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The strong feeling of patriotism characteristic of the Local Orthodox Churches has frequently brought them into collision with each other. Hence arose the Coutsovlach question previously referred to, the Panslavist intrigues in Palestine and elsewhere, and the long, bloody strife caused by Balkan rivalry during the years of Turkish misrule, when religion was used as a pretext for the creation of extension of political rights. All these quarrels are distressing to the Orthodox heart; but none more so than the irregular way in which the Church of Bulgaria sought her emancipation from the Patriarchate, whose protection she had enjoyed in more troubled times. It was only natural that the liberation of Greece, Serbia and Rumania from the Turkish yoke should fan the flame of Bulgarian independence. But whereas the other Balkan peoples had first gained their political freedom, and had then acquired their ecclesiastical independence, the Bulgarians reversed the process, and pursued ecclesiastical independence with terrorism and dynamite as a means towards political conquests. Although one of the main principles of Canon Law is that two Orthodox Church leaders of equal rank shall never exist side by side in the same place, in 1870, by the authority of a Turkish fireman, the Bulgarians deliberately set up a Bulgarian Exarchate in Constantinople, as the supreme head of the Bulgarian nation and the rival and equal of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Patriarchate proceeded to make every possible concession. It permitted the use of the Bulgarian tongue in all the schools in Bulgaria; it sent Bulgarian bishops to Bulgaria; and it accepted the establishment of a Bulgarian Exarchate exclusively for the Bulgarian nation, with the sole reservation that it should commemorate in public worship the name of the Patriarch. But the Bulgarians would accept no compromise. With their eye on Macedonia and Thrace, they dreamt of a great Bulgarian Empire extending as far as the Aegean and the Adriatic, and incorporating a mixed population of Greeks, Serbs, Albanians and Vlachs, with its capital at Constantinople. They demanded that they and their Exarchate should rule not only in purely Bulgarian regions, but in mixed and foreign territory as well, so that by means of their comitadjis they might stamp the whole of the Balkans with a Bulgarian impression and thus prepare the way for the new cosmogony that was approaching. It was impossible for the Mother-Church to accept such a situation. Summoning, therefore, to Constantinople in 1872 a Great Synod of fifty members under the chairmanship of the Patriarch Anthimus VI, she excommunicated the Bulgarians for causing a schism in the ecclesiastical body of Orthodoxy by their subservience to political interests, a proceeding not consonant with the Gospel. Thenceforward, the relations between the Patriarchate and the Bulgarian Exarchate became strained. The entire blame does not however, rest only with Bulgaria; for, behind her, Russian Pan-Slavism lay concealed, scheming to make Bulgaria a bridge towards the conquest of Constantinople and the Rus-sianisation of the Balkans. The recent Great War has put an end to Russian ambitions. Bulgaria is now an independent kingdom within its natural boundaries. The new Balkan world has been created, and Macedonia definitely portioned out. There is no doubt that, since the causes of friction have now been removed, the relations between Bulgaria and the Patriarchate will soon be regularized and restored, to the satisfaction of all who wish to see the Orthodox Eastern Church a single compact and imposing body.
The Church of Syria.
It is well known that it was at Antioch that the followers of Christ were first called Christians. The Church of Antioch was founded by the Apostle Peter who headed the church there for seven years, from 37 to 44 A.D. In its early Christian days, Antioch was the richest city of all Syria and the Christians there supported many other communities of new believers. A Synod held at Antioch in the year 341 issued twenty-five Canons dealing with ecclesiastical matters and these precepts were observed by both the Eastern and Western Churches. St. John of Chrysostom, the most eloquent preacher of all Christendom, was born in Antioch and began his religious career there. During his time, Antioch was a city of 200,000 inhabitants and was called the Athens of the East. Antioch became the capital of the diocese of Anatolia when the Byzantine Empire was divided into prefectures by Constantine the Great. Thus all of Syria was included in the jurisdiction of Antioch. In the seventh century, Syria was overrun by the Arabs but the invaders gave the Christians personal and religious freedom. Damascus was proclaimed as the capital of Syria and of all the Arabian Empire. The Patriarch was required to change his residence from Antioch to Damascus where the Patriarchate is still located. Due to Moslem domination from the seventh to the eleventh centuries, the Church of Antioch became practically isolated from the other Eastern Orthodox Churches. From the end of the eleventh to the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, Syria, along with Palestine, was under the dominance of the Crusaders. During this period the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem lived in exile in Constantinople. Early in the fourteenth century the Crusaders were expelled from Syria and a Moslem regime was again established. Later, in the seventeenth century, internal troubles in the Church of Antioch caused a division in the population with some becoming Uniate Romans. For a long period of time, the Patriarch of Antioch and his Metropolitans were elected in Constantinople. Now they are taken from the native population and are elected by the Hierarchy of the Patriarchal Throne of Antioch. Under the Patriarch there are fourteen dioceses each headed by a bishop.
(The above section, “The Church of Syria,” is reprinted from the book Faith of Our Fathers, by Rev. Leonid Soroka and Stan W. Carlson.).
Orthodoxy in America.
Albanian Church.
The Albanian Orthodox Church in America was organized by Dr. Fan S. Noli in Boston in 1908. Father Noli was ordained in 1908 by Russian Metropolitan Platon and elected Bishop by his people. As has been noted, Bishop Noli returned to Albania to lead his country's fight for freedom. When his work in Albania was interrupted, he spent a period of time organizing Albanian congregations in other European countries.
Bishop Noli returned to the United States in 1930 to resume leadership of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America and present is the Bishop of the Church. There are thirteen Albanian Orthodox churches in the United States with the Cathedral located in Boston. The Albanian Orthodox Church in America is a completely self-governing group with no connection with any church abroad.
Bulgarian Church.
The first Bulgarian Orthodox Church in America was built in Madison, Illinois, in 1907. Bulgarian immigration to the United States had increased greatly after 1903, with most of the Bulgarian Orthodox Christians attending Russian Orthodox Churches.
In 1922 the Bulgarian Orthodox Mission of the Holy Synod of Bulgaria began attempts to organize the Bulgars. In January, 1938, a Bishopric in the United States was established with Archbishop Andrey, the present head of the churches, appointed in July, 1938.
There are now twenty-three organized parishes of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church in the United States with two more in Canada. There are also fifteen communities that are not yet constituted as parishes. The Cathedral is located in New York City and the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan includes North and South America and Australia.
Greek Church.
The foundations of the very first Greek Orthodox Church in the New World, America, were placed in the year 1866 at New Orleans.
This was really four years before the actual beginning of the immigration to America of the Orthodox Christians of Greek descent. Even before the first few immigrants of 1870 set foot upon the new land, this first little church existed in New Orleans as a result of the hope of a few Greek merchants residing in that city. The Greeks feel deeply about the religion of their fathers and, as time went on, with immigration increasing, the churches sprang up quickly in various areas of America. At that period the jurisdiction of these communities of Greek Christians came under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. Priests were sent out from the motherland to the churches in the New World.
March 1908, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, headed by Patriarch Joachim III, transferred the spiritual jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox churches “abroad” to the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece. This was maintained for the next ten years much to the disadvantage of the communities of America — disadvantage because there was no religious leader present, on American soil, to provide necessary organization in the scattered areas of the many growing communities.
Fortunately, Meletios Metaxakis, Metropolitan of Athens, visiting in the United States in 1918, saw that the need for religious leadership was indispensable right at the source, not back in the mother country. He began at once organizing the Greek Orthodox Churches in America by establishing the Synodical Conclave on October 20, 1918, with Bishop Alexander of Rodostolou as Synodical Supervisor.
Metropolitan of Athens, Meletios, went back to Greece, but returned to America in three years to continue the organization of the Church. This was February 1921. While still residing in America, on the 25th of November of that year, he was elevated to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as Meletios IV. The following January 1922, he arrived in Constantinople.
There in his new position, by a Synodical Act the first of March, he revoked the Patriarchal Decree of 1908. Thus all the Greek Communities abroad were made to be directly under the Ecumenical Patriarchate and were removed from dependence upon the Holy Synod of Greece. On May 11, 1922, he declared the Church of America an Archdiocese. He placed Bishop Alexander Rodostolou as the Archbishop of North and South America, with three Bishoprics — Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. This was progress. There was hindrance though to speedier progress between the years 1922 and 1930. During this period political events in Greece divided the Greeks in America. The communities became divided ecclesiastically, for to a Christian Orthodox, life's core is his church. Fortunately, the need of religious unity and concord was realized in time. The newly elected Patriarch of Constantinople Photios II undertook the elimination of discord.
Metropolitan of Corinth Damaskinos was sent to America in May of 1930 for the purpose of temporarily governing the Greek Communities in America and establishing order therein. During the same year Archbishop Alexander and Bishops Philaretos of Chicago and Joachim of Boston departed for Greece where they were appointed Metropolitans.
On August 20 of that same important year, Metropolitan Athenagoras of Kerkyra was elected Archbishop of America, arriving in New York on February 24, 1931. Two days later he was enthroned in the Church of St. Eleftherios in New York. Meanwhile Exarch Metropolitan Damaskinos had fulfilled his mission of establishing order and departed for home.
In the next years there were other ecclesiastical changes. By 1949 Archbishop Athenagoras had served as leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in America for eighteen years, a well loved and important worker for the faith. He left to be appointed Patriarch of Constantinople.
Most Reverend Michael, Metropolitan of Corinth, came at this time to serve as Archbishop of North and South America, for, at the Holy Synod of October 11,1949, he had been elected to this duty. Archbishop Michael is now assisted by Bishops Germanos of Nyssa, Athenagoras of Elaia, Ezekiel of Nazianzos, Demetrios of Olympus, Germanos of Constantia, Polyefktos of Tropaiou, and Irenaios of Abydus, for South America.
Under the jurisdiction of the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America there are the following: All the Greek Communities in the United States of America, Canada, the Bahama Islands, Cuba, Mexico, the Republic of Panama, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The 357 communities are now well organized and there are over 400 priests serving them.
The communities support parochial schools, Sunday Schools and chapters of the Greek Orthodox Youth of America (GOYA). Three-fourths of the communities have afternoon Greek Schools, Sunday Schools, Choirs and Ladies' Charity Societies. Over half have the youth clubs affiliated with the GOYA and the Olympians (National Greek Orthodox Archdiocese Junior Youth Organization). There are also now seven Eastern Orthodox chaplains serving in the armed forces of the United States and two of these are Greek Orthodox.
The Archdiocese maintains the Theological Seminary established in 1937 at Pomfret, Conn., and transferred to Brook-line, Mass., in 1946. There American youth of Greek Orthodox lineage are trained for the priesthood and as teachers.
The Archdiocese in 1944 established St. Basil's Academy in Garrison, N. Y. This has two branches — one for Greek women teacher preparation and the other a public school for very young girls of Greek parentage. This particular academy is under the care of the Greek Ladies Philoptochos Society.
From the tiny foundation of one little church in New Orleans, built by a few hopeful Greek merchants in 1866, has grown the Greek Orthodox Church of America, now a member of both the National and the World Council of the Churches of Christ. In August 1954, Archbishop Michael was named one of the six co-presidents of the World Council of the Churches of Christ. The foundation was built on faith and hope and stands today in solid truth for an ever-growing Christian world.
Rumanian Church.
The first Romanian Orthodox Church to by established in the United States was St. Mary's in Cleveland, Ohio, which was organized on August 15, 1904. Earlier, in 1901, two Romanian Orthodox churches had been organized in Canada. The first Romanian priest to visit the United States was the Reverend George Hertea, but his stay in this country was only temporary. Father Moses Balea, who became the pastor of St. Mary's in Cleveland in November, 1905, was the first of the clergy to come to the United States to stay.
Until the time of World War I, all Romanian clergymen came from the Romanian homeland, but with the cutting off of immigration, a number of Americans of Romanian origin were ordained by Russian Orthodox Bishops in America. Several years after the termination of World War I, the Metropolitan of Sibiu in Transylvania sent eleven priests to America, five of them remaining in the United States permanently.
Beginning in 1911, several attempts were made to organize an American diocese of the Romanian Orthodox Church. On February 24, 1918, a group of delegates who met in Youngs-town, Ohio, voted to establish a United States Episcopate. This Episcopate was incorporated and its establishment was confirmed at a subsequent meeting held in Cleveland in April, 1923. The organization, however, did not become active.
The need for a unified Romanian church organization in America became more apparent in 1924 when it was found that three sources of ecclesiastical authority were recognized by Romanian Orthodox clergymen. Those ordained in Romania considered themselves under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Transylvania, those ordained in America recognized the Russian-American Bishop Adam, and those of the clergy in Canada considered themselves under the authority of the Metropolitan of Moldavia.
A Romanian Orthodox Episcopate was organized at a church congress held in Detroit, Michigan, in April, 1929. This new Romanian Orthodox Diocese in America was headed by a provisional commission composed of four priests and eight laymen with the Very Reverend John Trutza of Cleveland as President. Repeated requests were made for a bishop to be sent to the United States.
On March 24, 1935, the Right Reverend Policarp Morusca was consecrated bishop for the American Diocese. He was installed on July 4, 1935, in St. George's Cathedral in Detroit.
Under Bishop Policarp the Romanian Orthodox Church in America grew to more than forty parishes.
Bishop Policarp returned to Romania in August, 1939, to attend a meeting of the Holy Synod. The outbreak of World War II shortly after prevented his return to America and the political changes which followed World War II complicated matters further and he remained in Europe. Bishop Policarp is still the canonical head of the American Episcopate.
The American Romanian churches decided recently to return to their original autonomous status. On July 2, 1951, the Right Reverend Valerian D. Trifa was elected as Bishop Coadjutor at a Church Congress held in Chicago, Illinois, and the name of the American Diocese was officially changed to the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate (Diocese) of America.
The Romanian Orthodox Church in America is divided into five deaneries or districts: Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Canada. The Cathedral of St. George is located in Detroit.
Russian Church.
The Russian Orthodox Church came to America by way of Alaska. Vitus Bering, a Dane who entered the Russian Navy in 1704, was chosen by Peter the Great to explore the North Pacific. Before Bering left St. Petersburg in 1725, Catherine the Great, who had succeeded Peter, gave her support to the plan.
After an exploration trip during which he proved that Asia and North America were separate continents, Bering returned overland to St. Petersburg. He then built two ships, naming them the St. Pete and the St. Paul, and sailed eastward from Kamchatka in 1741. During the voyage the ships became separated and were never reunited.
Driven by storms and with his crew dying from scurvy, Vitus Bering landed on an island in the Commander Islands group. This island, where Bering died, was later named for h«n in his honor. Bering's voyages clarified the geography of the entire North Pacific and were the basis for Russian claims to the northwest coast of America. Alaska, later purchased from Russia by the united States in 1867 for $7,200,000, was included in Bering's discoveries and became known as Russian-America. The first Russian colonization took place in 1783.
Russian trading expeditions worked down the coast of America and in 1809 a Russian settlement was established in California, located about sixty miles north of San Francisco and named Fort Ross.
The Russians who settled in Alaska and California founded churches soon after their arrival. The first Russian Orthodox missionaries arrived at Kodiak Island, off the Alaskan mainland, in August of 1794. This first mission had a two-fold purpose: to give spiritual service to the men of the Russian Trading Company and to evangelize the native Aleuts. The leader of this mission was Archimandrite Joasaph.
The Orthodox religion flourished and soon spread to all parts of the Aleutian Islands and to the Alaskan mainland. In Alaska, a Russian Orthodox Church was built on the present site of Sitka in 1815. This edifice became the Cathedral for the first Russian Orthodox Diocese on the American continent. Innocentius (Vemiaminoff), who was ordained on December 15th, 1848, became the first Bishop of this Diocese.
In 1869, two years after Russia had sold Alaska to the United States, a Russian Orthodox Church was built in San Francisco, California, and in 1871 Bishop John transferred the seat of his cathedral from Sitka, Alaska, to San Francisco. Bishop Nestor, who succeeded Bishop John, received official permission from the Russian Synod in 1881 to establish his diocese headquarters in San Francisco and property at 1715 Powell St. was purchased for $38,000, for this purpose.
In 1888, Bishop Vladimir came to San Francisco to succeed Bishop Nestor and during his administration the first Russian-Uniat parish, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, returned to the Orthodox fold. The Very Reverend Alexis Toth was the priest of the Minneapolis congregation which became the Mother Parish of all Orthodox churches in the United States and Canada located east of San Francisco.
Bishop Nicolas succeeded Bishop Vladimir in 1891 and in 1898 Bishop Nicholas was succeeded by Bishop Tikhon who later became the Patriarch of Russia. Tikhon founded the first Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1905. This seminary building is still standing and is now used for Sunday School classes and church organizations of St. Mary's Russian Orthodox Church. This first missionary school was also established in Minneapolis in 1897.
Bishop Tikhon also transferred the Episcopal See and its Ecclesiastical Consistory from San Francisco to New York City where the Russian Orthodox headquarters for this hemisphere are still located. Under Tikhon, St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York was built in 1901. He was elevated to the rank of Archbishop in 1903 with jurisdiction over all of North America. Successors to Tikhon were Archbishops Platon and Eudokim. Under Platon's administration more than a hundred new parishes were formed.
In 1919 the Russian Church in America held its first Sobor or general council at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A second Sobor was held in Detroit in 1924 at which time Metropolitan Platon was chosen as the ruling Bishop. He had previously headed the Russian Orthodox Church in America from 1907 to 1914. The same council declared that henceforth the Church in America was to be autonomous.
Metropolitan Platon died in April, 1934. He was succeeded by Bishop Theophile under whose tenure the Federated Russian Orthodox Clubs were founded. Since the death of Theophile in 1950, Metropolitan Leonty had headed the Russian Orthodox Churches of North and South America.
The growth of Orthodoxy in North America has been steady. In the United States, Canada and Alaska there are several hundred parishes of the Russian Orthodox faith.
Serbian Church.
Serbian immigration to the United States reached serious proportions about 1890 and four years later, in 1894, the first Serbian Church in America was founded in Jackson, California, by Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich. This church was dedicated to St. Sava, the great national Saint of Serbia. Until after World War I, the spiritual welfare of the Serbian Church in America was under the guidance of the Russian Bishop of San Francisco.
In 1900 there were six Serbian congregations in America and in 1906 there were ten. Fifteen years later this number had increased to twenty. In 1926, with thirty-five Serbian churches making up the American Diocese, Archimandrite Mardary Uskokovich was consecrated by Patriarch Dimitriji of Serbia as the first Bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church in America. Under his guidance the diocese increased to forty-six parishes in the United States and Canada. The Cathedral of the Serbian Church, built and opened in 1945, is located in New York City.
Syrian Church.
In 1878 the first Syrian family of record came to America, but there was little immigration from Syria and Lebanon until around 1890. From 1900 to 1910 about 5000 persons a year immigrated from these countries to the United States with a peak of about 9,000 arriving in 1913 and in 1914.
The Syrian Mission of the Russian Orthodox Church, founded in 1892, took over the spiritual welfare of the Syrian Orthodox people in the New World, and the first Syrian Church Society was founded in New York in 1895.
Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny was brought from the Academy of Kazan in October of 1895 to oversee Syrian church activities in America. In 1904 he was consecrated as Vicar-Bishop to the Russian Archbishop and became the first Orthodox Bishop of any nationality to be consecrated in the United States. He served capably until his death in 1915.
In 1914, Metropolitan Germanos, Bishop of Zahle, Lebanon, in the Patriarchate of Antioch, came to America and during his stay in the United States several parishes were organized. In 1924 there were seventeen Syrian Orthodox churches with resident pastors and seven more with a priest in attendance but without parish buildings. The Syrian Mission of the Russian Church consisted of an additional twenty-two parishes and one mission under the jurisdiction of Bishop Aftimios Ofeish who had been consecrated as Bishop of Brooklyn in 1917 to succeed Bishop Raphael.
For several years, the Syrian churches of America remained under separate ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In 1933, Archbishop Aftimios resigned and Metropolitan Germanos returned to Beirut where he died in 1934. Bishop Victor Abo-Assaley, representing the Patriarch of Antioch in the United States, died in September of 1934.
Archimandrite Antony Bashir was appointed as Vicar in America by the Patriarch and he was subsequently elected Bishop of the American Syrian churches. In 1936 he was consecrated in New York by Metropolitan Theodosios of Tyre and Sidon who had been sent to the United States for this purpose. In June of 1940, Archbishop Antony was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan Archbishop of New York and all North America. Under his leadership the Syrian Orthodox Church has grown to eighty parishes in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Ukrainian Church.
The early history of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church parallels that of the Orthodox Church in Russia. Later, under Polish rule and subsequent Communist domination, the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine became practically non-existent. The Independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, both in the Ukraine and America, came into being after World War I.
Several hundred thousand Ukrainians had migrated to the United States from 1870 until 1914 and many of the early Ukrainian congregations in this country entered the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. A later large migration, between 1945 and 1951, increased the number of Ukrainians in America.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church in America held its first convention in 1931. Congregations consisting of former Uniats were added to the Ukrainian Orthodox Parishes and the Very Reverend Joseph Zuk was chosen as bishop-elect of the American Diocese in July, 1932. He was consecrated in September of that year and served as head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in America until his death on February 23, 1934.
Bishop Bohdan Shpilka, who succeeded Bishop Zuk, was consecrated by Archbishop Athenagoras of the Greek Orthodox Church on February 28,1937. He still serves as the head of American Ukrainian Orthodox Churches under the Ecumenical Patriarch. Technically, Bishop Bohdan is a Suffragan of the Greek Archbishop within the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. There are forty-five parishes and missions under Bishop Bohdan with the Cathedral located in New York City.
The American Ukrainian Orthodox Church was organized about 1919-1920 as an independent church. In February of 1924, Archbishop John Theodorovich arrived in the United States from Kiev, Ukraine. He was chosen bishop-elect of the American Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Argentina. The Ukrainian churches grew in number after the mass migrations to America after World War II.
In a convention held in 1949 at Allentown, Pennsylvania, Archbishop Mstyslaw S. Skrypnik was elected to head the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America with Bishop Bohdan as Suffragan Bishop.
In October of 1950, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America, headed by Archbishop Mstyslaw S. Skrypnik and the American Ukrainian Orthodox Church, headed by Archbishop John Theodorovich, merged to form the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America under independent jurisdiction. Bishop Bohdan did not join in this merger and he became head of Ukrainian churches remaining under Ecumenical jurisdiction.
The United Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States has its headquarters in South Brook, New Jersey, and includes 96 parishes in the United States under its jurisdiction. The Most Reverend Metropolitan John Theodorovich heads the church. Metropolitan Dr. Ilarion Ohienko, with headquarters in Winnipeg, heads the Independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Canada.
(Text material in this chapter, except the section about the Greek Church, is reprinted from Faith of Our Fathers: The Eastern Orthodox Religion, by the Rev. Leonid Soroka and Stan W. Carlson. Published by The Olympic Press, 806 N. E. Fourth Street, Minneapolis 13, Minnesota, and copyrighted, 1954, by Stan W. Carlson. This material is reprinted by special permission of the copyright owner.).
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