Unity in America

[All4Christ]

Bishops tend to be averse to starting parishes in situations where there is money but no people, because that means you're depending on one family, generally, and what if something happens to that family?

Are there traveling priests for areas with small groups of Orthodox Christians?

 

[gzt]

That's a hard way to make a living.

 

[rusmeister]

My feeble two cents.....

This is utterly ridiculous. Look throughout history at how churches were planted in new lands, grew to great numbers through the grace of God, then were granted autocephaly, etc. History shows a complicated situation in some of these places where there were several ethnic Orthodox cultural groups in one area that ended up falling under one jurisdiction.

America needs an American Orthodox Church, not a hodge-podge salad bar of overlapping cultural churches. Orthodoxy gets a bad rap from many folks (Catholics love to play this card) for being "ethnic." And to some degree they deserve it. We need not only the perception of unity to potential converts, but the REALITY of unity for one another. We need a strong North American or just plain American patriarch and there are many wonderful men qualified for the task---Bishop Maxim of my Serb church is my first choice as draft pick!

We need to stop breaking our own canonical boundaries and rules overlapping for the sake of keeping cultural heritage alive.

The reasons I think this nonsense continues is pretty much two-fold. For one thing, the United States is a sinful, secular humanist, collapsing, vulture capitalist going socialist, confused, lost land of people. Perhaps the patriarchs in the old countries feel keeping the parishes and dioceses tied to the old country churches that still have a sense of morality will keep a better example and more hope? I don't know, but I don't think it matters much there. Secondly, good old fashioned human ethno-centrism. These Serbs, Russians, Bulgarians, Antiocheans, and such all want to keep a foothold and influence of their culture.

America has its own saints now that are titans!---St. Herman of Alaska, St. John of San Francisco, the new saint of my Serb jurisdiction---St. Sebastian of Jackson, etc.

We have our own heroes, we have awesome clergy here with huge potential to lead, and we have good parishioners ready to follow. We have amazing institutions like St. Vlad's Seminary and other amazing ones, and there is just too much potential to throw this away.

But where human beings are involved, ugh.....

Ok, end of my rant.

My best internet friend is a gracious man who, when I first met him ten years ago, was an Anglican who had decided to leave his Church. I supported him towards Orthodoxy, but in the end, he and his wife went to Rome, and ethnic division in the US had a lot to do with it.

Administrative unity matters.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Are there traveling priests for areas with small groups of Orthodox Christians?

Our diocese has a traveling priest. The man posts on FB several times a week ... Florida, Georgia, Greece, Fiji ... But it seems they send him to established Churches. He is a traveling Confessor, and Church-planter.

I have heard of small gatherings where a priest visits once a month or so. Once they reach a certain level of organization.

 

[~Anastasia~]

There is a simple means by which this can be overcome. Simple, but by no means easy. Who will do it?

I wonder the solution you suggest?

Usually the priests suggest contacting the closest priest and/or bishop whose jurisdiction they would be under, beginning to have reader services, catechizing long-distance, traveling to visit Church if only a few times a year, getting other families involved, eventually having a priest visit for periodic services, and hopefully, eventually, getting enough people together to begin a mission parish.

Or people decide to move. (Or give up, unfortunately.)

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

And the way the Catholic Church is, hell would freeze over before I'd return to her. I'd go Anglican if I had to leave the Orthodox Church. I just hope it never comes to that. This Pope and this CC are a train wreck.

My best internet friend is a gracious man who, when I first met him ten years ago, was an Anglican who had decided to leave his Church. I supported him towards Orthodoxy, but in the end, he and his wife went to Rome, and ethnic division in the US had a lot to do with it.

Administrative unity matters.

 

[GregConstantine]

If they want to keep the status quo, they are going to absolutely have to change how some things are done by changing/fixing the following 3 things:

1) Have some agreement amongst the bishops of the various jurisdictions that a lay person cannot run away from one bishop in one jurisdiction to another when he/she doesn't like what he/she was told by the first bishop or priest. For example, if a couple wants to get married, but the priest in their parish says no for whatever reason, they cannot go find another parish and try to get married there. People do this. Another example, I had a student in an OCF chapter who was very disobedient to our parish priest. He tried to get the chapter to accept homosexuality as normal. He was told he was not going to be chrismated at our parish. He ran to another local parish in a different jurisdiction and got chrismated there. These kinds of things have to stop. If you're not going to have a unified jurisdiction in America, then they need to find a way to stop these things from happening.

2) Pan Orthodox ministries are a nice idea, but practically, it doesn't work. My solution would be to assign various jurisdictions to be in charge of one or two national ministry. For example, (this is just an example, not the actual solution) Antiochians will be in charge of OCF, OCA will be in charge of FOCUS, GOA will be in charge of IOCC, etc. That way, there is only one bishop overseeing these ministries, and only one jurisdiction overseeing these ministries. Now of course, all members of all canonical jurisdictions can participate in these ministries, but only one jurisdiction will have oversight.

3) Get rid of the ethnic labels on our parishes. Instead of naming a parish "St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church" name it "St Nicholas Orthodox Christian Church". On the bulletin, or perhaps in small letters on the sign outside, you can put "a parish of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America". We need to move away from this silliness. This is 21 century America, not 1890 something with loads of immigrants coming off the boats at Ellis Island. Doing this name change will in no way change the ethnic make up of the parish, nor should it, but, we need to move away from identifying Orthodoxy primarily by ethnicity. It would be wise to remember the Epistle reading from yesterday's Divine Liturgy where Saint Paul tells us that "it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me."

 

[ArmyMatt]

My best internet friend is a gracious man who, when I first met him ten years ago, was an Anglican who had decided to leave his Church. I supported him towards Orthodoxy, but in the end, he and his wife went to Rome, and ethnic division in the US had a lot to do with it.

Administrative unity matters.

while your last point is true, that is a shallow reason for not joining the Church

 

[GregConstantine]

"that is a shallow reason for not joining the Church"

perhaps, but understandable.

 

[All4Christ]

"that is a shallow reason for not joining the Church"

perhaps, but understandable.

Agreed. My journey would have been much more difficult if I hadn't found an Orthodox Church that is relatively non-ethnic...and more importantly has services fully in English.

 

[All4Christ]

while your last point is true, that is a shallow reason for not joining the Church

If I remember correctly, you also were blessed enough to find an English speaking church, and also were introduced to Orthodoxy by someone who reached out to non-Orthodox at a secular location. If you had not met that person, and were in a location where there were not English speaking services at a very ethnic church, would it be possible that you would have made a different choice - or at least have taken longer to come to Orthodoxy? I believe that eventually, God would have opened a door for me to find Orthodoxy even if I wasn't in the location that allowed me to be at an English-speaking non-ethnic parish...but it would have been a LOT harder.

 

[gzt]

I think one of the important things to realize is that there's some push-pull here. A diocese really does not like closing missions, so it is not happy about starting a mission unless it's somewhat set up for success. Supply priests to help seed missions are great, but those also cost money (I mean, preacher man's gotta eat), and who's going to pay? The supply priest doesn't have a parish! In the OCA, a lot of places have "mission planting grants", which really do wonders for getting a new parish from "struggling existing mission" to "self-sustaining parish". It's more effective to put your money there.

 

[All4Christ]

I think one of the important things to realize is that there's some push-pull here. A diocese really does not like closing missions, so it is not happy about starting a mission unless it's somewhat set up for success. Supply priests to help seed missions are great, but those also cost money (I mean, preacher man's gotta eat), and who's going to pay? The supply priest doesn't have a parish! In the OCA, a lot of places have "mission planting grants", which really do wonders for getting a new parish from "struggling existing mission" to "self-sustaining parish". It's more effective to put your money there.

Those grants really helped us when we were a mission parish...

 

[MrJim]

I've never experienced the "ethnic" Orthodox Church...people here are from everywhere~even Copts IIRC...and easily the most ethnically/racially diverse congregation I've ever visited...but figure this must be the minority I guess?

 

[gzt]

It really depends on where you are. If your city is diverse but not diverse enough to support a TON of parishes, then each parish (if more than one) might have a "United Nations" feel. If your city isn't diverse but has some random big, say, new Arab population, you might have just one ethnic parish (with a handful on non-ethnic people). If your city is large and diverse and has a large enough Orthodox population, you might have a wide range of parishes, with a bunch of ethnic ones of a variety of ethnicities and then a bunch of mixed ones. Because people can self-select. I mean, if you have a bunch of new Russian immigrants, a bunch of new Romanian immigrants, and a bunch of English parishes that are already doing fine, you might as well have a Russian-language parish and a Romanian-language parish.

 

[ArmyMatt]

perhaps, but understandable.

no doubt. just saying

 

[ArmyMatt]

If I remember correctly, you also were blessed enough to find an English speaking church, and also were introduced to Orthodoxy by someone who reached out to non-Orthodox at a secular location. If you had not met that person, and were in a location where there were not English speaking services at a very ethnic church, would it be possible that you would have made a different choice - or at least have taken longer to come to Orthodoxy? I believe that eventually, God would have opened a door for me to find Orthodoxy even if I wasn't in the location that allowed me to be at an English-speaking non-ethnic parish...but it would have been a LOT harder.

totally possible that I might have taken me longer. but at the time, I was searching for Truth, and was talking to folks even if there was a language barrier (like Islam). so while I was blessed beyond measure when I converted (the preacher, the amazing parish in State College, and having friends like jckstraw), if we seek out Christ before all else, the ethnic jurisdictional mess would not matter in the long run I don't think.

 

[All4Christ]

totally possible that I might have taken me longer. but at the time, I was searching for Truth, and was talking to folks even if there was a language barrier (like Islam). so while I was blessed beyond measure when I converted (the preacher, the amazing parish in State College, and having friends like jckstraw), if we seek out Christ before all else, the ethnic jurisdictional mess would not matter in the long run I don't think.

I also believe I would have eventually found Orthodoxy since I was searching for truth, but coming from an Evangelical background, I think I likely would have had steps towards Orthodoxy if I didn't have an English speaking (at least partially English) parish around. I probably would have become Anglican first...then Catholic and eventually Orthodox when I realized that the others didn't have the fullness of truth.

My priest says that sometimes people make the wrong decision for the right reason. I pray that those who made the wrong decision keep feeling the tug of God to find the fullness of faith.

 

[buzuxi02]

Having difficulty finding the truth will always be hard in a pluralistic society. This country was built on protestantism whose very existence is built on the foundation of confusing people with competing forms and beliefs.

Its not that Orthodoxy has many overlapping synods that makes it confusing, its that there is too many competitors that does, which is expected in western 'freedon of religion' , multicultural model.
I peak inside some of these forums and they seem to know full well the differences between 50 different Baptist sects, go to the Anglican and Lutheran room and most seem to know what clergy heads the various acronyms of their sects and which is liberal and which is conservative and which is semi traditional etc..
Its easier for us because the various acronyms does not equate to a different faith but the same faith in its universal form; Greek, Russian, Romanian, Arabic, English, Albanian, etc.

 

[St Herman's Ghost]

Interesting, this goes a long with a book I'm currently trying to put together about exploring a genuine and genuinely American Orthodox tradition in America. I mean we've actually had a long history here and I think organizing one giant American Orthodox Church could only benefit brethren and sisteren in the US.

I would argue that despite ethnic differences there is still a universal tradition and life that unites us all as both Orthodox and Americans. I mean if there was one church then little mission parishes like mine would have even more resources to grow and thrive.