersey, “GreekAmericans in Crisis,” in Efthimiou, History of the Greek Orthodox, 38–40. Emphasis mine. Perhaps “diplomatic pressures” is an oblique reference to the Russian Synod’s attempt to acquire the Greek parishes. 341 Metropolitan Silas, “Greek-Americans,” in Efthimiou, History, 41–42.

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such, Alexander did not have ordinary power in America; rather, he was a vicar of Meletios and the Synod. After 1908, division and multiplicity of jurisdiction started slowly, picking up speed after World War I. The Serbian vicariate, consisting of twelve parishes, grew increasingly unhappy with its treatment by the Russian diocese. In 1913 the parishes petitioned for a release from the diocese so that they could go under the authority of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In 1919 the Second All-American Sobor of the Russian diocese authorized this move, but its implementation was delayed until 1926, when Archimandrite Mardariye Uskokovich was ordained by Patriarch Dimitriye of Belgrade as the head of the new Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of America and Canada.342 After Bishop Mardariye died in 1935, the diocese was vacant and administered from Belgrade. In 1940, Bishop Dionisije was sent from Belgrade to take over the diocese. Bishop Dionisije was vocally opposed to the Communist government in Yugoslavia. In 1963, the Serb patriarchate attempted to reorganize the American diocese, splitting it into three smaller dioceses, each having about twenty parishes. Bishop Dionisije and a majority of the Serb laity in America saw this as a political move intended to discredit Bishop Dionisije and strip him of power. They refused the action of the patriarchate and set up a new diocese which was to be autonomous from the Serbian patriarchate “as long as Yugoslavia was under Communist control.”343 The patriarchate sent three new bishops anyway, and the usual court battles ensued. At first Bishop Dionisije won, but in 1976 the United States Supreme Court reversed that decision. Fitzgerald states The High Court determined that civil courts must accept the rulings of duly constituted religious bodies when they adjudicate disputes over internal discipline and government. This decision was seen as a landmark one for churches with a hierarchical form of internal government.344

Fifty parishes stayed with Bishop Dionisije anyway. In 1992, the two separate Serb jurisdictions reunited when Serbian Patriarch Pavel personally traveled to the United States to bring the two groups together.345 Also, at the 1919 All-American Sobor, ethnic consciousness led a number of Ukrainian parishes to request their own vicariate. Although 342 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 191–193. This is the same Sobor which elected Alexander as Archbishop. See above, p. 122. 343 Fitzgerald, 71. 344 Fitzgerald, 72. 345 Fitzgerald, 119.

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139 approved by the Sobor, the vicariate was vetoed by Archbishop Alexander, the current primate of the Russian diocese. In 1924, these parishes, together with some more disaffected Uniate parishes, formed their own diocese under Metropolitan John Teodorovich, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.346 During the 1920s, separate jurisdictions were also formed by a number of other groups. The Bulgarians were accepted by the Exarchate of Sofia in 1922 and received a bishop in 1938. The Romanians affiliated with the Archbishop of Sibiu in Transylvania in 1923, received their first bishop from the Patriarch of Romania in 1930, and joined the Metropolia as a separate ethnic diocese in 1961. In 1918 the Albanians became a vicariate of the Russian diocese. In 1922 they became involved in the bid for autocephaly by the Albanian Church, and in 1932 they received their first bishop, Theofan Noli, from the Autocephalous Church of Albania. They joined the OCA upon its reception of autocephaly in 1971 as a separate ethnic diocese. Further divisions created more jurisdictions between the two world wars. The Russian diocese was in disarray from the time of the Communist takeover of Russia throughout much of the 1920s. Its relationship with Moscow was, to say the least, rather strained. Under extreme pressure from the Soviet government, throughout the 1920s and 1930s the Moscow patriarchate intermittently tried to exact oaths of loyalty to the Soviet government from the clergy and people347 of its American diocese, to no avail. This and other actions by the patriarchate created great strain between itself and the American diocese. By 1924, it had become obvious that the Soviet government’s coercive actions against the Russian Patriarchate were making it impossible for the Russian hierarchy to wield proper and free authority over the church, and the American diocese was forced to act.348 346

Tarasar, ibid. See above p. 80. Tarasar, Orthodox America, 187–188. Alexander Webster, The Price of Prophecy: Orthodox Churches on Peace, Freedom and Security, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 47–48. 348 For instance, the Soviet government in 1922 arrested Patriarch Tikhon and officially recognized the Living Church (see below) as the only true Church authority. The vast majority of laity and clergy refused to accept this and acknowledged only Tikhon as Patriarch. In the face of this opposition, the Living Church dissipated and the Soviets were forced to accept Tikhon. After Patriarch Tikhon died, however, the locum tenens Metropolitan Peter was exiled to Siberia. In a vicious reprise of Tsar Peter the Great, Lenin and Stalin refused to allow anyone to ascend the patriarchal throne, requiring the church to be governed by a synod whose members were selected by the Communist Party. Stalin allowed the throne 347

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In 1920, Patriarch Tikhon, having already seen the persecution of the church by the new Soviet government, anticipated the possibility that future events might make it impossible for the central church authority in Russia to properly govern its suffragan dioceses, both within the country and outside of it. He therefore promulgated his famous Ukaz (decree) no. 362. In the case that a “diocese finds itself completely out of contact with the Higher Church Administration, or if the Higher Church Administration itself, headed by His Holiness the Patriarch, for any reason whatsoever ceases its activity…,” the bishop of that diocese is granted full authority to “…take upon himself all the fullness of authority granted him by the canons of the Church, taking all measures for the ordering of Church life and, if it seem necessary, for the organization of the diocesan administration, in conformity with the conditions which have arisen…” The ukaz also provided a safeguard and check upon this broad and virtually unlimited authorization. The ukaz went on to state that, “in the event of the restoration of the central ecclesiastical authority, all measures taken must be subject to the confirmation of the latter.” 349 On the basis of this ukaz, the 1924 All-American Sobor proclaimed the American diocese “temporarily self-governing,” separating itself from the Moscow patriarchate.350

to be restored in 1943 when he needed the church’s help to fend off the German army. Besides requiring oaths of loyalty to the Soviets, the Moscow hierarchy also periodically engaged in ideological proclamations supporting the Soviet government, outright lies denying the persecution of the church by the secular authority, and denunciations of dissidents, including, in 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. See Webster, 39, 47–59; Tarasar, 187–188, Cunningham, “Reform Projects,” 137–138. 349 Alexey Young, The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia: A History and Chronology, ed. Bishop Karl Pruter and Paul David Seldis (San Bernadino, CA: The Borgo Press, 1993), 113–116. This is the full text of the ukaz. 350 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 187–188. See also Bogolepov, Toward, 78–82. In 1930 the jurisdiction declared itself a metropolitan district, and so was known colloquially as the Metropolia until its formal autocephaly was granted in 1970. At that time it became known formally as the Orthodox Church in America, or the OCA. The beginnings of the Soviet government’s coercion of the Russian Church are chronicled in Cunningham, “Reform Projects,” in Breck et al., Legacy, 126–138. Alexander Webster gives a critical yet even-handed account of the relationship of the Moscow patriarchate and the Soviet state up through the collapse of the latter in 1991 in The Price of Prophecy (31–88). In Webster’s view, Patriarch Tikhon was the only one since the restoration of the patriarchal throne in 1917 to have avoided improper collaboration with the Soviet regime (41–42).

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141 At the same time, a number of other jurisdictions, all claiming to be the true heir of Russian authority, appeared in the 1920s. The “Living Church,” also known as the “Renovationist Church,” came into being in 1922 in Russia, as a number of dissident clergy backed by the Soviet government held a council which deposed Patriarch Tikhon.351 This radical group appointed a married priest, Father John Kedrovsky, to be the Archbishop of North America. Kedrovsky, already mentioned above, had been suspended in 1918 for initiating a battle with Archbishop Alexander (then head of the American diocese) for control of diocesan parishes in the civil courts. Kedrovsky won only St. Nicholas, the cathedral property in New York City, in a court suit in 1925.352 The Living Church was recognized by the Soviet government as the only official church; nevertheless, it had no following in the Soviet Union and died soon after the Moscow patriarchate reasserted its traditional authority in 1923. Even so, Kedrovsky was still trying to acquire churches in America as late as 1928. Other jurisdictions came and sometimes went in those years. Bishop Stephen Dzubay, a recent Uniate convert, had been ordained in 1916 by Archbishop Evdokim of the Russian diocese as the head of a new vicariate for Carpatho-Russians. When the archdiocesan see became vacant in 1922, he was the senior hierarch and so proclaimed himself “acting head” of the diocese. Expecting to be confirmed in his self-appointment by the upcoming All-American diocese, he ordained Adam Philipovsky the new bishop for the Carpatho-Russians. However, the 1922 Sobor selected Metropolitan Platon as the new diocesan primate.353 Dzubay held a counterCouncil in Philadelphia, challenging the election; however, he soon reconciled with Platon. Even so, Bishop Adam did not and took a number of parishes with him into an independent Carpatho-Russian diocese. This diocese lasted until 1935, when Bishop Adam reconciled with the Metropolia. All of the parishes were reaccepted along with Bishop Adam. No new vicariate was created for them; they were merely assimilated into the rest of the diocese. In 1943, Bishop Adam joined the Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate. After the Russian Diocese declared itself “temporarily autonomous” in 1924, the Moscow patriarchate made a number of attempts to reassert its traditional authority. These were all rejected, and so in 1933 the Moscow 351

A brief account of the movement can be found in Freeze, Parish Clergy, 468–

473. 352 353

Tarasar, 183–184, 188. Barriger, Glory, 37–40. Tarasar, 182.

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church established an exarchate (mission diocese) with Archbishop Benjamin as its head. In this way, it attempted to attract parishes from the Metropolia to come directly under patriarchal jurisdiction. The exarchate lasted until 1970 when the Metropolia’s autocephalous status was officially recognized by Moscow, and the jurisdiction took the name of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). Nevertheless, the tomos of autocephaly by Moscow kept St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York under the patriarch.354 More significantly, although the tomos abolished the patriarchal exarchate, it specifically permitted all its former parishes and clergy to decide for themselves whether they wanted to join the OCA: 3. [Excluded from autocephaly are the] parishes and clergy in the U.S.A. which at present are in the Patriarchal Exarchate and which desire to remain in the canonical and jurisdictional care of the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

Parishes were also given the opportunity to join the OCA after its official establishment, but again the parishes had the authority to make this decision in concert with the hierarchy of both jurisdictions: 9. The changing of jurisdictions by parishes which are in the canonical care of the Moscow Patriarchate after the proclamation of the Metropolitanate’s autocephaly shall occur on the initiative of the parishes themselves and after bilateral agreements in each concrete case between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Autocephalous Church in America. [emphasis mine]

The significance of both of these paragraphs is that the laity was empowered to decide for itself what authority it wished to accept. The other significant Russian division in the American diocese was that of the Karlovtsy Synod, later known as the Russian Church in Exile, the Russian Synod Church, or just The Synod. Today, it is officially the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR).355 Originally it was composed of hierarchy and clergy who fled Russia between 1917 and 1919. With the blessing of Constantinople, they formed a jurisdiction in 1919, claiming authority over all Russians in exile all over the world. They based 354

Tomos of Alexis, by the Mercy of God Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia, April 10, 1970. The full English text can be found in Autocephaly: The Orthodox Church in America (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1971), 45–48. All quotes are from this text. St. Nicholas church reverted to the Metropolia when the Living Church died, but they lost it again to the Moscow Exarchate in 1948. See Young, ROCOR, 49. 355 See Young, ROCOR, 22, 47, 48.

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143 their authority on the Ukaz no. 362 of Patriarch Tikhon, the same one the Metropolia used as its authority. The Synod was first based in Karlovtsy, Yugoslavia (now Croatia), with Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii as the first primate. During World War II, the members of the Synod scattered, many going into hiding. In 1945, the Synod reassembled in Munich. Searching for stability, the central church authority moved to America in 1950, settling in Jordanville, New York. The jurisdiction already had a few parishes in North America, dating from the 1920s, and composed mostly of Russian émigrés, drawn to ROCOR’s conservative religious and political stance. The jurisdiction drew some strength from new influxes of Russian refugees after World War II. Over the years ROCOR had its own schisms and reunions. It has been in communion with some Old-Calendar Greek parishes and dioceses. From 1937 until 1946, the Metropolia came into communion with the Synod, recognizing to a degree the latter’s authority. Attempts by ROCOR to assert its authority over the American church led to a break of the tenuous connection.356 The jurisdiction still exists and has dioceses throughout Western Europe and other places of the diaspora as well as America and Canada. The Syrians had a split as early as 1917, when a Metropolitan Germanos arrived in America and tried to set himself up as ruling hierarch for the Syrians. He managed to create the first split among the Syrians. As recounted above (p. 101), the Syrians further divided in the 1920s, but effected a union of virtually all the Syrian/Antiochian parishes in 1975. This diocese, however, is no longer a part of the OCA, but autonomous, under the Patriarch of Antioch. The other major branch of American Orthodoxy, the Greek jurisdiction, did not fare much better. The official transfer of jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox from Constantinople to the Holy Synod of Greece in 1908 was occasioned at least as much by political upheavals in Constantinople as by an active concern for providing for the American Greek Orthodox. The Patriarchate was fighting for its existence in the face of a new wave of Turkish nationalism, and needed to distance itself from certain American-Greek radicals who were vehemently anti-Turk.357 The patriarchate had neither the opportunity, nor the resources to deal with America, and so it gave over jurisdiction to the Church of Greece.

356 A summary of the relationship can be found in Bogolepov, Toward an American Orthodox Church, 63–72. 357 Tarasar, 143. Constantelos, in Efthimiou, History, 5.

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Unfortunately, the Church of Greece was also embroiled in its own nation’s political upheavals and had little impetus to divide its attention. The story of Greece’s conflicts and changes of power between the royalists and the Venezelists can be found elsewhere.358 It is sufficient to note that the hierarchy of the Church of Greece were themselves split between the two political factions and actively supported one or the other. This occasioned various changes of power within that hierarchy, also. Thus, in 1908, on the eve of World War I, and throughout the war, the Church of Greece had its own hands full. Not until 1918 was the situation able to be rectified and some attention given to America. In the meantime, Greeks in America were also embroiled in the same partisan issues, pitting royalists against Venezelists. This occasioned more conflict in America, setting clergy against people, people against people, splitting church boards, even opposing one parish against another. Saloutos gives the example of two parishes in New York City. St. Constantine’s Church in Brooklyn was a royalist parish, named like many parishes after Constantine the Great and perhaps not coincidentally the name of the king of Greece. In 1918, a new parish opened called St. Eleutherios. Its pastor apparently had to flee St. Constantine’s parish because of his political convictions. Named in honor of Eleutherios Venizelos, the parish and pastor were all Venezelists and the parish actively worked for the liberal cause.359 In 1917, King Constantine of Greece was dethroned and the former Prime Minister Venizelos became head of state. Metaxakis was a strong supporter of Venizelos, and this was the main reason he had been appointed the head of the Holy Synod of Greece. In November 1920, Venizelos was ousted from power, and Metaxakis was deposed from the Synod. He fled to America and took over the administration of the Greek Archdiocese, aided by Bishop Alexander as his auxiliary. In that year, the Archdiocese was legally incorporated with Metaxakis signing the first Archdiocesan Charter as president of the corporation on September 19, 1921.360 Two months later, in another abrupt reversal of fortune, Metaxakis was elected to the vacant throne of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Meanwhile, in February 1921, Theoklitos, the new Archbishop of Athens and the primate of the Holy Synod of Greece, appointed Bishop 358 See Metropolitan Silas, “Greek-Americans in Crisis,” in Efthimiou, History, 37–61, for a good account of the political upheavals in Greece and their repercussions on the American Church. 359 Saloutos, 136. 360 Metropolitan Silas, “Greek-Americans,” in Efthimiou, History, 43.

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145 Germanos Troianos as Synodical Representative to America, replacing Alexander, Metaxakis’ appointee, and recalled Alexander to Greece. Alexander refused, issuing a decree to the American parishes that he was severing all ties with the Greek Synod and placing himself and the American church under the protection of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This was apparently a unilateral move, done without consultation with the patriarchate (the throne was then vacant); unbeknownst to Alexander, Constantinople sided with the Greek Synod.361 There were now two sets of Greek hierarchy in America, each claiming jurisdiction. The usual court battles over parish properties ensued, with mixed results.362 One of Metaxakis’ first acts as Ecumenical Patriarch was to issue, in March 1922, a tomos annulling the decree of 1908 and taking back jurisdiction over the diaspora. He then appointed Alexander as the new Archbishop of the American Archdiocese. Most of the Greek parishes accepted Alexander, who was viewed as a Venezelist. A few parishes remained aligned with Germanos, an ardent royalist. As the political situation in Athens began to settle down, the Synod of Greece recalled Germanos in 1922, intending to abolish the Synodal Exarchate. Germanos refused to go, declaring the American Church autocephalous and independent.363 Although Germanos did return in 1923, another ardent royalist bishop, Metropolitan Vasilios Kombopoulos, arrived in America and took over the royalist parishes, setting up the Autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church of the United States and Canada:364 By the close of the decade, there were nearly 200 Greek Orthodox parishes in the United States. Of these, 133 were under the jurisdiction of Alexander and the Archdiocese of North & South America and 50 under the “Autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church.” Fewer still remained totally independent (a practice totally at odds with Orthodox

361

Ibid., 48–49. In August 1921, Germanos reported that trials were underway in Chicago, Atlanta, Manchester, Chicopee Falls and Toronto, Canada (Silas, “GreekAmericans,” 51). During this period, it was reported by an eyewitness that “our Churches and communities had become divided battlegrounds in which Venezelists and Royalists fought even within the sanctuary of the Holy Altar. Police were stationed at strategic positions within some of the Churches to actually prevent bloodshed.” Quoted in George Papaioannou, “Damaskinos of Corinthos,” in Efthimiou, History, 124. 363 Silas, op cit., 60. 364 Constantelos, Understanding, 143. 362

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AMERICAN ORTHODOXY AND PARISH CONGREGATIONALISM canon law), while the remaining few identified with the “Old Calendarists.”365

In 1930, Archbishop Athenagoras was appointed to the patriarchal Archdiocese. Since he was not associated with any political faction, he was able to effect a reconciliation of the Venezelists and the Royalists.366 Although the political factions died down, the issue of the calendar created more division. In 1924, the Synod of Greece accepted the use of the Gregorian calendar for its fixed feasts, while continuing to calculate Pascha according to the Julian calendar. The Synod was also becoming involved in the ecumenical movement, and so the two were associated together by a number of conservatives both in Greece and in the diaspora. Thus new schisms were born, as Old Calendarists formed a number of new jurisdictions which have associated dioceses throughout the world. There are today three different small Old Calendarist jurisdictions in the United States. One of these, headquartered in Astoria, New York, divided in 1998, with the majority of the monasteries and parishes joining the Ecumenical Patriarchate as a separate jurisdiction.367 365 From the parish history of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, Indianapolis, Indiana, available at http://www.holytrinityindy.org/history.html; Internet, accessed July 31, 2003. 366 Papaioannou, “Damaskinos,” 133. 367 Roberson, Eastern Christian Churches, 133–136. The Ecumenical Patriarchate has tried over the years to reunite all the Old Calendarists. In the view of the patriarchate, there is no problem with having both calendars used. Already in communion with the patriarchate, which is New Calendar, are the monasteries of Mount Athos (which are Old Calendar), the American Carpatho-Russian Diocese (originally all Old Calendar, now about 50-50) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

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147 Of all the divisive events of the first years of American Orthodoxy, the Toth schism is perhaps most important in terms of its effect upon congregationalism. It was the first major schism, beginning twenty-five years before any others. The high emotional charge of its participants and their subsequent intractability were paradigmatic of all later divisions and schisms in all the various jurisdictions. The one characteristic which most distinguished this event from subsequent ones is that it was not a division between Orthodox, but a movement of Uniates back to Orthodoxy after three hundred years.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE TOTH MOVEMENT Already noted above is the fact that the majority of the growth of the Russian Orthodox diocese came through conversion of Uniate Catholics. This growth was due primarily to a controversy which has become known as the Toth schism. The Toth schism, a movement to Orthodoxy which lasted from about 1890 to 1914, appears at first glance to be a relatively isolated affair which affected only one part of American Orthodoxy. However, its direct impact upon even that one part has not been truly appreciated. Also, the indirect effects of this event permeated a number of segments of American Orthodoxy. One of the major effects was to confirm existing parishes in their congregationalist structure and to ensure that new parishes founded because of the schism would also be congregationalist. Placing the schism in historical context aids in understanding its impact.

of the U.S.A. (virtually all Old Calendar). In the view of the dissidents, the use of the New Calendar and the patriarchate’s ongoing involvement in the ecumenical movement render the patriarchate heretical.

147 Of all the divisive events of the first years of American Orthodoxy, the Toth schism is perhaps most important in terms of its effect upon congregationalism. It was the first major schism, beginning twenty-five years before any others. The high emotional charge of its participants and their subsequent intractability were paradigmatic of all later divisions and schisms in all the various jurisdictions. The one characteristic which most distinguished this event from subsequent ones is that it was not a division between Orthodox, but a movement of Uniates back to Orthodoxy after three hundred years.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE TOTH MOVEMENT Already noted above is the fact that the majority of the growth of the Russian Orthodox diocese came through conversion of Uniate Catholics. This growth was due primarily to a controversy which has become known as the Toth schism. The Toth schism, a movement to Orthodoxy which lasted from about 1890 to 1914, appears at first glance to be a relatively isolated affair which affected only one part of American Orthodoxy. However, its direct impact upon even that one part has not been truly appreciated. Also, the indirect effects of this event permeated a number of segments of American Orthodoxy. One of the major effects was to confirm existing parishes in their congregationalist structure and to ensure that new parishes founded because of the schism would also be congregationalist. Placing the schism in historical context aids in understanding its impact.

of the U.S.A. (virtually all Old Calendar). In the view of the dissidents, the use of the New Calendar and the patriarchate’s ongoing involvement in the ecumenical movement render the patriarchate heretical.

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The majority of Carpatho-Russian and Ukrainian immigrants were Uniate; however, both Catholic and Orthodox called themselves pravoslavnyj or Orthodox. If asked their religion, for instance, they would state that they were of the “Russian faith.”368 This self-understanding was a significant factor in the schism, touched off by the infamous Toth-Ireland incident in 1890. Roman Catholic Archbishop John Ireland of Minneapolis was a leader in his Church’s policy of making Catholicism American. This policy was aimed in part at combating anti-Catholic prejudices and so making it acceptable to the Protestant majority in America, especially in an era of renewed nativism.369 Ireland and other Catholic “liberals” wanted to demonstrate that Catholics could be just as American, just as democratic, just as patriotic, and just as “English” as Protestants. In all fairness, it must be noted that this Americanizing policy was not specifically aimed only at Eastern Catholics. It was aimed at all non-English-speaking Catholic immigrants. Ireland had already been leading the fight against German Catholic ethnicism. In the 1890s, the new wave of immigration of southern and eastern European Catholics required renewed effort by Ireland and the liberals to Americanize them all. Whether Italian or Slovak, they were encouraged to assimilate to English-language American Catholicism as quickly as possible, culturally and religiously.370 Even so, the Uniates of that era,371 and later authors such as Warzeski,372 believed themselves to be the sole recipients of this discriminatory policy. In truth, the American Catholic hierarchy had a lot more work to do to Americanize immigrant Eastern Catholics than other immigrant Catholics. Not only did they not conform to the American “ideal,” they did not even conform to the Catholic ideal. They did not speak 368

“Testimony: Greek Catholic Church et al. V. Orthodox Greek Church et al.,” (Court of Common Pleas, Luzerne County, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.,), I, 204, 221, quoted in Russin, “Father Alexis,” 145, 146. The quotations cited by Russin are typical of the questions and responses in a variety of court cases involving property disputes in parishes which were originally established by Uniates. 369 Jay P. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, NY: Image Books, Doubleday, 1985), 295. 370 Toth himself was well aware that this policy affected all Catholics across the board. See Archpriest Alexis Toth: Letters, articles, papers and sermons, vol. 2, trans. and ed. George Soldatow (Chilliwack, B.C., Canada: Synaxis Press, 1988): 8–9. 371 Minutes of the meeting of the Greek Catholic clergy in Wilkes-Barre in 1890, quoted in Simon, “First Years,” 213. 372 Warzeski, Byzantine Rite Rusins, 107.

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English, they tended to group into and remain in ethnic ghettos, and they had many non-American-looking customs and traditions. Worse, they celebrated liturgical services in a completely different way from the rest of Catholicism, and refused to assimilate into the local Roman parishes, much less into America. Worst of all, their priests were married, a scandal to the Irish and German born hierarchy (although likely much less so to their parishioners), and had the audacity to pretend to episcopal privileges, such as celebrating the Mystery of Chrismation.373 Even Archbishop Michael Corrigan, leader of the conservative group which opposed many of the assimilationist policies of Ireland, could not abide the Uniate differences.374 In 1887, Greek Catholics in Minneapolis, as was typical, had formed a church group, bought property in the name of three of the original trustees, and built a church. To facilitate the building and funding of the church, they also organized a brotherhood called the Ss. Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Society in 1888.375 They then sent back to the Prešov diocese for a priest. Fr. Alexis Toth was the second priest assigned by Bishop John Valiy of Prešov, although the first to make it to Minneapolis.376 His arrival in Minneapolis in 1889 dropped him unwittingly into the middle of Ireland’s Americanization campaign.377 373

The Mystery of Chrismation is approximately comparable to the Roman Sacrament of Confirmation, but still celebrated ordinarily with the liturgy of the Rites of Initiation. 374 Konstantin Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 424. Marvin R. O’Connell in his biography of Ireland, John Ireland and the American Catholic Church (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press), 271, says regarding Ireland’s attitude, “Even leaving aside the celibacy issue, his [Ireland’s] obsession with the process of Americanization would have led him to strike hard at the Uniates, who were notoriously attached to their Old-World customs. Bad enough the Germans, who at least worshiped in the Latin tongue and maintained an unmarried clergy like other Catholics.” O’Connell relies a great deal upon Tarasar’s Orthodox America and a short, but thorough study by Gerald P. Fogarty for his very brief account of Ireland’s treatment of the Uniates. See Fogarty, “The American Hierarchy and Oriental Rite Catholics, 1890–1907,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 85 (1974): 1–11 (offprint). 375 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 48. Note that the Catholics called their society “Orthodox.” 376 The first, John Zapotocky, only made it as far as Kingston, Pennsylvania, where he accepted an invitation to be pastor there. See Tarasar, Orthodox America, 49. 377 Alexis Toth, “The Archpriest John Naumovich as viewed by the Uniate Viestnik,” in Toth, Archpriest, v. 4, 3. This oft-told tale has been recounted by

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As a former professor of Canon Law, he knew that because no Eastern Catholic hierarchy existed in America he was required to present himself to the local Roman hierarch to receive his faculties, that is, his permission to celebrate the sacraments.378 According to Toth’s own memoirs, his encounter with Ireland did not go all that well. First of all, Toth did not genuflect to kiss Ireland’s ring as was Roman etiquette, but bowed and kissed his hand, according to Eastern custom. This apparently started the interview off on the wrong foot. When Ireland discovered that Toth was not only Greek Catholic, but was not a celibate priest (although he was a widower and his children were grown), he informed Toth that he had protested to Rome the entrance of “this kind of priest” to America already. Toth would not receive faculties and his people could go to the Polish priest.379 Toth defied Ireland and began serving the Minneapolis parish anyway. This incident has become the stuff of legend among both the Uniates and the Orthodox, since it was the beginning of a deluge of Uniate conversions to Orthodoxy. On the other hand, contemporary Roman Catholic references to this incident were non-existent. Ireland never mentions the matter in his correspondence with Rome; Konstantin Simon sees this as an indication that Ireland thought little of the matter.380 It is certainly possible that for Ireland one more interview with one more undesirable immigrant priest would be annoying and forgettable rather than important. On the other hand, Ireland forbade Fr. Jacob Pocholsky, the Polish priest who was supposed to introduce Toth to Ireland, to have any further contact with Toth. Further, Ireland “ordered the Polish priest to denounce Toth from the pulpit, banning the faithful from accepting any

Uniate, Roman Catholic and Orthodox authors (Warzeski, Simon, Slivka, Dolan, Tarasar, Fitzgerald, etc.) All, however, rely upon Toth’s own testimony, either from the Wilkes-Barre court records or from this source; it is the only witness to this event. All accept that the substance of Toth’s account is true, especially given the events which followed. O’Connell says regarding Toth’s account, “The tone is understandably one-sided, but nothing attributed by Toth to Ireland’s behavior is incredible or even out of character.” In John Ireland, 558, n. 16. I have opted to return to Toth’s own testimony for this account. 378 Toth, Archpriest, 3. Moreover, he cites the directive in his letter of appointment, “Dilectio tua debet semet personalites [sic] coram Praesule istius Dioceseos presentare, in cuius teritorio [sic] habetur locus destinationis suae.” 379 Toth, ibid. 380 Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 391.

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benefit of his ministry.”381 O’Connell states that this decree was published from all the pulpits of northeastern Minneapolis.382 These are not the actions of a person who has taken little note of a matter. Ireland filed a civil suit against Toth and his fledgling parish in 1891.383 Toth was unwilling to accept the situation and so began to explore the possibility of turning to the Orthodox Church. After some investigation, Toth discovered that a Russian Bishop lived in San Francisco. Toth sent a layman, John Mlinar, to San Francisco to find out what he could about this bishop and, if possible, to make contact with him. One of Toth’s main concerns was that the bishop was a canonical hierarch and “not some kind of an Old Believer.”384 Mlinar discovered that the bishop was Bishop Vladimir of the Alaskan Diocese of the Russian Synod, met with the Bishop and informed him of the parish’s plight. After Mlinar’s return to Minneapolis and an exchange of letters, Toth went himself to San Francisco to meet Vladimir and invite him to Minneapolis. Vladimir accepted the invitation and on March 25, 1891, received Toth and the entire parish into Orthodoxy. Vladimir’s action was duly reported to the Russian Synod, which ratified it in a directive to Vladimir’s successor, Bishop Nicholas in July 1892. Bishop Nicholas, in turn, notified Toth that he and the parish were formally accepted into the Alaskan diocese in October 1892.385 Toth made it his life’s mission to rescue his fellow Greek Catholics from what he saw as the tyranny and ignorance of the Roman hierarchy. Of the few other Eastern Catholic priests then in America,386 he enlisted three into Orthodoxy. He is credited with directly bringing about twenty parishes with about 29,000 people into the Orthodox Church from the Eastern Catholics by the time of his death in 1909. Indirectly, Toth’s leadership was a major impetus in a movement which by 1914 brought an estimated 381

Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 391–392. O’Connell, Ireland, 270. 383 Fitzgerald, Orthodox, 29. Also, Warzeski, 107. 384 Toth, Archpriest, 5. Old Believers are a Russian schismatic group which broke away from the Orthodox Church in 1667 because of Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical reforms. For an excellent account of the reforms, see Paul Meyendorff, Russia, Ritual and Reform: The Liturgical Reforms of Nikon in the 17th Century (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991). 385 Letter from the Holy All-Russian Ruling Synod to Bishop Nicholas of Alaska, July 14, 1892. Letter from the Alaskan Spiritual Administration to Alexis Toth, undated. Note that this letter as copied here has a typographical error, dating the letter from the Synod as July 14, 1899. In Toth, Archpriest, v. 4, 11–12. 386 Warzeski, 107. 382

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250,000 Eastern Catholic immigrants into the Russian Orthodox Church in this first major Uniate schism.387 Toth’s success and that of his followers was due to four major factors. First, turning Orthodox was for many Uniate laity not really a change of faith or a conversion. They were both pravoslavnyj. It was merely a matter of practicality—as Orthodox they would receive a priest who would celebrate “their way.”388 Most never changed their parish names; they just stuck the word “Orthodox” somewhere in the title: “St. Mary’s Russian Greek Orthodox Catholic Church of Wilkes-Barre, Pa.”389 The move to Orthodoxy was an opportunity to remain Greek Catholic, independent of interference from hierarchy, especially Roman hierarchy. These people accepted dependency upon the Russian bishop. However, an unknown bishop in far away San Francisco (until 1905) had less impact on them than their relations with the local Roman ordinaries or even their ties with their bishops back in their homeland. Second, it is undeniable that Toth himself had the great personal charisma, fiery temperament, and ability to carry his message to the people that often mark the leader of a radical movement.390 His sermons, pamphlets, and newspaper articles were very popular and effective in persuading the Uniate laity. His pamphlet “Where to Seek the Truth?” was reprinted often and in a number of languages, serving as a catechism of Orthodoxy for the Uniates.391 Third, he was aided not a little by the continuing attempt by the American Catholic hierarchy to suppress the Uniates. Ireland may have led that fight, but he was joined enthusiastically by liberals such as Gibbons of Baltimore and conservatives like Corrigan of New York and Ryan of Philadelphia. A resolution passed in 1893 by the leaders of the American Catholic hierarchy expresses their position regarding the Uniates succinctly: It is the solemn judgment of the Archbishops of the United States that the presence of married priests of the Greek rite in our midst is a constant menace to the chastity of our unmarried clergy, a source of scandal to the laity and therefore the sooner this point of discipline is abolished before these evils attain large proportions, the better for 387

Fitzgerald, Orthodox, 30. A more conservative estimate by Peter Kochanik was 225,000 people. Cited in Warzeski, 107, n. 39. 388 Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 414–415. 389 Russin, “Father Alexis,” 143. 390 Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 413. Even a quick perusal of Toth’s letters and sermons makes obvious both his temperament and his popular appeal. 391 Simon, ibid., 414. “Where to Seek the Truth,” in Alexis Toth, v 3, 1–38.

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religion, because the loss of a few souls of the Greek rite bears no proportion to the blessings resulting from uniformity of discipline.392

The attitude of the Catholic hierarchy, especially on the celibacy issue, did not even begin to waver until 1931, when the issue was raised again within the Uniate diocese as a result of the promulgation of Cum Data Fuerit.393 By that time, some of the hierarchy were less concerned with the adverse effects of the Uniates upon the stability of the American Catholic Church. The Uniate question as a whole seems to have become a non-issue, so, at least to some Roman bishops, it did not matter what the Uniates did.394 Even so, celibacy is still officially imposed upon all Uniates in North America to this day. The fourth factor in the success of the Toth movement, one which Toth well understood and used to his advantage, was the extremely strong identification of nationality and religion within both Orthodoxy and Uniatism.395 This identification meant that, for the average Uniate, any change in the rite and religious customs to which they were accustomed was tantamount to a betrayal of their homeland, their family, and themselves. This was, perhaps, more true among the Uniates than among the Orthodox, since as a whole they had no single national identity to unify them. Amongst themselves, they referred to themselves simply as “nashy l’udy” (our people), to their faith as “nashy viry” (our faith), and to their language as “ponashemu” (our language).396 Their sole source of unification was the Uniate Church, and so tampering with it meant tampering with their own identity. The statistics regarding the impact of this movement on the Russian Orthodox Church are difficult to assess. Fitzgerald based some of his numbers on the U.S. Censuses of 1906 and 1916397 and others on Paul Magocsi’s Our People.398 Warzeski based his numbers on Donald Attwater’s 392

Archives of the Archdiocese of Baltimore 91 V 1, Fourth Meeting of the Archbishops, Chicago, Sept. 12–13, 1893. Quoted in Simon, The First Years of Ruthenian Church Life in America, OCP 60 (1994): 230; and in Fogarty, American Hierarchy, 4. 393 See below, p. 161. 394 Fogarty, “American Hierarchy,” 10–11. Fogarty quotes both Archbishop Michael Curley of Baltimore and Cardinal Patrick Hayes on this matter. 395 Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 415. 396 Simon, “Alexis Toth,” ibid. See also Paul Robert Magocsi, Our People: Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants in North America (Toronto, Ont: The Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984). 397 Fitzgerald, ibid. 398 Magocsi, Our People, 27–29.

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classic study of Eastern Christian Churches and on an Orthodox source, Fr. Peter Kochanik.399 There is a fair bit of variance in the numbers. Church statistics were not gathered in uniform fashion, and immigration statistics for people such as Ukrainians and Carpatho-Russians are very difficult since they were not recognized ethnic groups at the time.400 Nevertheless, some general idea of the importance of this schism can be ascertained. First, on the question of the number of Russians in America, Fr. George Chudnovsky, rector of the San Francisco cathedral, stated in a letter to Toth dated January 1, 1890: “Russians however, from Russia, you will meet only rarely here, and by and large they are personae non gratae.”401 Fitzgerald says that by 1910 only about 90,000 Russians had immigrated to America, of which 80 percent were Russian Jews.402 He further notes that in the 1890 census, the diocese claimed 22 churches in Alaska and only 1 (San Francisco) in the continental U.S. By 1906, the parish total had risen to 59, and by 1916, to 164. Dolan states that all of these parishes were originally Uniate, relying too much, perhaps, on Magocsi’s numbers.403 It seems unlikely that every single parish besides San Francisco was originally Uniate; for instance, St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York, already mentioned above, seems certainly to have been started by Russian Orthodox. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the Russian Orthodox parishes started in this period either were formerly Uniate, or gathered former Uniates as new members. Some simple arithmetic helps to show the impact of the Toth movement in terms of population, using Kochanik’s more conservative estimate of 225,000 former Uniates rejoining the Russian Orthodox Church by 1914. Even if it is assumed that all 18,000 Russian Orthodox immigrants (that is, 90,000 Russian nationals minus the 80 percent who were Jews) joined parishes in the diocese, and that Kochanik’s estimate overstates the number of Uniates who came to Orthodoxy by a factor of two, the returned Uniates would still represent 84 percent of all the founding members of Slavic churches in the Russian Orthodox Diocese in the 399 Donald Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, vol. 2 (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing 1962), 134. Also, Peter Kochanik, Jubilejnij Sbornik Sojuza Pravoslavnich Sviashchennikov v Amerike (Jubilee Book of the Orthodox Priesthood in America) (Passaic, 1955), 84–103. 400 See Magocsi, Our People, 13–16, for some discussion of this issue. 401 Letter of Chudnovsky to Toth, Jan. 1, 1890, published by Peter Kochanik, in Naăalo Amerikanskoj Rusi (Trumbull, Conn., 1980), 490–491, quoted in Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 397. 402 Fitzgerald, 27. 403 Dolan, American Catholic Experience, 188.

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continental U.S. If the traditionally accepted numbers are even close to being accurate, then returned Uniates would represent 93 percent of all founding members. The actual impact that this preponderance of Uniates had upon the Russian diocese has never been explored. It is certain, however, that these people and their experience of church and parish establishment would dictate, by sheer numbers, the overall experience of church in this country for the Russian diocese, and ultimately its direct descendant, the OCA. The question of course is exactly what the nature of this impact was, especially in reference to the issue of congregationalism. This schism was essentially a lay movement, with few Uniate clergy becoming Orthodox. There were few enough Uniate clergy in the United States anyway—in 1890, there were only ten Uniate priests in America;404 of these ten, four followed Toth into Orthodoxy: Gregory Hrushka, Theophan Obuszkiewicz, Eugene Volkay and Alexander Dzubay. Later, a few others, such as Michael Balogh and Toth’s brother Victor, also became Orthodox. However, all of these eventually returned to the Uniate Church.405 While other clergy turned Orthodox over the years, there were not enough to be noteworthy. As Simon says, “The Orthodox parishes of the future would be staffed with priests from Russia or with the sons of the former Uniate laity.”406 The latter were either sent to Russia for schooling or attended the Russian Orthodox seminary established by the Russian Orthodox Diocese in Minneapolis in 1906.407

404

Simon, “First Years,” 212. Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 413. By 1894, there were 30 Uniate parishes to serve between 100,000 and 200,000 people (Simon, “First Years,” 221). The priests took to circuit-riding in order to service them. See Warzeski, Byzantine Rite, 103–104, 107. 406 Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 418. 407 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 77, 109–110. The diocese had already established a series of Missionary Schools in Alaska throughout the 1800s. Bishop Innocent turned the one in Sitka into a Seminary for native students in 1845 (Avgustin Nikitin, “Russian America,” in Breck et al., Legacy, 245). Bishop John Mitropolsky moved the seminary to San Francisco in 1872 when he moved his residence there. Bishop Nicholas closed that school, but reopened a new Missionary School in Minneapolis in 1897. Bishop Tikhon reorganized the Minneapolis school into a formal seminary in 1905/6. This seminary eventually moved to Tenafly, New Jersey, then to New York City. It closed in 1923 due to financial difficulties, but two seminaries, St. Tikhon’s in South Canaan, Pennsylvania and St. Vladimir’s, now in Crestwood, New York, both opened in 1938 (Tarasar, Orthodox America, 206– 405

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It seems strange that the issue of celibacy would touch off a lay movement back to Orthodoxy, but that issue was merely the recapitulation of at least three issues between the Latin hierarchy and the Uniate laity. The first was the celibacy issue itself; that is, the moratorium placed on married clergy in the United States. This policy was established in 1890 in an instruction by Rome’s Congregation of the Propaganda to European Uniate Bishops at the behest of the American hierarchy.408 Most of the Uniate clergy were refused faculties by the Catholic hierarchy when they arrived in America due to their married status.409 Since most of these men came in response to a request by Uniate parishes, the parishes saw this as both a rebuff from the Romans and an attempt to suppress their parish and to force them to go to the local Roman parish by denying them a priest. Furthermore, the laity preferred married pastors to celibate ones; married clergy were an important part of their tradition, they were less likely to move from parish to parish, and they were perceived by the laity to be more understanding and supportive since they shared the commonality of family life and responsibilities.410 The second issue was the requirement that parishes give up their semiautonomous character as separate legal corporations and recognize the sole authority of the local bishop in all matters, both spiritual and material.411 In forming congregations, the Uniates received no help, and usually a great deal of resistance, from the Roman hierarchy and clergy. For instance, the 208). From the beginning, the seminaries were staffed by faculty at first from Russia, and later from Saint Serge, the Russian emigré school in Paris. 408 Simon, “First Years,” 207–209. Simon gives the relevant texts of the decisions from the First Meeting of Archbishops in Boston (1890), Cardinal Gibbons’ letter to the Propaganda, and the Propaganda’s “Instructio S. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide de cura pastorali Ruthenorum in U.S.A. Die 1. Oct. 1890.” See also John A. Duskie, “The Canonical Status of the Orientals in the United States,” CUA Canon Law Studies, no. 48, J.C.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1928, 30ff. This instruction was finally also sent to the American bishops in 1892 (p. 32, n. 9). Following this, further decretals, bulls, and apostolic letters re-stated this prohibition, including Orientalium Dignitas in 1894, Ea Semper in 1907, and Cum Data Fuerit in 1929. Duskie gives a listing of the various pertinent texts, issued from 1890 through 1914. For an English translation of Cum Data Fuerit see Warzeski, 275ff. See also Walter Paska, “Sources of Particular Law for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States,” CUA Canon Law Studies, no. 485, J.C.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1975, 30–36. 409 Simon, “First Years,” 205. 410 Simon, ibid., 228–229. See also Sable, “Lay Initiative,” 73, 140–141. 411 Cum Data Fuerit, art. 5 and 6., in Warzeski, 275–6.

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Uniates were often refused permission to meet in the local Latin parishes which they attended until they could form a congregation.412 Since they would lose parishioners, the local Roman pastors often actively resisted the new parishes. The hierarchy issued bans against the Uniate clergy and against participation in Uniate services.413 These experiences merely added to the animosity and suspicion which the Uniates already held toward Roman Catholics from their similar experiences in Europe. All of this added up to a desire to establish and maintain their own congregations independently of the local Roman hierarchy.414 Few turned their properties over to the local Roman bishop, or later to the Uniate bishop. When parishes went Orthodox, the court cases over parish property ownership served to entrench both Orthodox and Uniate parishes in their insistence upon congregational ownership. So, even when parishes began by acknowledging and asking for local Catholic hierarchical authority, they ended up rejecting it, and even actively opposing it. Once again, hierarchical authority was rendered “morally absent.” Underlying both of these issues were the various attempts by the Roman Church to relegate Uniates to a second-class status, to Latinize them, and preferably to assimilate them into the Latin Rite.415 All of these had been facts of life for the Uniates since their unions with Rome in 1596 and 1646.416 The stance taken by Ireland and the American bishops was actually just a reprise of the one which prevailed among the local Latin ordinaries in Poland and Austro-Hungary, with whom the Uniates had much contact and to whom they were subject.417 The European Latin 412

E.g., the Minneapolis parish (Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 389–90) and the Shamokin, Pennsylvania parish (Simon, “First Years,” 25). 413 Sable, “Lay Initiative,” 132–134. See also above, p. 151. 414 Sable says, without substantiation, that if the local Roman hierarch “expressed some sympathy for the existence of the Greek Catholic church in his diocese, the trustees in most cases were willing to sign over title to him” (“Lay Initiative,” 137). 415 Simon, “First Years,” 223. 416 The Union of Brest’ in 1596 affected essentially Western Ukrainians, or Galicians. The Union of Uzhorod in 1646 was for the Carpatho-Russians. 417 For example, the Uniate Diocese of Mukachevo was part of the Latin Archdiocese of Esztergom. Moreover, the Latin bishops of Eger regularly treated Mukachevo as a vicariate of their own diocese. In 1716, the bishop-elect of Mukachevo was required to take an oath of submission to “his Ordinary in Eger.” This type of subjugation to the Latins was halted, but the second-class status of the former remained. See Basil Boysak, The Fate of the Holy Union in Carpatho-Ukraine (Toronto, New York: np., 1963), 68–76.

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bishops also considered the Latin Rite to be superior to any Uniate Rite.418 They also wished to see the Uniates assimilated to the Latin Church and to the national culture, be it Hungarian or Polish.419 Latinization and Magyarization were so closely connected that Toth himself was dismissed by the Minneapolis parish in 1892 because he was a “Magyar,” in other words, a Roman Catholic, and they wanted a Russian.420 Latinisms became acceptable and were even introduced by the Uniate hierarchy and clergy themselves. This was partly due to the fact that their seminaries were staffed by Jesuits or Jesuit-trained faculty, who taught scholastic theology and promoted Latin practices to their students. It was also partly due to a desire by some Uniate clergy to become more socially and politically acceptable as full members of the Roman Catholic Church, a perennial quest for the Uniates.421 It was mostly due, however, to the local Latin hierarchy who imposed both of the above conditions upon the Uniates. It should not be thought that such Latinization was accepted blithely by the Uniates. Both clergy and laity fought it to the best of their ability; nevertheless, various Latinisms crept in to Uniate practice in varying degrees, depending often upon the ability of people and clergy in a given locale to resist them. In some places, for instance, iconostasi were ripped

418

Simon, ibid., 223–224, for both American and Hungarian views. Especially for the hand-in-hand relationship of Magyarization and Latinization, see Boysak, The Fate of the Holy Union, especially 55–95, 141–159. 420 See the Letter of Toth to Bishop Nicholas, March 12, 1896, in Alexis Toth, vol. 1, 23. Moreover, the Amerikanskij Russkij Viestnik repeatedly called Toth a “Hungarian,” with the same implications of being Latinized. This was a strange epithet to be used by a newspaper which was the semi-official organ of the Uniate Church, especially since Toth was an acknowledged Russophile. See Alexis Toth, vol. 1, 23, n. 34. For Toth as Russophile, see Simon, “Alexis Toth,” 393. Even so, Toth was a product of his age, and was undoubtedly Latinized at least to some extent in his practices. Simon states that his understanding of his people led him to “discourage the introduction of other traditions of a more Oriental tinge” (ibid., 414). 421 The Latinization of the Uniate Churches is well enough noted. See, for instance, Joseph Macha, Ecclesiastical Unification: A Theoretical Framework Together with Case Studies from the History of Latin-Byzantine Relations (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientale, 1974), 380, for page ref., esp. pp. 265–66, 303–307. The statement in The Decree on the Eastern Churches, 6 of Vatican II that, “If they [Eastern Catholics] have improperly fallen away from [their lawful liturgical rites and their established way of life] because of circumstances of time or personage, let them take pains to return to their ancestral ways,” was a direct reference to the Latinization of the Uniates. 419

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out of the churches while in others the people merely accepted the use of the rosary for private and public devotions. Thus, the Uniates had already assimilated a wide variety of Latinisms even before they came to America. The American Catholic hierarchy merely attempted to push them even further along that road. Nevertheless, these new impositions were viewed with great alarm as another attempt to destroy the identity of the Uniate people as well as their faith. For this reason they were unwilling, even as Uniates, to turn their parish properties over to the local ordinary, be he Latin, or later their own bishop. They learned to be very mistrustful of any hierarchy, for their experiences of the hierarchy in America were generally very poor. None of these issues were resolved by the end of the Toth era. The insistence that only celibate clergy could be ordained in or immigrate to the United States was re-stated numerous times. When Bishop Soter Ortinsky was assigned by Rome in 1907 to fill the position of Apostolic Visitator for the Uniates in America, he was ordered to uphold the ban. However, even he did what he had to do in order to obtain enough priests to care for the people. The Uniates had, by necessity, consistently circumvented this policy over the years, mostly through immigration.422 By 1909, there were 118 priests, of whom 64 were married and 23 were widowers. Of the total, only eight came from the United States; two of these eight were married.423 Uniate bishops in Europe had no one to send except married clergy.424 Nevertheless, under the spur of the American Roman Catholic hierarchy, Rome continued to reiterate its ban on married clergy in America. The Uniates themselves, both clergy and lay, had asked Rome for over twenty years to have their own bishop. They needed one as a hedge against the encroachments of the Romans, and they wanted their own leadership. Unfortunately, by the time Ortinsky was assigned, nationalism issues were beginning to divide the Uniates between the Ukrainians and CarpathoRussians. Many of the latter saw Ortinsky as a Ukrainophile who was trying

422

Simon, “First Years,” 225–229. Warzeski, 117. Warzeski’s table merely shows that the eight were from the diocese of the United States. This does not mean that they were American born, merely that they were in America before they were ordained. 424 In 1892, for instance, the Diocese of Mukachevo had only thirty-three celibate clergy out of over five hundred. As is common in both Uniate and Orthodox jurisdictions, most already held higher positions in the diocese (they represented the pool of potential bishop-candidates) and were not willing to leave it. See Simon, “First Years,” 228. 423

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to change their ways.425 Since Ortinsky did not head a diocese, but was merely a vicar for Uniates subject to every Roman ordinary, some Uniates felt that he was merely a Roman dupe and so not much better than the local Roman bishops.426 Years of conflict created a great deal of suspicion among clergy and laity, and so many parishes were reluctant to turn their properties over to the bishop as required. To my knowledge, no one has gathered specific data on how many and which parishes actually gave to or withheld property ownership from the bishop. Eventually it did not matter. Most of the court fights over property between Uniates and Orthodox were won by the Uniates, and the Orthodox usually wound up starting a new parish, again with the property in their own name. By the end of World War II, virtually all of the property battles were over. The Uniate hierarchy had suppressed the parish boards, and the parishes were structured with the priest/pastor as sole administrator, having two laymen as advisors, co-signers of financial instruments, and trustees of record. For all practical purposes, it no longer mattered whose name was on the deed. The Uniate hierarchy was more than willing to let things lie, and so there was no great push to officially legalize the situation by amending original parish articles of incorporation, charters, or other documents to reflect the new situation.427 425 For example, see the Amerikanskij Russkij Viestnik, July 23, 1908, 4, where the writer refers to “Bishop Ortinsky and his radical-Ukrainian guard,” quoted in Opportunity Realized: The Greek Catholic Union’s First One Hundred Years, 1892–1992 (Beaver, PA: GCU of the U.S.A., 1994), 43. The ethnic factionalism became such an issue in ensuing years that the Uniates were divided into two jurisdictions after Ortinsky died in 1916. One was for the Ukrainian/Galicians, based in Philadelphia, and one was for the Carpatho-Russian group, based in Pittsburgh. The jurisdictions were made full dioceses and received bishops as ordinaries in 1924. 426 Svoboda, March 25, 1907, 4: “According to my view our Bishop is only a Suffragan, i.e., subjected to all the Latin Rite Bishops. Such conditions will not better our cause. On the contrary, it will bring an earlier destruction of our Church, Rite. Why? Because our Bishop will have no Eparchy, he will be only at the mercy of the Latin Rite Bishops…” Translated and reprinted in John Slivka, Historical Mirror: Sources of the Rusin and Hungarian Greek Rite Catholics in the United States of America, 1884–1963 (Brooklyn: n.p., 1978), 50. For the Ortinsky years in general, see Warzeski, 112–122; Bogdan P. Procko, “Soter Ortinsky: First Ruthenian Bishop in the United States, 1907–1916,” Catholic Historical Review, 58 (Jan. 1973): 513–533. 427 In a random sampling that I took over a period of years from 1980 through 1990, and in 2002, not one of the following Uniate parishes had had their original articles of incorporation or their property deeds changed so that the ordinary of the diocese was the sole trustee or even a trustee of the parish properties: Mingo

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Even if on a back burner, the issues continued to simmer through the 1920s when the Uniates were divided into two jurisdictions, one for the Ukrainians, and one for the Carpatho-Russians. In the 1930s, another series of events within the Ruthenian Eastern Catholic diocese of Pittsburgh culminated in the creation of a new Orthodox jurisdiction in November 1937. The insistence that only celibate clergy could be ordained in or immigrate to the United States was re-stated numerous times. The final attempt to enforce this policy was in 1929 with the decree Cum Data Fuerit; this attempt was effective. This document also officially required the Uniates to conform to the canons of the Roman Church regarding church authority over the material goods of the church. This fight had already been fought and won in the 1800s within the Roman Catholic Church, with the final victory coming at the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866.428 In this matter, if not the preceding one, the Roman Church was not singling out the Uniates; rather, it was merely requiring conformity to normative practice. Nevertheless, the enforcement of these policies fueled an ongoing dissatisfaction with and suspicion of Roman Catholic authority by many Eastern Catholics, clergy and lay. Because of past history, it was seen as one more attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to Latinize and even suppress the Eastern Catholics. Therefore, a number of clergy and laity, led by Frs. Orestes Chornock, Stephen Varzaly, and Peter Molchany, among others, followed the example of Toth and decided to leave the Catholics and rejoin the Orthodox Church.429 These people, like those in the Toth schism thirty years earlier, did not enter the Orthodox Church lightly or easily. Parishes were ripped apart by the schism, often pitting brother against brother and parents against children. The movement created dissension, fighting, brawling, and years of Junction, OH; Hawk Run, PA; Clarence, PA; Homer City, PA; Coal Run, PA; Bradenville, PA; Trauger, PA. Half of these parishes had had schisms or court battles over property. 428 The Second Council of Baltimore in 1866 clearly laid out the ruling that church property must be owned by the diocese, with the bishop as trustee, perhaps with other trustees who may be laymen. It also clearly denied the laity the power to hire or dismiss pastors. See Sebastian Smith, Notes on the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (New York: P. O’Shea, 1874), 142–156. The issue was reinforced at the Third Council in 1884. 429 A similar split in the Ukrainian Catholic jurisdiction resulted in the growth of two Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions, which have been united since 1996. See above, p. 80.

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court suits over religious doctrine and ritual, as each side battled for parish property rights, legal rights, and the parish itself.430 Thus, the initial experience of these former Uniates as Orthodox was highly colored by controversy, mistrust of authority, lawsuits, and even violence.431 These new Orthodox were leery of the Muscovite hierarchy in the Russian jurisdiction which their former comrades had entered at the turn of the century. As much as they feared further Latinization by the Romans, they also feared “Russification” by the Muscovites. Already mentioned was the fact that the Toth movement included very few clergy. Thus, while Russian parishes were often overwhelmingly comprised of CarpathoRussian former Uniates, the clergy were virtually all Russian-trained. At first they came from Russia; later some came out of the Minneapolis Seminary which was staffed by Russian professors.432 The Russian clergy viewed their parishioners as being heavily Latinized, which they were, and ignorant of their faith, which they also often were. The clergy’s view of their task, then, was that they had to bring their parishes fully into conformity with Orthodoxy, in dogma, liturgical practice, and custom. Of course, they were working out of a Russian model; they were most familiar with it, and they had confidence in it as reflecting a true Orthodoxy. Carpathian Christianity, on the other hand, had been badly damaged by two hundred years of Latinization in Europe. This effort had been so successful that, by the time of Toth, it often became very difficult to separate overt Latinization from authentic Carpathian expressions of the Faith. It was easier for the Russian-trained clergy to start over again, suppressing the tainted Carpathian usages in favor of Muscovite practice. In time, the Russian model became the standard in most parishes. This created some tremendous difficulties within the parishes, as clergy imposed changes in architecture, liturgical tradition, folk customs, chant systems, and the like. These customs, while minor theologically, were often of major importance to the people (and to the clergy), each of whom wanted “their own.” Nevertheless, by the end of the 1920s, most of the parishes were definitively “Russified.”433 The Toth movement was, 430

For a Uniate version of the story, see Warzeski, 194–244. For an Orthodox view, see Barriger, Glory, 41–91. 431 Even today, this period is known by Orthodox and Uniates alike as “The Borba,” which means struggle, combat, or fight. 432 See above, n. 407. 433 Lawrence Barriger, Good Victory: Metropolitan Orestes Chornock and the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Diocese (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1985), 114–119.

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therefore, both an example and a warning to this new group; Toth led the way to Orthodoxy, but not to Russian Orthodoxy. The other reasons for not joining the Russian diocese were probably not quite as compelling, but nevertheless played a part in the Chornock group’s aversion to the Russian Diocese. The uncertain canonical status of the various conflicting Russian jurisdictions which had cropped up since the end of World War I made the whole Russian situation rather unpalatable. Although some of this had settled down by the 1930s, there seemed to be no point in investing in a still somewhat unstable situation. Moreover, these Uniates did not wish to be tainted with any possible connection between the Russian diocese(s) and Communism and hence anti-Americanism.434 It was true that a number of American Russians were Communist or Communist-leaning. The Chornock group itself discovered over time that Fr. Varzaly, one of its leaders, was very pro-Soviet. However, the majority of people did not want to be involved in this movement or tarred with an anti-American, Communist brush.435 So, in the 1930s, when this new group of Uniates decided to return to Orthodoxy, they wanted their own jurisdiction. They achieved this by going under the omophorion436 of Patriarch Benjamin of Constantinople. This new jurisdiction was the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, colloquially the Johnstown Diocese, since it was eventually based in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.437 The parishes involved were 434 The provision in this jurisdiction’s constitution that candidates for the office of Bishop must be American citizens (ACROD 36) may well stem from this concern. See above, p. 94. 435 The Varzaly incident occurred in 1946. The new diocese had been approached by the Russian Patriarchate, which wanted to take in Bishop Orestes and his diocese, to be used as a lever to subjugate the Metropolia. Fr. Stephen Varzaly, as a pro-Soviet, attempted to rally support for the move and objected strenuously when Bishop Orestes turned the offer down. Bishop Orestes censured, then deposed Varzaly, and the diocese made efforts to proclaim and to reinforce its loyalty to America. See Barriger, Glory, 85–91. Varzaly eventually took fourteen parishes to the Metropolia, all but one of which eventually returned to the Johnstown diocese. 436 “Under the omophor” is the specific phrase which denotes the immediate protection or acceptance of a person or group by a hierarch, placing them under his jurisdiction. The omophor(ion) is the episcopal stole, akin to the Roman pallium. 437 The first cathedral was St. John the Baptist, Arctic St., Bridgeport, CT, from November, 1938. In 1944, the diocese lost the parish to the Uniates in a court suit, and built a new St. John the Baptist on Mill Hill Ave., Bridgeport, CT. This parish went to the Metropolia in 1947 in the Varzaly schism. A third St. John’s was built

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permitted to retain their existing form of parochial government; in fact, the matter never even came up, except for the matter of the cathedral property, noted above. The initial bylaws of the diocese regulating this matter remain unchanged to date.438 The Toth schism and its successor schisms of the 1930s made a major contribution to the congregationalism and the division of American Orthodoxy. The people who were involved in the Toth schism not only made up the majority of the Russian Diocese, but also its offshoots. The short-lived diocese of Bishops Stephen Dzubay and Adam Philipovsky was composed entirely of former Uniates. The core of the Johnstown diocese and the two Ukrainian dioceses were former Uniates. The multiplicity of these jurisdictions is a direct result of all these people wanting to keep “their own” and refusing the authority of any bishop or jurisdiction which could or would not guarantee this. The court battles over property also reinforced the congregationalist attitude. Whether they won or lost, these new Orthodox made sure to have their parish retained in the name of the congregation. By keeping control of the property, even if they lost control of pastoral assignments, parishes retained the leverage necessary to prevent unwanted changes in their way of doing things. Conversely, most Orthodox jurisdictions, being almost completely dependent upon these quasi-independent congregations for support, did not even try to contest parish property titles. The other major impact these schisms had was on the relationship of the clergy and the laity. Years of division and legal battles created, then widened, a rift between the two. If in the beginning Uniate congregations were begging for priests, later they began to look askance at clerical leadership. They still needed priests for the mysteries, but became more and more mistrustful of all clergy and hierarchy. The actions of the Roman Catholic clergy were only one contribution to this picture, though a major one. The Uniate clergy themselves helped create that mistrust by their own actions. For instance, both sides of the schism sought to gather support by vilifying the clergy of the opposition. Toth was the most vocal and wellknown on the Orthodox side, and was vociferous in his tirades against the

on Broadbridge Ave., Bridgeport, CT, but was too small to serve as a cathedral. In 1950, the diocesan seat was officially moved to Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Johnstown. Significantly, the new cathedral parish was required to turn its property over to the diocese. In exchange, it receives financial support from the diocesan budget (Barriger, Good Victory, 151). 438 See above, p. 106f.

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Uniate and Roman clergy.439 The Uniates were not above employing similar tactics.440 Both sides resisted and attacked the American Roman hierarchy’s attitude toward the Uniates. If these attacks diminished the authority of the opposing clergy, they also had the result of diminishing their own authority in the eyes of the laity, as all become tarred with the same brush. The vacillation of some of the clergy created further confusion. Already noted was the change of heart of three of the original four priests who went Orthodox. Also well-known was the case of Fr. Alexander Dzubay, who went Orthodox, was ordained Bishop (taking the name of Stephen), and then returned to the Uniate Church.441 On the other side, Fr. Orestes Chornak (later first bishop of the Johnstown Diocese) was secretary of a clergy group which proclaimed its loyalty to the bishop in

439 See, for instance, Toth’s “The Short Chronicle of the Uniate Church in America or: Where Will They Go?” Alexis Toth, vol. 4, 37–41, on the Pope and the Uniate vicars Fr. Andrew Hodobay and Bishop Soter Ortinsky. 440 See John Slivka, Historical Mirror: Sources of the Rusin and Hungarian Greek Rite Catholics in the United States of America, 1884–1963 (Brooklyn: n.p., 1978), 10–11, attacking Toth. The book is an excellent compendium of relevant official documents, newspaper articles, and other material from the period. See also Soldatow’s note in Alexis Toth, vol. 1, 24, n. 36. Soldatow lists a number of articles from the Amerikanskij Russkij Viestnik, the Greek Catholic Union’s newspaper, the leading newspaper for Uniates and former Uniates during the period (see Lay societies below). These articles claimed Toth obtained converts through “payments, vodka and beer.” 441 Slivka, 112–115, 122–123.

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1910.442 Fr. Peter Molchany defended the Uniate side in a court battle over the church in Clairton, Pennsylvania in 1927–1931, only to be excommunicated nominatim by papal decree in 1936 when he helped lead the Chornak group into Orthodoxy.443 A number of other clergy vacillated between the Unia and Orthodoxy for years before coming to a final decision. Such changes of heart may indicate the honest personal struggles of faith the clergy themselves underwent in deciding whether to be Catholic or Orthodox. Nevertheless, such actions weakened the clarity and force of their own positions, with a concomitant diminishing of authority. The laity might accept Orthodoxy, but they ensured that they would retain control of their own destiny by retaining control of the parish.

442 443

Slivka, 87. Warzeski, 208, 206.

CHAPTER SIX: LAY SOCIETIES The third proximate cause of the shape which the structure of the American Orthodox parishes took was the development of the lay societies. The immigrant laity who established parishes in America had little or no hierarchical guidance during those founding years. Nevertheless, they were not without resources. The two largest groups—the former Uniates and the Greeks—especially had a strong tradition of lay societies and leadership which they brought with them from Europe. In America, they formed societies which played a crucial role in the establishment of parishes, providing the leadership, finances, organization, and culture within which the parishes grew. The early history of the American Orthodox Church is filled with references to lay societies which were an integral part of parish establishment. Virtually every parish I have referenced above has also had a society attached to it—indeed, it is difficult to find a parish that did not have some type of lay society, at least in its formative years. Often these societies predated the actual parish establishment; one of their major goals, if not their only goal, was to establish a parish community. While both Slavic and Greek communities had such societies, the two types had little in common in their origins except that both were connected to parish establishments. Each, therefore, will be explored separately in order to determine the roles they played and the effects they had upon parish structure.

SLAVIC BROTHERHOODS The Slavic societies are often grouped under the rubric of “brotherhoods” or fraternal societies. The roots of these brotherhoods go back to fifteenth-

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century Europe, especially in Galicia and Sub-Carpathian Rus.444 The first and most influential brotherhood was the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood, referenced as far back as 1463.445 At this time, the clergy and people were caught up in some of the same religious, class, and nationalist struggles that were characteristic of all of Europe as it slowly emerged from the feudal society in which it was ensconced. Most of the hierarchs were nobility, often appointed to their position by the state, and not necessarily all that fit for the position. It is the same story in Eastern Europe as in the West; only the names are changed. Certainly not all, nor perhaps even most, of the hierarchs were incompetent or overly ambitious, but there were enough to create a leadership vacuum. In Lviv, the central episcopal see of Galicia, this was a physical vacuum as well as a moral one: from the end of the fourteenth century until 1539, the Lviv episcopal see was vacant. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood was the first to be organized as Orthodox lay leaders sought to fill the vacuum.446 This situation in Galicia and Sub-Carpathian Rus created serious deficiencies in the life of the church in many aspects. Charitable works, education in the faith, and upkeep of monasteries and churches were three major areas of church life which suffered the most. The brotherhoods arose to address these needs created by the neglect of the hierarchy. The 444 Accounts of the origins of the brotherhoods are difficult to come by. For my account of these origins, I have most relied upon two sources: Encyclopedia of Ukraine, 1984 ed., esp. s.v. “Brotherhoods,” by A. Zhukovsky, “Lviv Dormition Brotherhood,” and “Kiev Epiphany Brotherhood.” The second is Ivan Wlasowsky, Outline History of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, vol. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. (Bound Brook, NJ: Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, 1974). Volume 2, covering the seventeenth century, was published posthumously and heavily edited and abridged. The article “Brotherhoods” in Tarasar, Orthodox America, 113–118, is useful for American developments, but inaccurately dates the origins to the sixteenth century. Note that this author calls the area of origin in Europe “Western Russia.” In reality it was, at that time, an area within the Polish/Lithuanian kingdom and/or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is the area more accurately known as Galicia and Sub-Carpathian Rus, comprising parts of the modern countries of Slovakia, western Ukraine and southern Poland. 445 “Lviv Dormition Brotherhood,” Encyclopedia of Ukraine. 446 Wlasowky, Outline, vol. 1, 180, 204–205. The Catholic Polish Kingdom occupied Galicia (Lviv is the center of that area) in the mid-1300s. The see was left vacant and administered directly from Kiev because of pressure from the Catholic nobility and the inability of the Kievan metropolitanate to act effectively against it.

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brotherhoods were composed mainly of laymen from the newly emerging middle class. They also included some of the lower clergy, that is, the “white” or married clergy, who were in a similar if separate class. Their organizational structure was based on the Western European medieval brotherhoods and guilds.447 These brotherhoods established schools, took over the upkeep of monasteries and churches in need, ran printing presses, built new churches as necessary, and performed many of the charitable functions that had traditionally been within the aegis of the Church administration.448 These were lay brotherhoods; that is, they initially functioned within and on behalf of the Orthodox Church (Uniates did not exist until the end of the sixteenth century). As such, they also took upon themselves, as needed, the role of defenders of the faith against the political and religious encroachment of Catholicism and Protestantism. This was especially true in the Polish and Hungarian kingdoms, as the ruling class became more adamantly Catholic and anti-Orthodox. As this happened, some of the Orthodox hierarchy began to lean further and further toward Catholicism in a socio-political move intended to try to maintain the first-class status of the Church. This movement, ultimately resulting in the Unions of 1596 and 1646, was fought by the brotherhoods which saw themselves as the last bastion of Orthodoxy in these regions. The brotherhoods were not renegade groups or societies, but were recognized by the Church and even by the very hierarchy they often opposed. Sometimes their authority came from higher circles than the local bishop. The Lviv Dormition Brotherhood, so often the prototype for those which came after, received a constitution and charter from Patriarch Joachim of Antioch in 1586. Joachim had been on a visit and was “struck by the moral decline of the Orthodox hierarchy and clergy.”449 After a series of meetings in Lviv, Joachim issued the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood an official charter. This charter was then reconfirmed by Patriarch Jeremiah II 447

“Brotherhoods,” Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Lviv Dormition Brotherhood ran a well-known printing house and was the first to establish a school (in 1586). The Kiev Epiphany Brotherhood established a secondary school in 1615 which became a college in 1632 and the Kievan Mohila Academy in 1701. See Encyclopedia of Ukraine, “Brotherhoods,” “Lviv Dormition Brotherhood” and related articles, and “Kiev Epiphany Brotherhood” and related articles. For Kievan activities, see Wlasowsky, vol. 2, 79–85. 449 Wlasowsky, Outline, vol. 1, 205. 448

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in 1589 and received civil force in 1592. In addition to reconfirming the charter, Jeremiah granted stauropegial status to the Brotherhood; this meant that they were placed under the direct protection of the Patriarch of Constantinople, rather than being subject to the local ordinary. There are two sets of provisions in this charter which are worthy of note. First, the Lviv Brotherhood was specifically named senior to all other brotherhoods, which were to be organized using it as a model and were to be subordinate to it. Second, the charter specifically provided that all the brotherhoods were obligated “to oversee the lives of priests and laity in their own city and neighboring cities and to note violations of the law and, concealing nothing, so inform the bishop.” Moreover, When even the bishop goes contrary to the law and begins to rule the Church not in accordance with the laws of the Holy Apostles and Fathers, turning the righteous to falsehood and supporting the lawless, then let all oppose such a bishop as the enemy of the truth.450

Patriarch Jeremiah II immediately gave application to the Brotherhood’s charter and authority on that trip. The Brotherhood brought a formal complaint against the local hierarch, Bishop Hedeon Balaban of Lviv; the patriarchal court decided in favor of the Brotherhood. Patriarch Jeremiah’s decision was upheld in the local synods of Berestye (Brest’) in 1590 and 1591. Moreover, the latter council set penalties for violating the Brotherhood’s privileges: clergy were to be deposed, laity anathematized.451 Other brotherhoods were formed throughout Galicia and SubCarpathian Rus in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Those in Vilno and Mogilev were also stauropegial, but there were many other brotherhoods, including those in Lutsk and Kiev. The largest and most senior brotherhoods had branches in the city suburbs and local towns at various parishes; they also had youth branches—what today would be called “youth groups.”452 At their zenith, the growth and influence of the brotherhoods did not sit well with many of the hierarchy or even of the civil government. They were not composed of nobility or hierarchy, but of the burgher class and white clergy, and they took very seriously the watchdog role placed upon them by Patriarch Jeremiah II. It did not help that the sphere of activity of these brotherhoods was perceived as usurping 450

Quoted in Wlasowsky, Outline, vol. 1, 206. Wlasowsky, vol. 1, 207. 452 Ibid., 212. 451

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a great deal of hierarchical authority. Wlasowsky lists a number of brotherhood activities which include defense of the Orthodox faith; building of shrines, churches, and schools and providing the concomitant support; support of shelters and hospitals; “care for the appropriate solemnity of church services;” “assuring the candidacy for the pastorate of superior candidates;” “choosing of incumbents to brotherhood churches and monasteries;” “material support of brotherhood clergy;” “participation in general church administration through representation of the brotherhoods at church councils.”453 The scope of these activities certainly overlapped episcopal authority, making differences of opinion and conflicts inevitable.454 During the Uniate movements of 1596 and 1646, the brotherhoods raised tremendous opposition to union, which was favored by much of the hierarchy and nobility of Galicia and Sub-Carpathian Rus. The Roman Catholic king and nobility of the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom brought the powers of the civil government to bear against the brotherhoods and the Orthodox Church in favor of the Uniate Church. By the early 1700s, the area was virtually all Uniate; the brotherhoods either accepted the union or were suppressed. The Lviv Dormition Brotherhood became Uniate in 1709.455 In 1788, even the Uniate brotherhoods were dissolved by the Austrian regime, which now controlled that area of Europe. The Lviv Dormition Brotherhood was reorganized as the “Stauropegion Institute.”456 In the nineteenth century, brotherhoods were again organized in many town and village parishes, but they no longer wielded the influence or had the broad range of authority the original ones had. They were confined mostly to helping run the local parish, although even this role indicates a strong presence of lay involvement in church authority, at least on the parish level. It was this new incarnation of brotherhood that the Uniates took to America. In East Ukraine, the brotherhoods remained Orthodox, but without the need for the type of oversight and defense of the faith that Jeremiah II had seen in the West. Their activities were confined more to the traditional ones of education and charity. In 1633, Metropolitan Peter Mohila 453

Wlasowsky, ibid., 212. Wlasowsky, ibid., 210. 455 Encyclopedia of Ukraine, “Brotherhoods.” 456 The name was reference to its past history, not to any new canonical status it enjoyed. 454

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subordinated the Kiev Epiphany Brotherhood to the clergy. Mohila’s program of educational reform and growth eventually obviated the need for the brotherhoods to head up this major task. In 1686, the Kievan Metropolitanate came under the Moscow patriarchate. The imperial government did not approve of the brotherhoods and abolished them. In 1864, Russian civil authorities again allowed brotherhoods to be formed, but in a much reduced scope.457 The timing is significant, because this is the type of brotherhood, more subordinate to Church authority, known by the Russian clergy who went to America. The history of both the Uniate and Orthodox Churches of Ukraine and Sub-Carpathian Rus shows the laity functioning in Church approved and affiliated organizations, taking on authoritative roles in fulfilling the Church’s mission. These were not completely under the control and jurisdiction of the local hierarch, some being canonically autonomous from him. They exercised a great deal of responsibility and authority in their own right, filling vital and important needs in the faith community. Moreover, their authority often enabled, or at least emboldened, them to take upon themselves the capacity to pass judgment upon their hierarch or other hierarchy, as in the case of the Lviv Brotherhood. The brotherhoods, originally arising to fill leadership roles which had been abdicated by the hierarchy, established through their existence a tradition of lay leadership in the Church. This four-hundred-year-old tradition was part of the heritage which informed the faith experience of the nineteenth century Slavic immigrant, especially the Uniate. When these people came to America, they were not necessarily completely lost without a hierarchy or even a clergy. If lay societies could fill gaps left by the moral absence of hierarchical leadership in the old country, they could fill gaps left by the physical absence of the same hierarchy. The old country brotherhoods did not establish themselves in America, or open up new chapters. The idea of forming lay groups to fill leadership roles is what was transplanted in America, not the actual societies themselves. The traditional roles of the brotherhoods filled the precise needs of the new immigrant population; it was not a great stretch for people to start up reborn versions of these brotherhoods in America.458 457

“Brotherhoods,” ibid. The term “Brotherhoods” is an accurate description of the gender make-up of these societies, since their membership was usually limited to men. “Sisterhoods” and “ladies auxiliaries” did exist, but their roles were very different, 458

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The brotherhoods in America formed in order to provide vital needs and services to their membership. Life insurance, for instance, was badly needed and virtually impossible to obtain by men working in high-risks jobs such as mining or the steel mills. Also needed was education which led to naturalized citizenship. Aid to widows, children and the unemployed was another need filled by the brotherhoods. Many of the local brotherhoods established private clubs which gave members the chance to socialize, talk, and strengthen the village network. They were places to relax and recreate. Of tremendous importance, however, was the building of a parish church. This became the focal point of the community for worship, education, and social gathering. The relationship between the Slavic brotherhood/club and the parish was often very close. In some cases, the parish used the club facilities as their parish hall. In others, the club used the parish hall for their clubhouse.459 The brotherhoods took the leadership role in forming church communities. They provided the initial impetus and often the initial funds for establishment of the parishes. Sometimes the local brotherhood held the deeds for the church property.460 Walter Paska, a Uniate canonist, cites the Uniate parish in Shamokin, Pennsylvania as one example he says is typical.461 Uniates in that town formed the “SS Cyril and Methodius Beneficial Society of Shamokin” in 1891, with “the intention to worship limited to the supportive place allowed to women in society and, therefore, not a factor in the congregationalist structure of the Church. A major exception to that rule was the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association, which grew into a major “fraternal” organization. Nevertheless, since its membership was essentially limited to Roman Catholics, it does not play a part in this history. 459 St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church, Hawk Run, Pa., and Ss. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Carnegie, Pa., are examples of the former. Holy Ghost Orthodox Church, East Chicago, In., is an example of the latter. Until the parish moved in the 1990s, the original bar from the Russian club (by then defunct) was still in the parish hall, which was in the basement of the church. This apparently made for some interesting moments when the club was open for business at the same time liturgical services were being held upstairs. 460 See the Resolutions of the meeting of Greek Rite Catholic Clergy, Philadelphia, Aug. 10, 1899, where the practice of the brotherhood holding the deed is forbidden. In Slivka, 23. 461 Walter Paska, “Sources of Particular Law for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States,” CUA Canon Law Studies no. 485 ( J.C.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1975), 31.

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according to the discipline and doctrines of the Ruthenian Catholic Church.”462 The society acquired land in August of 1891, then incorporated a parish as “The Russian Greek Catholic Church of the Transfiguration” in 1892. Paska then notes, “Other properties were acquired in the name of the parish in 1900 and 1905, and the SS Cyril and Methodius Society did not relinquish its title to the original parcel of church land until 1926.”463 Given the close ties and the stated purposes of the brotherhoods, it is obvious that all the local brotherhood members became members of the new parish. The brotherhood leadership also took leadership roles in the parish. Parish structure was often modeled after the local brotherhood’s structure, even down to the specifics of various officers’ duties. In 1892, the majority of the local Uniate brotherhoods joined to form one national association, which would be better able to provide financial and other services to its people. This association, officially the “Greek Catholic Union of Rusin Brotherhoods,”464 is commonly known as the “Greek Catholic Union,” or GCU, and remains today the largest of the Uniate fraternal organizations. Its newspaper, the Amerikanskij Russkij Viestnik (American Russian Messenger) was established at the same convention. This newspaper functioned as the semi-official organ for the Church as well as the GCU, and through it the views of the laity, the lower clergy and, occasionally, the bishop, were made known to the populace. In 1893, a division occurred between the Carpatho-Russians and the Galicians, with most of the Galician brotherhoods withdrawing and setting up their own fraternal society known as Sojuz (Union).465 462 Charter of the SS Cyril and Methodius Beneficial Society of Shamokin, quoted in Paska, 31. 463 Paska, ibid. 464 The Sojedinenije Greko Kaftoliceskich Russkich was founded February 14, 1892 at a convention of all the Uniate brotherhoods in Wilkes-Barre, PA. It was incorporated on February 18, 1893, in Schuykill County, PA. Opportunity Realized, 9– 10. 465 Opportunity Realized, 14. Originally it was the “Russian National Union,” but as Ukrainian nationalism grew stronger, these people dissociated themselves from the Russians and changed the name of the society to the “Ukrainian National Association.” Its newspaper is Svoboda (Liberty). Another division in the GCU in 1903 resulted in the formation of another fraternal union, the Sobranije, or “United Societies,” which also has a newspaper, Prosvita (Enlightenment). See Opportunity Realized, 30–31. Nevertheless, the Sobranije never played nearly as prominent a role in the church as the GCU.

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In 1895, another division occurred, as more and more parishes were becoming Orthodox. The GCU required membership in the Catholic Church and so, after much disturbance, many of the Orthodox chapters withdrew and formed the “Russian American Orthodox Mutual Aid Society” (later, ROCMAS). This society published the newspaper Svet (Light). Another Orthodox fraternal society organized in 1915, also as a result of Uniates becoming Orthodox and so no longer welcome in the GCU. This union, the Greek Catholic Russian Pravoslavnii Brotherhood, began in Monessen, Pennsylvania and also still exists today.466 In 1915, this society began publishing the Pravoslavnii Russkii Viestnik (Orthodox Russian Messenger), not to be confused with the Russian-American Orthodox Messenger, the official diocesan newspaper begun in 1896.467 Five years later, this federation of brotherhoods merged with another and took the name United Russian Orthodox Brotherhood of America (UROBA), which is its name today. For both Orthodox and Uniate, the brotherhoods affected parish life and authority most directly on the local level. The local brotherhood was instrumental in providing leadership for the establishment of the parish, raising funds, giving financial support from its own coffers, and searching for a pastor. Beyond this, the GCU, which may be considered the grandfather of all the Slav brotherhood federations, took a very strong leadership role, one which it inherited from the old country brotherhoods. It went beyond the support of the church and charitable works, important as these were. It took upon itself the role of authority for the entire Uniate world in America. In the early years, the GCU was involved in and supported efforts to organize the Uniate parishes and it led the movement to continually petition Rome for a bishop and the erection of an ordinary diocese. During the Toth years, the GCU also acted to try to stem the flow of returnees to Orthodoxy, both by attacking Toth and the Orthodox, and by its ongoing campaign to obtain a bishop for the diocese which would be a hedge against both Orthodox and Roman encroachment.468 On the other hand, the GCU defended the Uniates against the local Roman hierarchy and against Rome itself. The GCU sponsored and published articles and open letters to the American Roman hierarchy, to the 466

Tarasar, Orthodox, 114–118. Ibid., 81. 468 See Slivka, 10–11, and also in Slivka, 25–27, “The Unsuccessful Aspirations of Fr. Alexius Toth,” by A.Orlov, ARV, Aug. 24, 1899. 467

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Apostolic Delegate, and to Rome itself. These letters protested Roman policies toward the Uniates, especially celibacy, and begged Rome for a bishop. The GCU was a part of the preparations for a national Ecclesiastical Congress which was to meet in late 1905. This congress was intended to formally organize the diocese and to direct imperatives toward Rome regarding the appointment of a bishop. The meeting was postponed and later canceled once the news came in March 1906 that Bishop Ortinsky had been appointed.469 Later, when they received Bishop Soter Ortinsky, the GCU took its watchdog role very seriously. At first the attitude expressed in the ARV was joyous, later it openly questioned Ortinsky’s position as merely a vicar and as a presumed Ukrainophile. The GCU ultimately supported the office of the bishop, while continuing to oppose Ortinsky personally.470 The GCU also took the lead in fighting Bishop Basil Takach in the late 1920s and 1930s. Takach, as the new ordinary of the Ruthenian diocese, was forced into the unenviable position of enforcing the celibacy rulings of Cum Data Fuerit. Through the ARV, the GCU played a major role in fomenting the division which ultimately led to the formation of the Johnstown Diocese, so much so that Takach withdrew his official connection with the society.471 At the 1932 GCU convention, the laity formed the committee known as KOVO, the “Committee for the Defense of the Eastern Rite” (Komitet Obornoy Vostoănoho Obrjada). KOVO was the seedbed for the new Orthodox diocese. In the end, the fight against celibacy was lost and the GCU capitulated. By 1935 the GCU no longer supported KOVO and in general withdrew from diocesan affairs. It became strictly a fraternal insurance organization, with some ties to the Uniate jurisdiction: For close to fifty years, GCU had assumed the role as guardian in church matters, and in the concerns of its Greek Catholic members. The

469

Various articles in Slivka, 39–49. The ongoing struggle is chronicled in Slivka, 50–141. 471 Pastoral Letter of Bishop Basil Takach to the GCU, prot. no. 80/1931, June 12, 1931, reproduced in Slivka, Historical Mirror, 139. Slivka chronicles the “Borba” of the 1930s with original documents and with a large selection of articles from the ARV. See, for example, 137–146, which deals with events in 1931–1932. See also, Opportunity Realized, 102–106. 470

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year 1936 marked the beginning of GCU’s formal abdication of this role. It was time for the GCU to concern itself with business.472

During those years, however, the GCU, like the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood centuries before, exerted a lay authority not normally seen in the church. This authority was recognized in a back-handed way by Rome in 1929 in Cum Data Fuerit, where it sought to curb it: Art. 37. Associations of the faithful of the Greek-Ruthenian rite shall be under the vigilance of the Ordinaries … it is praiseworthy on the part of the faithful to join associations which have been formed, or at least approved, by ecclesiastical authority. They should, however, be on their guard against associations which are secret, condemned, seditious, suspect, or which seek to elude the supervision of lawful ecclesiastical authority.473

Those laity who turned Orthodox took the example of the GCU and other brotherhoods to heart. They found that the laity could also lead, even in church affairs. Indeed, all too often the laity were forced to do so. In the ensuing years, the Orthodox laity made sure that they did not lose the control over their own parishes which they had won during the decades of battle with the Roman Catholics and with the Uniates. While the Uniates had been accustomed to extremely active and authoritative brotherhoods both in Europe and in America, the Russian Orthodox clergy were not so disposed. Already mentioned is the fact that the brotherhoods of Greater Russia, in their nineteenth century incarnation, were more sedate and more geared toward traditional charity and education roles. This was in part, of course, due to the fact that Russia did not experience great hierarchical or doctrinal upheavals during this period. There was no one against whom the brotherhoods had to defend the church. In America, much the same happened, for much the same reason. Although many of the local brotherhoods began as Uniate, the Orthodox federations, such as the Russian American Mutual Aid Society, did not have to come to the defense of its church as did the GCU. Although highly

472

Opportunity Realized, 122. By this time virtually all the brotherhoods, Uniate and Orthodox, had separated themselves from direct involvement in church leadership. The federations almost all went the same route as the GCU, becoming fraternal insurance and investment organizations. Many of the locals became strictly private clubs. Most of these clubs, in turn, have folded since World War II. 473 In Warzeski, 281. Emphasis mine.

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influential, therefore, they did not acquire the same combative stance as the GCU did in its heyday. On the parochial level the brotherhoods had the same leadership role as the Uniate ones had, especially since many of them started out as Uniate. Even with a bishop in America, however, the local parishes relied more upon the lay brotherhoods for establishment than upon the diocese. This influence shows in the role the Russian American Mutual Aid Society played in the first Orthodox Church Congress of the Russian diocese. Archbishop Tikhon began in 1905 to plan extensively for this all-important meeting, held in Mayfield, Pennsylvania in March, 1907. Both the place and the timing of the meeting were contingent, however, upon the Convention of the Society, which was held at the same time. The relative importance of the events, at least in the minds of the participants, is shown by the actual proceedings. The agendas had originally called for the Society Convention to end on Wednesday, with the Church Sobor having the rest of the week for its business. However, the Convention wound up taking up the entire week for its business, leaving only three evening sessions and one morning session for the delegates to lay the foundation for the Russian Orthodox diocese. Such elemental issues as an official name for the diocese, the issue of incorporation of the diocese and parishes, major financial concerns and the issue of uniform liturgical practice in the diocese were necessarily dealt with summarily or referred to committee. The Church work had to bow to the Society agenda at this historic meeting.474

GREEK LAY SOCIETIES Greek immigrants did not carry with them a strong history of lay ecclesiastical organization. However, they brought with them a strong sense of self-motivation and autonomy, having won their independence only a few decades before. Most of the Greek immigrants came from the mountains or from the islands. These people had lived in relative isolation and self-sufficiency for centuries. It should be no surprise that these groups initiated and fought the Greek War of Independence.475

474

Tarasar, 97–99. An account of the Greek War of Independence, 1821–1833, the war’s effect upon the Greek Church, and the relationship of church and state in Greece 475

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They were also forced to be self-reliant in terms of their church life. Because of Turkish suppression of the Church, before 1821 there were only thirty-eight hierarchs in all of Greece; at least five of these were murdered by the Turks, others died in battle or were exiled, and others retired or died of natural causes. Because of the war the vacancies were not filled.476 By 1833, half of the diocesan sees of Greece were empty. Moreover, bishops, other clergy, and monastics had taken the lead in battle, especially in the opening years of the war, resulting in a very high percentage of casualties. As many as 7,000 priests were killed during the war.477 There were few theological schools permitted by the Ottomans, and most of these were in Constantinople. Before the war only a small percentage of the clergy in Greece were able to acquire an education; during and after the war, virtually none were. Georg von Maurer, one of King Otto’s regents, estimated that no more than ten out of a thousand clerics were able to write their own names.478 The decimation of the Greek church leadership, coming upon a church already suffering under suppression, created such chaos that the Greek church still had not recovered over a hundred and thirty years later. Mario Rinvolucri gives a succinct picture of the Greek church in 1964, which helps to elucidate the difficulties under which the church labored all during the immigration period.479 Rinvolucri describes the situation of the diocese of Thebes-Levadeia, a rural diocese which typifies the areas from which most Greek immigrants came to America. In 1964, this small diocese of 115,000 had 93 parishes, 13 of them vacant. Of the 80 parish priests, Rinvolucri lists them according to

immediately after can be found in Charles A. Frazee, The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece, 1821–1852 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969). 476 Frazee, 62, 44. The patriarchate was forced to support the sultan—it is estimated that as many as eighty prelates were killed throughout the Ottoman empire as traitors. Even after Patriarch Gregorios issued an excommunication of all rebels, he was hung anyway as a traitor. His successor, Eugenios, issued another excommunication of the Greek rebels. The Greek church, in reply, issued a proclamation of Greece’s freedom, signed by 28 bishops and 1000 priests. The proclamation anathematized the patriarch (35) and his name was removed from the diptypchs (44). This signaled the breaking of communion. 477 Ibid., 101. 478 Ibid., 101. 479 Mario Rinvolucri, Anatomy of a Church: Greek Orthodoxy Today (London: Burns and Oates, 1966).

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class: none were first-class (full four-year major seminary training, able to preach and hear confessions); 8 were second-class (high-school, two years seminary, some were permitted to preach); 57 were third class (two years high-school, one or two years minor seminary); and 15 were fourth class (typically a cantor or sacristan who received a few weeks training in liturgical celebration).480 The diocese also had two theologian-priests (first class) who had no parish and who, together with one lay preacher, traveled around the parishes preaching, hearing confessions, and giving catechism. Rinvolucri considered the Thebes-Levadeia diocese typical in 1964, and it must be remembered that this status reflects a concerted effort by the Church of Greece to improve its conditions over a period of 130 years. The lack of theological schools meant that few trained clergy were available to pastor the village parishes. The type of priest that Rinvolucri lists as “fourth class” was being slowly phased out after World War II, but was by far the most prevalent until then. These clergy were men who came from the village itself, often the chanter or sacristan (which work they did in addition to their farming or craft), whose literacy, character, and willingness to serve the Church made them candidates for priesthood. These men were often selected by the village elders to be sent to the bishop for ordination. Candidates were given sufficient training to celebrate the mysteries and fill the basic needs of the villagers and then ordained. Under the Turkish millet, the clergy’s salary consisted only of their stipends for services, requiring that they have another source of income. Later, under the Greek state, they received a small government salary also, but this was minimal. Ordinarily the village pastors were not permitted to preach or hear confessions because they lacked the training to do so. Confessions were heard by circuit-riding theologian-priests—that is, by clergy who had the proper formal training. With few enough of these available, a faithful Orthodox Christian in Greece might have the opportunity to celebrate this mystery, at best, once every few years and sometimes never. The same circuit-riders would preach during their visit, often high-sounding, heavily theological sermons in the “purified” katharevousa, literary Greek, barely understandable to the average layperson, who spoke demotic, but often

480

Ibid., 23.

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preferred listening to an oration.481 Otherwise, the pastor might read a sermon prepared by the bishop and sent around, or not preach at all. The village priests, while usually good, pious, and hard-working, were not necessarily well-equipped administratively, nor were they picked for their leadership ability or administrative skills. Both leadership and administration of the church were provided by the village council. Priestcandidates were selected for their piety and their liturgical abilities and interest. The church was maintained and operated by the village elders or council. Even after independence, the situation hardly changed. Priest’s stipends were minimal, as were church subsidies, at least for the villages. The village priest was not so much a pastor as a minor government functionary, providing a necessary service in the life of the village. A culture of self-reliance and independence, coupled with a lack of clerical leadership in Greece, set the stage for Greek immigrants to America to take leadership roles in creating parishes here. Life in America required the same self-reliance and had the same dearth of church leadership, albeit for different reasons. The laity were already prepared for this new task of building church communities by their background in Greece. To accomplish this task, the Greek immigrants, like the Slavs, founded numerous societies, usually with some type of tie to the Church. However, while most of the early Slavic groups can be characterized as primarily ecclesiastical and secondarily nationalistic, the opposite seems to be true among the Greeks. For instance, a listing of the names of early Slav brotherhoods includes the following: St. Alexander Nevsky; Holy Dormition; Ss. Peter and Paul; St. John the Baptist.482 Similar early Greek societies mentioned above include the Society of Athena, the Lycurgus Society, the Tsintzina Society. These societies were mainly concerned with preservation of culture, language, and tradition, and village ties; part of that tradition was the Church, and so they were often heavily involved in the establishment of the local parish.483 Saloutos discusses the priority of place which the church held in the immigrant’s life: 481

Rinvolucri notes this as a cultural preference among the Greeks, who “have a great respect for the ability to use words” (27). I have noted the same preference in attending American Greek churches and in discussion with many American Greeks even today; a preacher with a high vocabulary and strong rhetorical skills is greatly respected. 482 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 113–114. 483 Constantelos, introduction to Efthimiou, History, 9.

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Absence from his ancestral home, the fear that he might never see it again, the thought of losing his nationality and of dying in a strange land, caused him [the immigrant], at least for a time, to embrace his religion with a fervor that he never had in Greece. He attended church because it reminded him of home. Neither coercive government nor ecclesiastical decrees could have compelled these pioneers to maintain and administer their church communities with the turbulent aggressiveness that characterized them.484

Thus, the building and maintenance of a faith community was considered to be subsidiary to the maintenance of the ethnic/village culture. The purpose of the church, at least as far as the lay leadership was concerned, was to support and maintain the Greek community. Therefore, keeping control of the parishes was vital to making sure that the parishes fulfilled this need. This understanding of the place of the church also explains why Greeks rarely were able or willing to be part of a panOrthodox community for any length of time; such a community did not fulfill its primary purpose in their eyes. Saloutos describes three basic types of Greek societies: the topikos, or local society; the kinotitos, or community society; and the patriotic or nationalistic organization.485 The last includes such organizations as the Panhellenic Union and AHEPA. They were established with essentially secular goals, such as the promotion of education, political affiliation (both Greek and American), or Americanization. They generally had little to do with parish establishment, even if they referenced preservation of the Greek Orthodox faith as a value or purpose.486 484

Saloutos, 122. Saloutos, 75–77. A fourth institution described by Saloutos is the kaffenieion, or coffeehouse. Very prevalent in Greek neighborhoods at that time, the coffeehouse, like the old country village taverna, was the place Greek men congregated to maintain their ethnic network. It was a place of discussion, entertainment, political activity, and the like, much like the Slavic ethnic clubs mentioned above. Unlike the Slavic clubs, however, the kaffenieia were not established or run by the Greek societies, but by individual entrepreneurs. 486 AHEPA originally stood for “American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association.” It was originally established as a non-sectarian (i.e., not supportive of the Greek Orthodox Church), secret society promoting Americanization, benevolent aid, and education for Greek immigrants. Criticized for its Masonicstyle organization, it held its organizational meetings, ironically, in the hall of the Greek Orthodox Church in Atlanta, Ga. Today it is perhaps the largest Greek 485

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The first type of Greek society, the topikos, tended to be very localized in its intent and membership. For instance, membership often was restricted to those from the same village. The members may have all been in the same line of work. The topika were self-help groups that recreated the village network the members needed to survive. Besides moral and cultural support, they gave members the opportunity to exchange views, help each other out in business, and, of course, discuss all the goings-on in their parish and in Greece. Often providing financial support for their village back home was as important as their support for each other in America.487 Often they only had thirty or so members, with a governing council of twelve or fifteen. Saloutos unfairly mocks their “impressive array of banners, lengthy constitutions and high-sounding names. … Gold tassels and buttons adorned the officers’ uniforms, which were worn on every possible occasion.”488 While the topikos may have had the support of Orthodoxy as a goal, it was generally too specialized to found parishes. The Tsintzina Society is a case in point. Originally founded in the late 1800s, it was originally known as the “Tzitzinian [sic] Business Men’s Association.”489 Membership was originally restricted to Tsintzinioti from all over the country who were in business for themselves, especially the “Candy, Restaurant, Motion Picture House.”490 Article I of its charter gives as one of its purposes: “To preserve, support and encourage worship in conformity with the doctrines and traditions of the Greek Orthodox faith.”491 Nevertheless, the Society never founded a church or became involved in church activities. The kinotitos was the type of society which worked to found parishes. It was a community-based society, specifically established to aid and fraternal group in America. See George J. Leber, The History of the Order of Ahepa (Washington, D.C.: Order of Ahepa, 1972), 148–151, 161. Burgess discusses the establishment of the Panhellic Union (63–67) and quotes Article One of its original Constitution: “the Union shall have as its objects … to preserve the Greek Orthodox Church…” (64). The Union died out shortly after World War I. 487 Saloutos, 76. 488 Saloutos, 75. 489 Directory of the Tzitzinian’s Annual Business Convention, Jamestown, New York, 1924. 490 Directory of the Tzitzinian’s Annual Business Convention, Jamestown, New York, 1916, reprinted in the 1951 Convention Directory. 491 Archives of Tsintzina Society, Jamestown, New York.

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support Greeks in the local area. Thus, it was almost tailor made to be in a position to establish a parish as the local cultural, educational, and faith center, and, in fact, this was usually one major goal of this society.492 As Burgess describes this society, it was essentially an organizing of the entire local Greek community. All Greeks in a given locale were automatically considered members. Thus, as noted above, the Lycurgus Society in Chicago was a kinotitos, whereas the original Chicago group, the Therapneans, was a topikos. The latter was open only to those from a specific village or township in Greece, no matter where they now lived. The Lycurgus Society, being named after the classical Spartan lawgiver, had a preponderance of Spartans as members, but was not necessarily limited to them. It was open to all Greeks in Chicago. The kinotitos, therefore, had a membership which was essentially congruent with the local Greek population. In this sense, it was also congruent with the local Greek parish, which, in theory, would also include all the local Greek population as members. The kinotitos became incorporated, acquired membership, raised funds, bought property, and built the church. It continued to operate the parish even after the parish was established. Saloutos says succinctly regarding the relationship of kinotitos and church: In the early years, the kinotitos was a miniature democracy in fact as well as in theory; it took its duties seriously. It owned the church properties, assumed control of the administration, hired and fired priests, teachers and janitors at will, and gave ample vocal evidence of determination to govern all the community’s affairs. The churches were free of doctrinal disputes, but what they were spared in this regard was more than outweighed by the ceaseless arguments over policy decisions and administration. These stormy sessions were partly products of clashing personalities and ambitions, carryovers from the Old World, and partly honest differences over the relative merits of priests, community officials and community needs.493

In some places, the kinotitos established the parish as a separate entity, as happened in New York.494 However, this dual administration did not usually last; in New York, for example, one group went off and formed

492

See Burgess, ch. 5, esp. 52–58. Saloutos, 127. 494 See above, p. 130. 493

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their own parish.495 The kinotitos in most places merely became the church community. The church building was usually its most important piece of property; it was the center of worship, education, and recreation. As other areas of society responsibility diminished or were taken up by other types of organizations (for example, the need to provide life insurance, or naturalization education, or financial aid for Greece), what was left was church-centered and church-oriented activities. The kinotitos became the parish while retaining its own form of government.496

SUMMARY OF THE CAUSES OF CONGREGATIONALISM The lack of hierarchical leadership in America during the formative years of the Orthodox Church here resulted in the establishment of parish communities by the laity for the laity. This “moral absence” of hierarchical authority had already been experienced in Europe, for various reasons, and resulted there in the laity filling the vacuum. Often this lay leadership was exercised independently, or at least quasi-independently, of the established hierarchy, whether as a Slavic brotherhood or as a Greek village council. In America, similar situations prevailed, requiring the laity to once again step up. Because of the lack of a presence of ordained clergy, the laity established parishes entirely on their own. The invisibility of the Russian diocese and the absence of any other hierarchy, for example, Greek or Serbian, virtually ensured that the core of American Orthodoxy would be congregationalist in its founding. The Toth schism paved the way for the division between laity and clergy in America, creating a combative stance in the affected dioceses, which has diminished, but never dissipated. The Toth years set the stage for the brotherhoods to again assert a lay leadership which was antagonistic to, 495 A dual administration reportedly still exists at Transfiguration Church, Charlottesville, Virginia. There the kinotitos and its board of trustees owns and operates the parish property, while a parish board runs the parish. These setups are rare. 496 The Greeks did not lose their penchant for organizing. The 1998 Yearbook of the GOA (205–224) lists 470 societies and chapters, ordered according to the area of Greece whence they come (Epirus, Macedonia, etc.). These are obviously topika. It further lists over a hundred other organizations under the title “CulturalEducational-Other,” including such groups as AHEPA, Greek-American Behavioral Sciences Institute, American Institute for Patristic and Byzantine Studies. However, none of these groups fits the kinotita pattern.

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and therefore, in a sense, independent of established authority, whether Catholic or Uniate. The Toth years also encouraged each parish to think of itself as isolated and self-contained and therefore, to a greater or lesser extent, independent of ecclesiastical authority. Each parish made its own decision to become Orthodox or not; each parish fought in the civil courts within itself, emphasizing its separateness from other parishes and from dioceses. All these tendencies were exacerbated after World War I, both in the Greek and the Slavic dioceses. The Russian jurisdiction was rent by Kedrovsky’s Living Church, with the resultant return of parish properties to lay trustees. The Greeks were split by political issues back home. Each suffered multiple fractures as new jurisdictions formed, and each of those fractures themselves often underwent fractures of their own. As hierarchy multiplied, the effective authority of any one hierarch, or even of all of them, diminished in the eyes of the laity. In the end, the only ones the laity could trust were themselves, and so they retained control of the one bit of the Church which was the most important to them—their own parish.

CHAPTER SEVEN: CONGREGATIONALISM IN ORTHODOXY — AN ANALYSIS This review of Orthodox ecclesiology and the American Orthodox experience leaves a number of unanswered questions. For instance, in Orthodox literature the problem of ethnicism is often highlighted as the primary cause of all American Orthodox woes. I have not given it that type of fundamental place. Why not? Also, how did the way that the American civil legal system favored congregationalism throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries affect the establishment of American Orthodoxy? Beyond these issues is the question of whether any attempt at all was made to halt the growth of congregationalism in America. My contention that trusteeism is diametrically opposed to Orthodox doctrine and practice would seem to require that someone, at some time, would have at least tried to bring the practice of the American church in line with the doctrine and practice of the Church as a whole. There was such a time and place. For a brief period in American Orthodoxy there was a chance to regularize the American church, bringing it a unification which perhaps would have given it the strength to withstand the divisiveness of American schisms and European interference, ethnicism, and clerical-lay divisions. Focusing on this period and then comparing it to a similar one in American Roman Catholicism will demonstrate that ethnicism, social change, and the effect of the American legal system were not causes of Orthodox trusteeism. Rather, they were allowed to impact Orthodoxy because of trusteeism.

ARCHBISHOP TIKHON AND ARCHBISHOP JOHN CARROLL Archbishop Tikhon Bellavin was the sole Orthodox hierarch in America from 1898 to 1907. Although he was not the first Orthodox bishop on 187

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American soil, in many ways his place in American Orthodox history parallels that of Archbishop John Carroll, the first Roman Catholic bishop in America. Tikhon and Carroll had to deal with situations which had many similarities as well as great differences. Their understandings of church, in many ways alike, determined their stances toward parish structure and lay involvement in the authority of the church. Carroll’s tenure laid the foundation for the ongoing development of the Roman Catholic Church in America; in large measure, Tikhon’s did not do the same for Orthodoxy, especially on the parish level. Tikhon presided over the American Orthodox church for a relatively short period. He was based in San Francisco for over half of his tenure, from December 1898 until June 1903. He spent the last half of that year in Russia, on vacation and on official business. During his time there, the Synod moved the diocesan see to New York and gave Tikhon two auxiliary bishops. Tikhon took up residence in New York upon his return in January 1904. His transfer back to Russia was effective as of February 1907. Two major events should be placed on this brief timeline. At a regular diocesan clergy conference in June 1905, Tikhon proposed convening a sobor of clergy and laity. The wheels he set in motion that day culminated in the First All-American Sobor in Mayfield, Pennsylvania, held in February 1907. The second event was Tikhon’s report to the Pre-Conciliar Commission497 of the Holy Synod in December 1905. Tikhon’s report presents, in part, a summary of his views of the American church and his plans for the future in America. He expressed two major goals. First, he wanted to reorganize the American church into an exarchate498 with the purpose of allowing it to eventually become an 497

The report is reproduced in English in its entirety in the March 1906 Supplement to the Russian Orthodox American Messenger (Amerikanskii Pravoslavnyi Viestnik), hereafter APV. The part relevant to the American church is translated and reproduced as the Report of Archbishop Tikhon, from “Opinions of diocesan bishops concerning Church reforms, submitted to the Preconciliar Commission of the Holy Synod, St. Petersburg, Dec., 1905,” Part I, 531, in St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19(1975): 49. There are some differences in the texts, with the Messenger edition appearing to be somewhat more colloquial, and with the SVTQ version having a parenthetical interpolation which may or may not be original (see below, n. 500). I do not have the original Russian text available to me. 498 As used here, the term exarchate denotes a mission territory which has many of the same characteristics as a particular church. As a mission, it still would be

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autonomous church. Second, in support of this move, he wanted to take positive action in creating more ethnic bishoprics, all of which would be united under the one exarch, the archbishop of North America. The report states that the first steps had already been taken to realize the second goal. A Brooklyn vicariate for the Syro-Arabs was established by the Russian Synod on Feb. 14, 1904, with Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny ordained its first bishop. A Chicago vicariate for the Serbs was created in March 1905, headed by Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich. Tikhon goes on to say, The Greeks of this country also wish to have their own bishop and have entered into communication with the Synod of Athens on this subject. In short, it is possible that there will be formed in America an entire exarchate of national orthodox churches with their own bishops, whose exarch is to be the Russian archbishop. In his own field of work each of these bishops is to be independent, but the affairs which concern the American church in general are to be decided by a general council, presided over by the Russian archbishop.499

Tikhon favored initially maintaining the connection between American Orthodoxy and Russia. However, the establishment of the exarchate had the purpose of eventually freeing the American church from dependence on any European church, even that of Russia: Through him [Archbishop] will be preserved the connection of the orthodox church of America with the church of all the Russias and a degree of dependence of the former on the latter. Also we must keep in view that, compared with the life in the old country, life in America has its peculiarities, with which the local orthodox church is obliged to

directly under the authority of the Holy Synod of Russia/Patriarch. However, it would no longer be necessarily confined to being one diocese, or a group of disconnected dioceses. A truly canonical Metropolis would have accomplished much the same task; in Tikhon’s day, however, these had not canonically existed for two hundred years. In fact, one of the agenda items for the upcoming Great Council was the restoration of canonical Metropolia (see APV March 1906 Supplement, 65–67). Besides, an exarch would have a little more official distance between his church and Russia than a metropolitan would, since this would be a recognition that the exarchate was not within the territorial boundaries of the Russian church. Tikhon was obviously seeking the flexibility necessary to allow the church to grow while maintaining a unified authority structure. 499 APV March 1906 Supplement, 68–69.

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count, and that consequently that it ought to be allowed to be more autonomous than other metropolitan districts of Russia.500

Tikhon recognized the great difficulties inherent in trying to unify all the various national Orthodox groups. In many ways they were much greater than the type of ethnicism that the American Roman Catholic Church had to deal with. The national differences included not only nationality and ethnic differences, but differences in liturgical language, chant, rubrics, and even minor ones in the liturgical texts. He was willing to allow all of these differences, and realized that it would be insufficient to merely maintain nationality parishes as the Catholics did. Establishing dioceses for each would give each group the reassurance that no attempts would be made to take from them their treasured heritage. Beyond this, Tikhon demonstrated a unique ability to look beyond Russian aggrandizement in America, regardless of his own personal attachment to his homeland. His interest lay in building the Orthodox Church in America, no matter what flavor it was. His bid for ultimate independence from any European jurisdiction was certainly designed to permit the church to grow in whatever form it needed to take to become truly the church of Christ in America. The unique quality of American church life was not merely a matter of multiple ethnicity. If the “peculiarities” which Tikhon notes were confined to that issue, greater autonomy would hardly be necessary. I suggest he proposed a freedom in governance for America so that he could properly channel the tremendous energy he found here. He found much that was favorable on the American scene, especially in comparison to the situation of the Russian church. The Americans already were doing some of the things that reformers in Russia wanted to see implemented. Most especially, the Americans had overcome one of the biggest problems in Russia—the lack of involvement in the church by the laity.501 500 Ibid. Emphasis mine. The SVTQ version (50) has an apparent interpolation: “a greater autonomy (and possibly autocephaly) should therefore be granted to the Church of America, as compared with the other Metropolitan sees of the Russian Church.” Even without the suggestion of possible autocephaly, however, Tikhon’s thrust is clearly toward an eventually independent American church. 501 Whether they were uninvolved because they were not allowed to be, or because of general lassitude, or ignorance, or lack of spirituality, or lack of proper leadership, or any combination of these reasons, does not matter. A few of the intelligentsia were very involved, as were the few who became involved in one of

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Tikhon had been handed an ideal situation for developing his own take on the reform movements in Russia. He was clearly interested in developing a conciliar church in America, based on a moderate interpretation of sobornost’. His actions demonstrate that he was strongly in favor of the laity having a real voice in church government, although not necessarily in the congregationalist form that he found here. The incident cited above concerning Holy Trinity Greek parish in New York City certainly awakened concerns about the form that lay participation took in America. Tikhon visited the parish on Great Friday in 1904, only shortly after he had settled in the city. After his visit, the people of the parish initiated steps which, in 1905, culminated in incorporating themselves separately to avoid being taken over by the Russian diocese. They used the word “Hellenic” in the parish title, since the Russians were already using the words “Greek Orthodox” to designate their mission.502 This action must surely have stung, especially since just a month before Tikhon had ordained Raphael Hawaweeny bishop for the Syrians and was in the process of developing a Serbian jurisdiction. It should have been obvious that he had no designs on the Greek communities, other than to service them as part of one American Orthodox church. From the beginning of his ministry in America, Tikhon had held clergy conferences as regularly as possible. This alone seems to have been an innovation, promoting a sobornost’ type of church polity. In June 1905, at one of these conferences, he proposed the idea of an American sobor, composed of both clergy and laity, to deal with various issues facing the American church. Kishkovsky says that Tikhon “specified that one of the important questions to be considered was the active involvement of lay people in the upbuilding of church and parish life in America.”503 Based on the agenda eventually approved for the Sobor, it seems that his concern was to further encourage a strong and active laity, but within a more proper authority structure. At the Sobor, held March 5 to March 8, 1907, in Mayfield, Pennsylvania, Tikhon stated that the theme of the Sobor was “How to

the spiritual reform movements. Jump-starting the vast majority of the laity, however, noble and peasant, was one of the great concerns in the era preceding the Moscow Sobor. 502 Tarasar, Orthodox America, 91–92. See above, p. 127. 503 In Tarasar, Orthodox America, 98.

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Expand the Mission.”504 High on the agenda were two issues: incorporation of the diocese and financing the mission. The APV report, apparently paraphrasing Tikhon’s opening address to the Sobor, explains the need for the first issue: First of all, what we have to decide is what are the juridical foundations of this Church. Our Mission is composed of immigrants and those who were born in various states throughout this country. The majority of the parishes are incorporated unto themselves, and the North American Mission, as a single jurisdiction or entity, is not incorporated. Therefore, a “charter” seems to be the useful way to go to deal with the administrative relationships of the church with the parishes, the parishes with the church, and the church as a whole over the parishes in the United States.505

The report immediately follows with the results of the debate on the issue: But after having consulted a lawyer-specialist in these matters, the Sobor came to the following conclusion: that an incorporation of the whole Mission will bring a narrowing of the flowering of the individual cells of our organization, and that the formation of a charter should be put off to another day, when this problem can be fully analyzed in detail. We should now just limit ourselves to the following: to devise a rule, where the details could be analyzed and put into a right-ruling situation… These statutes, if they are placed before the local lay authorities will come into effect without having to formulate any kind of “charter.”506

Clearly everyone at the Sobor realized that incorporation of the diocese would mean an eventual end to congregationalism and parish autonomy. It would have been the first major step in regularizing parish structure, bringing the trustee system to an end. Tikhon demonstrated the high value he placed upon a conciliarity which included active lay participation in 504 “Proceedings of the first Sobor of the North American Orthodox Church,” (Kod sovieshchanii na pervom Soborie Sievero-Amerikanskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi) in APV May 15–28, 1907, 81–88. Note that the dates used in the text are Old Calendar, so they are listed as February 20–22. This Sobor has yet to be adequately studied. I am indebted to Fr. Bazyl Zawierucha for his invaluable aid in translating all the material from the APV that I have referenced. All translation errors are mine. 505 Ibid., 82. 506 Ibid., 81–82. Emphasis mine.

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church governance by calling for a clergy-lay sobor in the first place. It was his idea, and he had to shepherd it closely for two years to see it come to fruition. His attempt at the Sobor, however, to strengthen the hierarchical structure and break the trustee system indicated that he did not see this mode of governance to be a valuable expression of lay involvement. The failure of the Sobor to even begin to curb congregationalism in its first session set the tone for the rest of the council. That failure reinforced a sense of parish autonomy and lay independence which foredoomed the other major issues. One of these was the discussion of finances, which took up two of the four sessions of the Sobor.507 Tikhon’s goal of autonomy for the American church would require that the subsidies from Moscow eventually end and that the American church become completely selfsupporting. After lengthy and often heated deliberation, however, plans to increase parishioner contributions to the parish and to pastors’ salaries, and to increase parish contributions to the diocese, were put off for future deliberation by a committee. The Sobor further expressed the hope that subsidies from the Moscow Synod could be used to help pay pastors’ salaries in parishes which could not afford them. The resolutions that were passed effectively killed Tikhon’s attempt to make the American church self-supporting. In fact, after the Sobor part of the annual Synodal funding was allocated to subsidize pastors’ salaries. The inability to enforce or even encourage larger financial support from the people set the stage for the financial collapse of the diocese fifteen years later. A note on that collapse is relevant here. As was discussed in Chapter Four, the revolution in Russia led to the drying up of the subsidies sent from Moscow to America. The dwindling of funds and the mismanagement of Archbishop Alexander led to the parishes taking over their own properties from the diocese. It further led to the parishes denying forcefully any right of the hierarchy of the church over the material goods of the parishes. John Erickson discusses the situation in a recent article on stewardship. In that article he attempts to characterize the laity’s actions and attitudes in a good light: Motivated by what at the time could only have been regarded as prudent stewardship, they sought to save the church they knew and loved by

507

Ibid., 83–85.

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effectively severing the administrative and financial life of the parish from the wider concerns of Orthodoxy in America.508

Nevertheless, Erickson is forced to admit that this “prudent stewardship” motive still had disastrous results: Such clauses [restricting the hierarchy from any say in the disposition of parish property or in the assessment of parish members for diocesan support] may have helped save parish properties, but in the process, they set up a false dichotomy between the spiritual and the material, between religious matters and financial matters—a dichotomy alien not only to the Orthodox canonical tradition but also to the most basic principles of Orthodox theology. They also fostered a faulty understanding of Christian stewardship by implying that, in financial matters at least, the parishioners’ first and foremost responsibility was to the Corporation. Forgotten was the ancient canonical understanding according to which “the goods of the church … belong to God” and are to be administered “as under the authority of God.”509

Erickson further recognizes that this attitude was not limited to the Russian jurisdiction, but was part and parcel of all American Orthodox groups. He is mistaken, however, in tracing this attitude to the aftermath of Bishop Alexander’s mistakes. The Mayfield Sobor shows that attitude already clearly held by its lay participants. They expected the Moscow Synod to take care of supra-parish concerns, and even to subsidize their own parish expenses. After the Sobor, subsidies decreased rather than increased. By 1916, when the subsidy was only one-half of the amount necessary to support the diocese, it was obvious that Moscow was not going to be able to help much longer.510 In the ensuing years, the Moscow subsidy was cut off, yet the parishes felt no need for “prudent stewardship” of the church as a whole. Their primary and only concern was their own parish. This mentality, uncorrected and uncorrectable at the Mayfield Sobor, created what Erickson calls a “crisis of vision, a crisis in how Orthodox Christians in America understood—and sometimes still understand—the Church and its 508

John H. Erickson, “Generosity, Accountability, Vision: Historical Perspectives on Orthodox Stewardship in America,” in Good and Faithful Servant: Stewardship in the Orthodox Church, ed. Anthony Scott (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 124 509 Ibid., 125. 510 See above, p. 122.

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mission.”511 In this statement, Erickson is absolutely correct, but the crisis dates from Mayfield. One other point can be made here. Erickson would like to date similar attitudes in other jurisdictions to parallel events which resulted in similar losses of faith in their hierarchy over material concerns.512 The Mayfield Sobor shows that this is not a viable position. The Russian church was the only one which even had a number of parishes which were owned by the diocese. Nevertheless, it was unable to solidify hierarchical authority over church matters at Mayfield. I have shown how many parishes at the time, notably Greek ones, refused to recognize any authority exercised by the Russian Church, the only hierarchy on American soil. Also seen was the separation of a number of groups from the original diocese: Serbs, Arabs, and Ukrainians. When all of these other groups acquired hierarchy, none of them ceded any authority over material goods to the clergy or hierarchs. They did not wait for decades until their own hierarchy committed a faux pas to have a crisis of vision, they already had one. The Sobor touched upon one other issue which was a cornerstone of Tikhon’s understanding of the American church. In the same session in which diocesan incorporation failed, the Sobor named the diocese officially. It first proclaimed that the “North American Orthodox church knows itself to be fully ‘the Holy Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church,’ and that it incorporates in itself all nations, languages and the whole universe as the first founded Orthodox Church in America.” The Sobor then decided that the official title of the church would be the “Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America, under the ecclesial jurisdiction of the Russian Church.”513 The inclusion of all nations and languages is clearly Tikhon’s doing. The Sobor endorsed his interest in all Orthodox both in this statement and in decisions made in the fourth session on Friday morning. That session was devoted to liturgical practices and their regulation. Some of the clergy present wanted everyone to conform to Russian usage. However, Tikhon again stated that variants in practices among the different national groups were natural and acceptable, “as long as they did not harm the essentials of the faith.” The Sobor officially endorsed this policy, opening the door to all Orthodox in America.514 This 511

Erickson, “Generosity,” 126. Ibid., 126–128. 513 “Proceedings of the first Sobor,” 82. 514 Ibid., 86. 512

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was to become a meaningless statement, however. As history shows, Archbishop Tikhon’s care in making all Orthodox feel welcome, secure, and united in the diocese bore as little fruit as the other aspects of his vision, as the ensuing decades saw the breakup of American Orthodoxy. The Mayfield Sobor failed to curb congregationalism. In doing so, it failed to break a pattern of parochial isolationism and independence. It failed to place the American church on a sound financial basis. Finally, it failed to promote the unity of all Orthodox in America. The Sobor was a paradigm of American Orthodoxy: opportunity missed rather than realized. Its failure was due to the causes I have enumerated. First, many if not most of the participants had been involved in the Toth schism. Having come through battles with the Uniates and the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the laity would have to have very good reasons to place their trust, their property, and their money in the hands of another hierarchy. Second, the overbearing presence of the Convention of the Russian American Mutual Aid Society made itself felt from the outset. The Sobor depended upon the brotherhood organization for it to even take place; it was delayed a number of times until it could be paired with the fraternal convention. Uppermost in the mind of the lay delegates, at least, was their own convention business. The church council had originally been allotted three days for its business, after three days of brotherhood business; instead, it was squeezed into four brief sessions, for a total of seven hours. These sessions were held mainly in the evenings, after the delegates had already spent the whole day on brotherhood business.515 They were obviously in no mood to tackle the difficult problems of the church which needed serious discussion and resolution. Furthermore, I suspect that the tenor of the fraternal meetings carried over into the Sobor sessions. Each day was spent discussing and reinforcing lay authority in religious and charitable issues which were closely linked to the laity’s parish life at home. I think it unlikely that the delegates would easily switch gears in the evenings, yielding even a share of that authority to the hierarchy. Last, and most importantly, the Sobor itself was bereft of hierarchical authority. Tikhon had already received his transfer orders back to Russia. He was present merely as a lame-duck hierarch, since the locum tenens, Bishop Innocent of Alaska, was still on his way to New York. Tikhon 515

The last church council session was held on Friday morning; this was the last session before everyone went home.

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himself was apparently highly respected and loved by all, but his transfer overshadowed any personal influence he had. Perhaps the council delegates would have been willing to place their trust in him, but they were not about to place their trust in an as yet unknown successor. Although physically present, the hierarchy was already morally absent at this first and most crucial Sobor. It is pointless to speculate what might have happened had Tikhon remained in America, setting a precedent of permanency in the hierarchy from the outset. Given the perspicuity of his expressed vision for America, and the moral courage he later demonstrated as Patriarch of Moscow, I suspect that events would have taken a different turn. A loose parallel to the tenure of Archbishop Tikhon can be found in that of Archbishop John Carroll, the first Roman Catholic bishop in America. A comparison of the early years of the Catholic Church to those of the Orthodox Church will shed a little light on the situation of American Orthodoxy. John Carroll was a man who believed in and supported the republicanism of the American Revolution.516 This, plus the fact that the Carroll family was part of the landed gentry of Maryland, placed them in the same circles as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the other leaders of the new republic. Whether one liked or disliked John Carroll, he was a force to be reckoned with. Carroll needed every ounce of his standing as a founding father of the country and his known acceptance of the pluralism of the new American society to enable him to overcome the anti-Catholic sentiment of both his Protestant neighbors and the Protestant-based laws regarding religion. While he did not have to deal with the strong tradition of brotherhoods and lay organization that Tikhon did, he had to deal with an inimical civil authority.517 To a great extent, state laws favored a congregationalist governance of religious bodies, and Catholic hierarchical structure was considered illegal in most states in Carroll’s time. Nevertheless, he was able to overcome these difficulties mainly through his personal influence. 516

For an overall study of Carroll and the early history of the American Roman Catholic Church, I found two works to be valuable: James Hennesey, American Catholics: A History of the Roman Catholic Community in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); and Thomas W. Spalding, The Premier See: A History of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, 1789–1989 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). 517 Most of the colonies had established churches. The last state church was not disestablished until 1831, in Massachusetts. Counelis, “Holy American Church,” 7.

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During his administration, and through the decades which followed, civil law drew more and more definitively the line which separated church and state. This line forbade the civil courts from interfering in or setting policy for any religion, including the Catholics, even if the legislators or judges themselves carried a pro-Protestant or anti-Catholic bias. Tikhon did not have the position in American society that Carroll had, but he did not need it as badly. By the late 1800s, American civil law had already recognized the acceptability of a hierarchically based church. Court decisions over Uniate and Orthodox church properties were based on precedents set by similar Roman Catholic cases in the previous century. The American courts essentially recognized that they needed to stay out of questions of religion, and that they had no right to necessarily favor either trustees or hierarchy according to their (the courts’) personal beliefs. Rather, in the Catholic cases the courts had come to treat religious bodies as voluntary, closed societies, over whose rules and regulations the courts had no say unless they blatantly violated civil law. Otherwise, if persons declared themselves members of a church, the courts held that they thereby accepted all the rules and regulations governing that church. So, if a church’s rules stated that the church was hierarchically governed and that all property of the Church was administered by the bishop or his representative, as the Catholic Church does, then all members of the Catholic Church must abide by that type of governance. By Tikhon’s time, therefore, civil court cases over parish property and other issues centered on merely determining to what religious body the parish belonged. The courts almost invariably ruled in favor of the side which was following the rules of that religious body. The appointment in 1784 of John Carroll by Rome as the first Superior of the Catholic Church in America had positive ramifications which were, perhaps, only vaguely understood at the time. Carroll and the American clergy had insisted on the appointment of an American to that post. Rome had agreed, and for its own reasons appointed Carroll instead of John Lewis, who had been the Americans’ choice. Five years later, Carroll was elected by the American clergy as their first bishop by a vote of 24-2, the only such election in America ever permitted by Rome. This appointment set a precedent of permanence in the American Catholic Church which underlay all future developments. The clergy, monastics, religious, and especially the hierarchy who came to America or were sent here were here to stay. Rome might have occasionally viewed American episcopal sees as stepping stones to future European appointments. Various

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European churches might have felt they had a right to interfere in the American church. John Carroll did not see things this way, nor did the majority of the Catholic leadership in those crucial early years. Some bishops after Carroll were sent from Europe, mostly due to a lack of candidates in America. Few, however, were transient. Jean Cheverus, who had immigrated to America in 1796,518 was named first bishop of Boston in 1808. A very able hierarch, he was recalled to France in 1823 for eventual promotion to archbishop.519 Patrick Kelly of Ireland was named in 1820 to the new diocese of Richmond, Virginia, over the objections of Ambrose Marechal, Carroll’s successor.520 He was recalled to Ireland a year later, basically because of his lack of ability.521 These were the great exceptions to the rule. The vast majority of American hierarchs were permanently settled here. This created a tremendous sense of stability for the Catholic Church. It was able to weather a number of storms and controversies because of that stability. Ethnic schisms and battles with lay trustees in the Philadelphia diocese may have hastened Bishop Michael Egan’s death there in 1810, but could not break up the church. The term of his successor, Bishop Henry Conwell, is called “catastrophic” by Hennesey,522 but the Catholic Church continued to grow. The New York diocese verged on bankruptcy in 1815, but survived without reverting to selling off church property.523 The initial establishment, through John Carroll’s efforts, of a permanent, united hierarchical structure enabled the Catholic Church to deal with problems and issues as they arose without being overcome or divided by them. Through his political beliefs, Carroll had come to recognize that the laity had to be an integral, involved part of the Church community. He believed that they should share in the governance of the church, much as they shared in the governance of the country. For this reason, he favored trusteeism as a proper mode of parish governance. His embrace of trusteeism was also influenced by his desire to minimize the differences of Catholicism vis-à-vis his Protestant neighbors. Carroll was the first American assimilationist, not so much in terms of ethnicity as of general 518

Spalding, 23. Hennesey, 90. 520 Spalding, 83. 521 Ibid., 93. 522 Hennesey, 90. 523 Hennesey, 91. 519

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outward appearance. He needed Catholicism to be acceptable to the Protestant majority. Therefore, he tried to make the Catholic Church look as much as possible like a Protestant one. This similarity included the type of parish governance.524 Carroll’s experience with parish trustees was different, however, from that of Tikhon’s. It was even different from that of his own successors. He mostly dealt with trustees in his own state of Maryland. The regulations governing qualifications for trusteeship essentially restricted board seats to members of Maryland’s Catholic aristocracy, the landed gentry who were Carroll’s own social class. Carroll’s rapport with these trustees was, therefore, based on similarity of background, philosophical outlook, and friendship. He was able to take a laissez faire attitude toward parish governance for the most part. Even so, he took an active role on the board of trustees of the Baltimore cathedral (the incorporation stipulated that the bishop was ex officio president of the board and the senior pastor was vicepresident) ensuring that its decisions were basically in line with his own thoughts.525 Also, he was not above taking control of trustee boards when necessary.526 It would be farfetched to say, as some do, that Carroll himself ever abandoned trusteeism, although it seems that toward the end of his career he was already beginning to have some major concerns about it. As a political federalist, he, like Washington and Adams, came to believe that pure Jeffersonian democracy was not conducive to order, stability, or growth, either in the country or in the church. It seems, therefore, that he began to favor a stronger, more centralized authority in the church, while continuing to encourage lay participation in church government.527 Carroll’s successors had neither his personal influence nor his rapport with lay church leadership. The Catholic gentry began to fade in their importance in the church, and lay leadership was being made up more and 524

Spalding, 59–63. Spalding, 28. 526 See Spalding, 36–40, where he discusses the Corporation of Roman Catholic Clergy in Maryland. To resolve major problems, Carroll took over control of the board in 1801. 527 His ongoing difficulties with the trustees of St John’s, the German parish in Baltimore, highlight Carroll’s federalist stance. Although he had originally sided with the trustees in 1802–1804 in a dispute, by 1814 he would refer to the pastor’s “painful situation with respect to his Jacobinised Trustees.” Quoted in Spalding, 33. 525

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more of immigrants and middle class people. The hierarchy and lay leaders no longer had the commonalities of language, political outlook, and philosophy that Carroll’s generation had enjoyed, and the ensuing clashes between the two were one fruit of that lack. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, a series of these clashes, some culminating in civil court cases, led the Roman Catholic hierarchy to abolish the trustee system. As I noted above, official legislation that required all property ownership and all authority be in the hands of the hierarchy was first passed at the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866.528 This placed the Catholic Church in a strictly hierarchical mode of governance. Archbishop Tikhon brought to America the ideals of sobornost’ then prevalent in Russia. These ideals were in turn heavily influenced by the republicanism which was then sweeping Europe via French revolutionary political thought. Tikhon, like Carroll, believed that every person had both the right and the responsibility to actively participate in the life and governance of the church. In America, Tikhon found a situation where this was actually happening, where the laity was taking charge, was highly active and involved in parish life. He recognized this fact and even promoted this different situation as a positive thing in his reports back to Russia. However, like Carroll, Tikhon realized that a stronger central authority was necessary for the unity and growth of the American church, and he realized that permitting an unchecked congregationalism would not be conducive to that unity. Congregationalism was not sobornost’. The initial stability of the American episcopacy was a tremendous positive factor for the Catholic Church. Another major plus was the fact that neither Carroll nor his successors had to deal with anything like the Toth schism. They never had a majority of laity who had come into the Catholic Church from elsewhere, winning their right to worship in virtual battle. Carroll had to deal with many upheavals, but he never had to deal with the kind of “winner take all” mentality that the Toth schism engendered for the Orthodox. Perhaps the biggest difference in outlook between Tikhon and Carroll was their outlook on ethnicity. Tikhon embraced the variations of the national churches, seeking to make all feel secure and welcome. Carroll disliked the variety, fought ethnicism, and tried to make the Catholic Church conform outwardly to an Anglo-American Protestant form. 528

See above, n. 428.

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Nevertheless, he accepted the existence of ethnic parishes for the good of the church as a whole, setting a precedent for American Catholicism. While he fought the establishment of separate ethnic dioceses (the German Catholic population was foremost in this quest), he was willing to allow and even support ethnic parishes.529 Carroll and the Catholic hierarchy fought ethnicism and to varying degrees promoted assimilation into the American mainstream. Tikhon promoted the maintenance of national differences, even creating dioceses for them. Interestingly, the Catholic Church experienced only one lasting schism based on ethnicity.530 I have already discussed Orthodoxy’s experience. The Catholic Church had a strong, unified authority. Orthodoxy had congregationalism.

CONCLUSIONS Orthodox theological tradition does not allow for a congregationalist structure, and yet American Orthodoxy has permitted this structure to become the primary mode of parish establishment and existence. The authority structure of the church as a whole developed as it did largely because of the church’s self-understanding as being both one and catholic. The unity of authority derives from the unity of the church, the Body of Christ. That unity of authority, in turn, also ensures the ongoing unity of the body. The laying on of hands which marks the episcopacy and other orders is the visible sign that specific persons have been chosen by the 529 V. J. Fecher gives a very detailed study of the two German communities that Carroll had to deal with, in Philadelphia and Baltimore, in A Study of the Movement For German National Parishes in Philadelphia and Baltimore (1787–1802), Analecta Gregoriana no. 77 (Rome: Gregorian Pontifical University, 1954). See especially his conclusions regarding Carroll’s attitude toward ethnicism and his overall concerns (225–241, 252–253). Fecher also concludes that Carroll was not in favor of establishing ethnic parishes, but was willing to do what was necessary for the good of church. A brief expose of developments in the German nationality movement in the late 1800s can be found in Colman J. Barry, “German Catholics and the Nationality Controversy,” in Catholicism in America, ed. Philip Gleason (New York: Harper, 1970), 65–80. 530 That schism, the Polish National Catholic Church, did not happen until 1897, when the Catholic Church was already well-established. It was comparatively minor in terms of population and overall effect upon the American Catholic Church. Besides, it received support from the dogmatic difficulties over Vatican I. Hennesey devotes only one paragraph to the entire movement (209).

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whole church to embody and pass on the unity of the Body of Christ. Their communion, and the communion of the unordained with them, is the foundation and guarantee that the Body is one, in faith and in practice. That oneness, in turn, is the guarantee that the church is truly whole, that is, catholic. This wholeness is a wholeness of faith—that is, the church believes in and proclaims the whole truth—and of lived experience—that is, the past, present, and future church are all one. The Body of Christ is, therefore, not just one body, but a whole body. In the language of the Pauline model of the Body of Christ, the church is not missing an eye or a foot, in which case it would be one, but not whole. Rather, it is both one and whole. The modified congregationalism of American Orthodoxy stems from an understanding of church which assumes that the ordained are somehow separated from the unordained in a manner which divides the whole. This division becomes an acceptable motif in church structure, creating two separate streams of authority; one stream is that of the ordained, and one is that of the unordained. Each stream has its own sphere of authority which is essentially exclusive to itself. Each sphere supposedly derives its ultimate authority from the Body of Christ. Within Orthodox tradition, however, this amounts to a division within the body. In this separation, each side denies that it needs the other side in order to fulfill its function. Specifically, congregationalism in the Orthodox Church means that the ordained do not require the unordained in order to fulfill their spiritual function, and the unordained do not require the ordained in order to fulfill their material function. Again in reference to St. Paul, this would be to say that the eye can tell the foot, “I do not need you” and the foot can tell the eye, “I do not need you.” This is rigorously denied in the understanding of the church, regardless of what ecclesiological school one belongs to. Makarii Bulgakov explicitly noted that neither estate can exist without the other. Afanassieff, considered by so many to have minimized hierarchical authority, denied the laity an authority separate from the ordained hierarchy. Trembelas was very concerned with the “spiritual priesthood” of the laity, but did not make of that a sphere of authority for the laity which would be divided from hierarchical authority. If what has been demonstrated is true, then an exclusive lay “authority” over material affairs in a congregationalist manner cannot derive from the authority of the whole church. In no place has the church ever acknowledged two separate streams of authority, mutually exclusive,

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both emanating from the one Lord. Rather, the church has maintained that the authority given it by Jesus was given to the one, whole church, without exclusion of any one part of it. The laying on of hands in the mystery of orders is the sign that certain persons have been selected by the Church of Christ to exercise that one, single authority on behalf of the whole church in a real and practical way. The hierarchs who are selected are called to share the exercise of Christ’s authority in ways that are for the good of the church. No authority, however, can be separated from the ordained leadership of the church. This would ultimately render orders meaningless, since orders are fundamentally about the real sharing of the authority of Jesus Christ in the church. The source of lay authority over material goods, then, is not the true authority of the church, but merely the earthly coercive power of control. In the beginning of the American church, rarely was any reason given for the laity’s assumed right to control the parish. When controversies arose, especially between laity and hierarchy, the only rationale presented was that since the laity were the sole supporters of the parish, they had the right of governance in all aspects of parish life.531 This right originally extended to that of hiring and firing the pastor and thus control of the spiritual aspects of parish life as well as the material, although the laity eventually lost this portion of their power. The right of control over the parish was considered to have derived from Europe, where it was known in the West as jus patronatus or right of patronage.532 In theory, this did not exist in the East; at least it did not have a name. However, patronage rights existed everywhere in the imperial, feudal, and post-feudal church. If the state, or a feudal lord, or a wealthy man, donated land and built a church, then the donor’s right to maintain greater or lesser control of that church was often accepted, sometimes forcibly, sometimes not. In America, the people are the state, so the theory goes, and the people are the donors, and so the right of patronage belongs, mutatis mutandis, to the people. Michael Yuhasz, in the article cited above, says, These people built churches, rectories, schools for their own money and are supporting the priest financially. … In the Old-country if a Lord or 531 See, for instance, Michael Yuhasz, Sr, “Views of a Layman Concerning the Actions of the Apostolic Visitator,” ARV 7/04/1902, 2, in Slivka, 31–36. 532 See Wlasowsky, v. 1, 172–173, for instance.

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some person financially supported the church, became a Patron, he even had the right to have the priest of his choice appointed to a parish… In the land of the free it would be ridiculous to support and work for a cause without representation… Here the people finance all matters, consequently the people are the Patrons of each church, congregation.533

Trusteeism in this sense is no different from the control which civil authorities have attempted to exert over the church throughout the centuries where the church was the state religion. The state believed itself to have the right to control the church since the state supported the church. In its theology and in its canons, the church ordinarily has opposed such control. Where it has submitted to such control, such as eighteenth-century Russia, the results have not been good. The brotherhoods which so influenced the American church in its early years are now gone; most just died, some converted into more secular businesses. There are lay organizations today, of course. Many of these were born within the hierarchical structure or work under it. These include various youth groups, adult groups, and the like. In general they are not concerned with lay authority. Some lay organizations set themselves outside of the structure, or perhaps more accurately, face the structure. These organizations, such as Orthodox Christian Laity, are usually groups which are seeking some type of church reform. Their contribution to the church has been a matter of some debate. Metropolitan Maximos of Pittsburgh wrote the paper I already quoted; otherwise there seems to be a major effort on the part of the hierarchy to ignore them.534 In any case, these modern organizations do not have the goals or the impact on the church that the brotherhoods had in the early days. They certainly do not have the authority that the brotherhoods had. The Toth schism and those schisms which came afterward are also now a part of history. They are closed events, to a great extent, and only the lingering aftereffects remain. The discussion in Chapter Four focused on the impact that the Toth movement had upon congregationalism specifically, and so emphasized the negative aspects of that movement. The 533

Yuhasz, op. cit., 32–33. Metropolitan Maximos, “‘Para-Church’ Lay Organizations in the Light of Orthodox Ecclesiology.” 534

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positive value of the movement should be noted here. After all, had the Toth schism not occurred, it is very likely that three American jurisdictions—the OCA, the Carpatho-Russian, and the Ukrainian—would not even exist, or would be very truncated in size. The lived memory of those schisms has been fading away in recent years; it is to be hoped that the animosities between clergy and laity they engendered are also fading away. In order to see the minimized authority that Orthodox church hierarchy exercised over parishes during Orthodoxy’s formative years in America, it is necessary to step back from all the detail of jurisdictional establishments, disputes, and divisions. Looking at the broad flow of American Orthodox history, three different periods can be discerned, characterized by the type of hierarchical involvement in the life of the church. The first period started in the 1700s and ended in 1907 with the return of Tikhon Bellavin to Russia. In this period, there is only one Orthodox jurisdiction, only one hierarch or set of hierarchy on the entire continent. This is on the plus side—it would indicate the possibility of asserting a strong, unified hierarchical authority over all the Orthodox parishes. On the other hand, for most of this period, the hierarchy was virtually invisible for two major reasons: its relatively inaccessible location in Alaska and on the West Coast, and the temporary nature of hierarchical assignments. This latter reason was especially responsible for holding the jurisdiction in an ethnically Russian mode and preventing it from moving quickly enough into a “pan-American” mode. Most of the parishes formed during this period did so with little or no reference to any hierarchy, including the diocese of Alaska and North America, until they were already formed. The parishes were founded congregationally because there was no effective on-site presence of hierarchy at their founding. The second period of Orthodox history in America began in 1908 and lasted until about 1945; that is, the period from World War I through World War II inclusively. This period was characterized by multiple divisions and the establishment of multiple jurisdictions. In reading the histories of this period, one acquires a certain sense that laity and hierarchy have run amok, setting up new jurisdictions as fast as they can. The reasons for these new jurisdictions are various, including ethnic concerns, political divisions carried from Europe, and, most unfortunately, personal ambition. There is no problem with the visibility of the hierarchy during this period—

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they are all over the place. The end result is that hierarchical authority was greatly diluted. Parishes began to pick and choose which jurisdiction they wished to belong to; if they did not like that diocese, they picked another one. In the formation of all of these dioceses, the choice to belong rested with the parishes themselves. Often it was the parishes which took the initiative to set up the new jurisdiction, finding or electing their hierarch after the fact, just as they had done in establishing their parishes. As bishops played tug-of-war over parishes, their authority was reduced to what the parishes chose to yield. The end result was that the hierarchs of the various jurisdictions were able to wield little more authority over their parishes than the single diocese of the previous period. The third period is the post World War II era. To a great extent, the American church settled down. The great changes wrought by constant immigration were over. The majority of parishes were all established and reaching well into their second generation. A more stabilized church now existed, both on the hierarchical and the parochial levels. During this period, there has been more jurisdictional unity than in the past. Some old breaches have been healed, some jurisdictions merged, and there is closer cooperation between many jurisdictions. It is during this period that the hierarchies of the various jurisdictions have been able to reassert traditional church authority on the hierarchical level, as seen in the regulations discussed in chapter three. However, the congregationalist parish structure set in place in the first period and reinforced in the second has become untouchable. The moral absence of the hierarchy; the mistrust of authority and animosity between clergy and laity which came out of the Toth movement; the tradition of the brotherhoods: these three conditions were part of the foundation of the American Orthodox church. That foundation seems to have ensured the continued entrenchment of congregationalism on the parish level. The modified congregationalism of American Orthodoxy does not promote a unity which flows from an adherence to the one and only authority, Jesus Christ. Rather, it seeks to divide the church into separate pieces. Trusteeism’s foundation in control rather than in the mind of the church makes it not just valueless, but harmful, since it denies the true authority of the Body of Christ. In doing so, it not only fosters, but even requires, the separation of the clergy from the laity, each parish from each other parish, each parish from its diocese and jurisdiction. These

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separations, then, isolate each bit of the church so that they no longer seem to be living and acting as one Body, but as separate, partial bodies. Other ways that modern American Orthodoxy experiences division and isolation are much more frequently discussed than congregationalism. Topping the list of these other concerns are probably ethnicism and lack of evangelization. Besides these, parochial isolation and lack of financial or other interest in any cause or need above the parish level are frequent topics.535 Less frequently discussed, but often experienced, are the perennial contentiousness of parish boards, the lack of vision and overall leadership by pastors and lay leaders, the overall lack of spirituality among both clergy and laity, and the ever-growing chasm between the clergy and the laity.536 Hardly ever mentioned is the overall decline of Orthodox membership, a decline which has perhaps been ongoing since the end of World War II. All of these issues and many others which derive from these are, at their root, issues of division and isolationism. They express a basic lack of oneness in the lived experience of church. They also express a lack of the fullness of church in that same lived, real experience. All of them primarily affect the life of the church on the parish level. The question to be raised here, then, is whether there is a connection between parish congregationalism and these other concerns. Is there any connection at all between these different expressions of division and isolationism? If so, is the connection a causal one? That is, is the discontinuity in authority structure expressed by congregationalism so fundamental that it is a root cause of some or all of these other concerns? Or, is congregationalism perhaps just one with the other problems, all of them having their roots in a not-yet-identified but more radical cause of division? These questions cannot be answered here; nevertheless, they need to be answered. 535 Deep and abiding concern over especially the issues of ethnicity and multiple jurisdictionalism permeate the writings of John Meyendorff, together with others of his era. See, for instance, his Catholicity and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1983): 103–120. For a more recent selection, see Erickson, “Generosity,” 127–130. Evangelization is addressed, for example, in a privately published text, Ted Pisarchuk, Coworkers with Christ, Orthodox Evangelism: A Look at God’s Plan for Building the Church (Jacksonville, FL: n.p., n.d.) 536 The texts by Zencuch, McKibben, and Timiadias cited in Chapter One address these issues. For a very different lay perspective on them, see Tolly Kizilos, Tradition and Change: Concerns for Today’s Greek Orthodox Church of America (Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing, 2000).

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The claim made here that congregationalism is divisive, isolationist, and, therefore, harmful does not deny the laity’s responsibility to share in the true authority of the church. It merely denies that congregationalism can be a valid expression of that shared authority. However, American Orthodoxy already has within its theology and its lived experience a response to the disunity of congregationalism. This response, sobornost’ or conciliarity, is already a reality to a greater or lesser degree in all American jurisdictions at the supra-parish level. It is an authority structure which requires that all the People of God, ordained and unordained, participate in the authority of the church and the exercise of that authority as one, whole Body. All modern ecclesiology converges at this point. Conciliarity is at the heart of eucharistic ecclesiology, but even strict universalists find the council to be the highest expression of the authority and the mind of the church. The participation of each member of the church is not exactly the same, uniform, and undifferentiated. Each person is called to share in Christ’s authority to the degree and in the manner in which they have received God’s grace to do so. Sobornost’ is not the gathering of Afanassieff’s “amorphous mass” for the purpose of casting votes. It is not, as Afanassieff notes, a democracy. It is the gathering, the coming together, of the Body of Christ in unity and in wholeness. Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, a modern hesychast and theologian, is becoming well-known today in the West as his many works are being translated. His central theme is the Christian life as a life of being healed, made whole. The church is where this healing of person, of society, and of the world takes place. Within this context, he speaks briefly about church structure: We can say that the Church’s system of government is synodal. This should not be interpreted in the sense of democracy. Some say that the Church’s system of government is democratic. This is not so, because there is a distinction of gifts and ministries. The Church’s system of government is synodical, in the sense of hierarchy; that is to say, it is hierarchical.

After quoting St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:28, Metropolitan Hierotheos continues: Thus there is a hierarchy in the Church. Each person knows his gift, fulfills the service which God assigned, and all work together for the

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edifice of the Body of Christ. The image of the Body of Christ is very characteristic!537

It is in the recognition and acceptance of the differentiation of the Body that the Body’s unity and wholeness can be realized. Real conciliarity on a parish level could be the beginning of the healing of the divisiveness of congregationalism. Healing that divisiveness may be the condition without which Orthodoxy in America will not be able to address the challenges of a new century effectively.

537 Hierotheos Vlachos, Metropolitan of Nafpaktos, The Mind of the Orthodox Church, trans. Esther Williams (Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1998), 161.

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INDEX 185, 211, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 238, 240, 241, 246, 260, 263 bishop

Afanassieff, Nicholas, 15, 20, 21, 22, 33, 34, 68, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 242, 249, 251, 258 Aghiorgoussis, Maximos, Metropolitan of Pittsburgh, 5, 6, 81, 82, 136, 156, 157, 245, 251, 262 AHEPA, 217, 220, 261 Allen, Joseph, 4 American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese

as administrator, 42

brotherhood, 139, 147, 177, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211, 215, 220, 221, 234, 235, 244, 245, 247 Brotherhood, Lviv Dormition, 199, 200, 201, 203, 210 Bulgakov, Makarii, Metropolitan of Moscow (1879–1882), vi, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 69, 71, 72, 78, 242, 262 Carroll, John, Archbishop, 11, 223, 224, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241 catholic or catholicity. See fullness of the church chorbishop, 28, 29, 30 Chornock, Orestes, Metropolitan, 192, 194, 253 congregationalism, v, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 79, 81, 104, 131, 138, 143, 173, 184, 220, 223, 229, 233, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 244, 247, 248, 250

background, 92 bylaws and canons, 96 bylaws and hierarchy, 107, 108, 109, 110 bylaws and parishes, 124, 125, 126 history, 192, 193, 195

Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese background, 90, 91, 169 bylaws and canons, 95 bylaws and hierarchy, 104, 105, 106, 107 bylaws and parishes, 121, 122, 123, 124

Bellavin, Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow, 11, 56, 88, 136, 142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 153, 158, 164, 165, 166, 168, 231

232

AMERICAN ORTHODOXY AND PARISH CONGREGATIONALISM

definition, 2 in America, 85, 86 modified, 107, 121, 124, 128, 247 modified - definition, 3

Council of Moscow, 1917 Pre-Conciliar Commission, 224

Cyprian of Carthage, 10, 24, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 62, 63, 83, 255, 264 Demoglou, Alexander, Bishop, 89, 162, 170, 171, 172 diaspora, 90, 156, 158, 169, 171, 172 Dionysius of Alexandria, 27, 28, 31 Eastern Catholics. See Uniate Catholics ecclesiology eucharistic, 9, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 74, 76, 83, 249 universal, 9, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34, 61, 64, 66, 68

economia, 16 Erickson, John H., 12, 13, 21, 22, 24, 79, 80, 86, 230, 231, 232, 248, 256, 270 fullness of the church, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 37, 43, 48, 52, 60, 61, 63, 65, 68, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 103, 241, 248, 249 Greek Catholic Union, vi, 190, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211 Greek Orthodox Archdiocese background, 89 bylaws and canons, 95 bylaws and hierarchy, 100, 102, 103 bylaws and parishes, 118, 119, 121

history, 133, 134, 135, 145, 148, 149, 150, 153, 154, 155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 169, 170, 171, 172

Hawaweeny, Raphael, Saint, 91, 145, 225, 228 Hippolytus of Rome, 10, 26, 27, 49, 51, 260 Ignatius of Antioch, 5, 10, 26, 30, 31, 35, 36, 46, 48, 62, 63, 65, 68, 75, 76, 82, 260, 263, 268 Ireland, John, Archbishop of Minneapolis, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 188, 237, 264 Kedrovsky, John, 142, 143, 166, 221 kinotitos, 151, 216, 218, 219, 220 laity, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 23, 24, 38, 41, 47, 49, 50, 51, 54, 62, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 83, 84, 86, 94, 97, 100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 124, 128, 131, 133, 135, 136, 143, 144, 149, 162, 164, 168, 180, 181, 185, 186, 189, 191, 192, 196, 198, 202, 204, 207, 209, 211, 215, 220, 221, 224, 227, 228, 231, 234, 238, 240, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249 Latinization, 188, 189, 193 lay administration, 3, 54, 100, 210, 234, 243, 245 laying on of hands. See ordination Living Church, 141, 142, 143, 164, 166, 167, 221 local church

INDEX

definition, 24

McKibben, Michael, 5, 248, 263 Metaxakis, Meletios, Patriarch of Constantinople, 89, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 170, 171 Meyendorff, John, 6, 7, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 74, 156, 248, 254, 263 Mohila, Peter, Metropolitan, 58, 200, 204, 266 Nemolovsky, Alexander, Archbishop, 141, 142, 163, 166, 230, 231 oneness of the church, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 43, 48, 66, 67, 75, 76, 77, 79, 84, 241, 242, 247, 248, 249, 250 ordination, 9, 38, 46, 48, 61, 62, 65, 70, 71, 241, 243, Orthodox Church in America, 86, 226 background, 88 bylaws and canons, 95 bylaws and hierarchy, 98, 99 bylaws and parishes, 116, 117 history, 132, 134, 136, 167, 180, 183, 211, 224, 227, 233

patronage, right of, 244 presbyter as administrator, 19, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 45, 47, 49, 50, 62, 81, 82

priesthood, royal, 69, 76, 77 priesthood, sacramental, 69, 70, 71 Russian American Mutual Aid Society, 211, 234

233

Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), 87, 168 Sable, Thomas, 4, 144, 186, 187, 268 SCOBA, 86, 87, 253 Simon, Konstantin, 135, 137, 140, 144, 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190 slavophile movement, 59, 71, 72, 139 Sobor, Mayfield, 1907, 141, 158, 211, 224, 228, 231, 232, 233 sobornost’, 53, 63, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 227, 228, 240, 249, 255 Synod of Russia, Holy, 54, 59, 88, 147, 225 Taft, Robert, 27, 37, 39, 270 Teodorovich, John, Metropolitan, 93, 163 Timiadis, Emilianos, Metropolitan, 4, 5, 270, 271 topikos, 151, 216, 217, 218, 219 Toth, Alexis, Saint, 131, 135, 137, 139, 140, 141, 144, 145, 147, 152, 153, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 208, 209, 221, 233, 240, 245, 247, 260, 268, 269, 271 treasurer, 44, 45 Trembelas, Panagiotes, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76, 78, 242, 271 trusteeism. See congregationalism Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A.

234

AMERICAN ORTHODOXY AND PARISH CONGREGATIONALISM

background, 93, 94 bylaws and canons, 96 bylaws and hierarchy, 110, 112, 114 bylaws and parishes, 126, 127 history, 163

Uniate Catholics, 138, 139, 141, 144, 147, 148, 163, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191,

192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211 unity, mark of. See onesness of the church Zencuch, Stefan, 5, 248, 272 Zizioulas, John, Metropolitan, 28, 30, 34, 38, 39, 40, 66, 68, 79, 80, 263, 272, 273