The Orthodox Church

Western Orthodoxy

Let us look briefly at the Orthodox communities in western Europe and in North America. In 1922 the Greeks created an Exarchate for western Europe, with its center in London. The first Exarch, Metropolitan Germanos (1872-1951), was widely known for his work for Christian unity, and played a leading part in the Faith and Order Movement between the ‘wars. In 1963 this Exarchate was divided into four separate dioceses, with bishops at London, Paris, Bonn, and Vienna; further dioceses were later formed in Scandinavia and Belgium, and most recently of all (1982) in Switzerland. There are about 130 Greek parishes in western Europe with permanent churches and resident clergy, and in addition a number of smaller Church groups.

The chief centers of Russian Orthodoxy in western Europe are Munich and Paris. At Paris the celebrated Theological Institute of Saint Sergius (under the Paris jurisdiction of Russians), founded in 1925, has acted as an important point of contact between Orthodox and non-Orthodox. Particularly during the inter-war period, the Institute numbered among its professors an extraordinarily brilliant group of scholars. Those formerly or at present on the staff of Saint Sergius include Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944), the first Rector; Bishop Cassian (1892-1965), his successor; A. Kartashev (1875-1960), G.P. Fedotov (1886-1951), P. Evdokimov (1901-1970), Father Boris Bobrinskoy and the Frenchman, Olivier Clément. Three professors, Fathers Georges Florovsky, Alexander Schmemann, and John Meyendorff, moved to America, where they played a decisive role in the development of American Orthodoxy. A list of books and articles published by teachers at the Institute between 1925 and 1947 runs to ninety-two pages, and includes seventy full-scale books — a remarkable achievement, rivaled by the staffs of few theological academies (however large) in any Church. Saint Sergius is also noted for its choir, which has done much to revive the use of the ancient ecclesiastical chants of Russia. Almost entirely Russian between the two wars, the Institute now draws the majority of its students from other nationalities: in 1981, for example, of the thirty-four students, there were seven Russians (all except one brought up in France), seven Greeks, five Serbs, one Georgian, one Romanian, seven French, two Belgians, two from Africa, and one each from Holland and Israel. Courses are now mainly in French.

In western Europe during the post-war period there has also been an active group of Orthodox theologians belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, including Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958), Archbishop Basil (Krivocheine) of Brussels, Archbishop Alexis (van der Mensbrugghe) (1899-1980) and Archbishop Peter (l’Huillier) (now in the U.S.A.), the last two being converts to Orthodoxy. Another convert, the Frenchman Father Lev (Gillet) (1892-1980), a priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, wrote many books as “A Monk of the Eastern Church.”

Several Russian monasteries exist in Germany and France. The largest is the women’s monastery dedicated to the Lesna icon of the Mother of God, at Provemont in Normandy (Russian Church in Exile); there is a smaller monastery for women at Bussy-en-Othe, in Yonne (Russian Archdiocese of Western Europe). In Great Britain there is the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights, Essex (Ecumenical Patriarchate), founded by Archimandrite Sophrony, a disciple of Father Silvan of Mount Athos, with Russian, Greek, Romanian, German and Swiss monks, and with a women’s community nearby. There are also the Convent of the Annunciation in London (Russian Church in Exile), with a Russian abbess and Arab sisters, and a few smaller foundations elsewhere.

In North America there are between two and three million Orthodox, subdivided into at least fifteen national or jurisdictional groups, and with a total of more than forty bishops. Before the First World War the Orthodox of America, whatever their nationality, looked to the Russian Archbishop for leadership and pastoral care, since among the Orthodox nations it was the Russians who first established churches in the New World. Eight monks, chiefly from Valamo on Lake Ladoga, originally arrived in Alaska in 1794:one on these, Father Herman of Spruce Island, was canonized in 1970. The work in Alaska was greatly encouraged by Innocent Veniaminov, who worked in Alaska and Eastern Siberia from 1823 to 1868, first as a priest and then as bishop. He translated Saint Mathew’s Gospel, the Liturgy, and a catechism into Aleutian. In 1845 he created a seminary at Sitka in Alaska, and in 1859 an auxiliary bishopric was set up there, which became an independent missionary see when Alaska was sold to the U.S. in 1867. In Alaska today, out of a total population of 200,000, there are perhaps 20,000 Orthodox, most of whom are natives; the seminary was reopened in 1973.

Meanwhile in the second part of the nineteenth century, numbers of Orthodox began to settle outside Alaska in other parts of North America. In 1872 the diocese was transferred from Sitka to San Francisco, and in 1905 to New York, although an auxiliary bishop was still attached to Alaska. At the turn of the century, the number of Orthodox was greatly increased by a group of Uniate parishes which was reconciled to Orthodoxy. The future Patriarch Tikhon was Archbishop of North America for nine years (1898-1907). After 1917, when relations with the Church of Russia became confused, each national group formed itself into a separate organization and the present multiplicity of jurisdictions arose. Many see, in Moscow’s grant of autocephaly to the OCA, a hopeful first step towards the restoration of Orthodox unity in America.

The Greek Orthodox in North America number over one million, with more than 400 parishes. They are headed by Archbishop Jakovos, who presides over a synod of ten bishops (one lives in Canada, and another in South America). The Greek Theological School of the Holy Cross at Boston has some 110 students, most of them candidates for the priesthood. The bishops in the Greek Archdiocese in America have come in most cases from Greece, but almost all the parish clergy were born and brought up in the U.S.A. There are two or three small monasteries in the Greek Archdiocese; the much larger Monastery of the Transfiguration at Boston, Mass., originally under the Greeks, is now within the Russian Church in Exile.

The Russians have four theological seminaries in America: Saint Vladimir’s in New York and Saint Tikhon’s in South Canaan, Pennsylvania (both of these belong to the OCA); Holy Trinity Seminary at Jordanville, N.Y. (Russian Church in Exile); and Christ the Saviour Seminary in Johnstown, Pennsylvania (Carpatho-Russian diocese). There are several Russian monasteries, the largest being Holy Trinity, Jordanville, with thirty monks and ten novices. The monastery, as well as maintaining a seminary for theological students, has an active printing press, which produces liturgical books in Church Slavonic, and other books and periodicals in Russian or English. The monks also farm, and have built their own church, decorated by two members of the community with icons and frescoes in the best tradition of Russian religious art.

Orthodox life in America today displays a most encouraging vitality. New parishes are continually being formed and new churches built. In some places there is a shortage of priests, but whereas a generation ago Orthodox clergy in America were often ordained hastily, with little training, today in almost every jurisdiction most if not all ordinands have a theological degree. Orthodox theologians in America are few and often overworked, but their number is gradually increasing. Holy Cross and Saint Vladimir’s both produce substantial periodicals in the English language.

The chief problem which confronts American Orthodoxy is that of nationalism and its place in the life of the Church. Among members of many jurisdictions there is a strong feeling that the present subdivision into national groups is hindering both the internal development of Orthodoxy in America and its witness before the outside world. There is a danger that excessive nationalism will alienate the younger generation of Orthodox from the Church. This younger generation have known no country but America, their interests are American, their primary (often their only) language is English: will they not drift away from Orthodoxy, if their Church insists on worshipping in a foreign tongue, and acts as a repository for cultural relics of the “old country”?

Such is the problem, and many would say that there is only one ultimate solution: to form a single and autocephalous “American Orthodox Church.” This vision of an American autocephalous Church has its most ardent advocates in the OCA, which sees itself as the nucleus of such a Church, and among the Syrians. But there are others, especially among the Greeks, the Serbs, and the Russian Church in Exile, who view with reserve this emphasis upon American Orthodoxy. They are deeply conscious of the value of the Christian civilizations developed over many centuries by the Greek and Slavonic peoples, and they feel that it would be a disastrous impoverishment for the younger generation, if their Church were to sacrifice this great inheritance and to become completely “Americanized.” Yet can the good elements in the national traditions be preserved, without at the same time obscuring the universality of Orthodoxy?

Most of those who favor unification are of course alive to the importance of national traditions, and realize the dangers to which the Orthodox minority in America would be exposed if it cut itself off from its national roots and became immersed in the secularized culture of contemporary America. They feel that the best policy is for Orthodox parishes at present to be “bilingual,” holding services both in the language of the Mother Country and in English. In fact, this “bilingual” situation is now becoming usual in many parts of America. All jurisdictions in principle allow the use of the English language at services and in practice are coming to employ it more and more; English is particularly common in the OCA and the Syrian Archdiocese. For a long time the Greeks, anxious to preserve their Hellenic heritage as a living reality, insisted that the Greek language alone should be used at all services; but in the 1970s this situation changed, and in many parishes English is now employed almost as much as Greek.

Over the past few years there have been increasing signs of cooperation between national groups. In 1954 the Council of Eastern Orthodox Youth Leaders of America was formed, in which the majority of Orthodox youth organizations participate. Since 1960 a committee of Orthodox bishops, representing most (but not all) the national jurisdictions, has been meeting in New York under the presidency of the Greek Archbishop (this committee existed before the war, but had fallen into abeyance over many years). So far this committee, known as the “Standing Conference” or “SCOBA,” has not been able to contribute as much to Orthodox unity as was originally hoped. The grant of autocephaly to the OCA gave rise at the time to sharp controversy, and the underlying problems thus created remain as yet unsolved; but in practice inter-Orthodox collaboration still continues.
A small minority in an alien environment, the Orthodox of the diaspora have found it a hard task even to ensure their survival. But some of them, at any rate, realize that besides mere survival they have a wider task. If they really believe the Orthodox faith to be the true Catholic faith, they cannot cut themselves off from the non-Orthodox majority around them, but they have a duty to tell others what Orthodoxy is. They must bear witness before the world. The diaspora has a “missionary” vocation. As the Synod of the Russian Church in Exile said in its Letter of October 1953, Orthodox have been scattered across the world with God’s permission, so that they can “announce to all peoples the true Orthodox faith and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Christ” (This emphasis on the Second Coming will surprise many Christians of the present day, but it would not have seemed strange to Christians in the first century. The events of the last fifty years have led to a strong eschatological consciousness in many Russian Orthodox circles).

What does this mean for Orthodox? It does not of course imply proselytism in the bad sense. But it means that Orthodox — without sacrificing anything good in their national traditions — need to break away from a narrow and exclusive nationalism: they must be ready to present their faith to others, and must not behave as if it were something restricted to Greeks or Russians, and of no relevance to anybody else. They must rediscover the universality of Orthodoxy.

If Orthodox are to present their faith effectively to other people, two things are necessary. First, they need to understand their own faith better: thus the fact of the diaspora has forced Orthodox to examine themselves and to deepen their own Orthodoxy. Secondly, they need to understand the situation of those to whom they speak: Without abandoning their Orthodoxy, they must enter into the experience of other Christians, seeking to appreciate the distinctive outlook of western Christendom, its past history and present difficulties. They must take an active part in the intellectual and religious movements of the contemporary west — in Biblical research, in the Patristic revival, in the Liturgical Movement, in the movement towards Christian unity, in the many forms of Christian social action. They need to “be present” in these movements, making their special Orthodox contribution, and at the same time through their participation learning more about their own tradition.

It is normal to speak of “Eastern Orthodoxy.” But many Orthodox in Europe or America now regard themselves as citizens of the countries where they have settled; they and their children, born and brought up in the west, consider themselves not “eastern” but “western.” Thus a “Western Orthodoxy” has come into existence. Besides born Orthodox, this Western Orthodoxy includes a small but growing number of converts (almost a third of the clergy of the Syrian Archdiocese in America are converts). Most of these Western Orthodox use the Byzantine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom (the normal Communion Service of the Orthodox Church) in French, English, German, Dutch, Spanish, or Italian. There are, for example, a number of French and German Orthodox parishes, as well as (under the Patriarchate of Moscow) a Dutch Orthodox Mission — all of them following the Byzantine rite. But some Orthodox feel that Western Orthodoxy, to be truly itself, should use specifically western forms of prayer — not the Byzantine Liturgy, but the old Roman or Gallican Liturgies. People often talk about “the Orthodox Liturgy” when they mean the Byzantine Liturgy, as if that and that alone were Orthodox; but they should not forget that the ancient Liturgies of the west, dating back to the first ten centuries, also have their place in the fullness of Orthodoxy.

This conception of a western-rite Orthodoxy has not remained merely a theory. The Orthodox Church of the present day contains an equivalent to the Uniate movement in the Church of Rome. In 1937, when a group of former Old Catholics in France under Monsignor Louis-Charles Winnaert (1880-1937) were received into the Orthodox Church, they were allowed to retain the use of the western rite. This group was originally in the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, and was for many years headed by Bishop Jean de S. Denys (Evgraph Kovalevsky) (1905-1970). At present it is under the Church of Romania. There are several small western-rite Orthodox groups in the U.S.A. Various experimental Orders of the Mass for use by western-rite Orthodox have been drawn up, in particular by Archbishop Alexis (van der Mensbrugghe).
In the past the different autocephalous Churches — often through no fault of their own — have been too much isolated from one another. At times the only formal contact has been the regular exchange of letters between the heads of Churches. Today this isolation still continues, but both in the diaspora and in the older Orthodox Churches there is a growing desire for cooperation. Orthodox participation in the World Council of Churches has played its part here: at the great gatherings of the “Ecumenical Movement,” the Orthodox delegates from different autocephalous Churches have found themselves ill-prepared to speak with a united voice. Why, they have asked, does it require the World Council of Churches to bring us Orthodox together? Why do we ourselves never meet to discuss our common problems? The urgent need for cooperation is also felt by many Orthodox youth movements, particularly in the diaspora. Valuable work has been done here by Syndesmos, an international organization founded in 1953, in which Orthodox youth groups of many different countries collaborate.

In the attempts at cooperation a leading part is naturally played by the senior hierarch of the Orthodox Church, the Ecumenical Patriarch. After the First World War the Patriarchate of Constantinople contemplated gathering a “Great Council” of the whole Orthodox Church, and as a first step towards this, plans were made for a “Pro-Synod” which was to prepare the agenda for the Council. A preliminary Inter-Orthodox Committee met on Mount Athos in 1930, but the Pro-Synod itself never materialized, largely owing to obstruction from the Turkish government. Around 1950 the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras revived the idea, and after repeated postponements a “Pan-Orthodox Conference” eventually met at Rhodes in September 1961. Further Pan-Orthodox Conferences have met at Rhodes (1963, 1964) and Geneva (1968, 1976, 1982). The chief items on the agenda of the “Great Council,” when and if it eventually meets, will probably be the problems of Orthodox disunity in the west, the relations of Orthodoxy with other Christian Churches (“ecumenism”), and the application of Orthodox moral teaching in the modern world.