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CHICAGO (GOARCH) – The second meeting of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America convened yesterday –exactly one year and one day after the first one in New York– in Chicago’ s Hilton O’Hare Airport Hotel under the chairmanship of His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, the Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America.
The first-day session opened with prayers with 44 bishops present. Most Canonical Orthodox Bishops from Canada did not attend, as they are seeking to establish a separate assembly. At the beginning of the meeting a letter was read from Patriarch Irinej of Serbia conveying that the Serbian members of the Assembly could not be present at this meeting because of the needs of the Serbian Church.
The agenda and the minutes of the first meeting were approved. Archbishop Demetrios delivered his chairman’s opening address, and invited the vice-chairmen Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, and Archbishop Justinian, the Representative of the Moscow Patriarchtate to address the Assembly.
Archbishop Demetrios conveyed the greetings of His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and said that His All Holiness “as the First Throne of Holy Orthodoxy, is much desirous of encouraging and enhancing the unity of the Church, especially through the Pre-Conciliar Conferences that have come to be known as the ‘Chambésy Process’. ”
Archbishop Demetrios underlined the importance of this second meeting of the Assembly: “It is not without significance that we have traveled many miles to be with one another, in a spirit of fraternity, peace, fellowship and above all Christian love. As Chairman of this Assembly I am grateful for your prayerful and irenic presence, and I am hopeful that we will be able to move our nascent body forward with positive steps that will lead to tangible results for all the Orthodox.”
The Secretary of the Assembly, Bishop Basil of the Antiochian Archdiocese presented the Secretariat report. Another report and discussion followed on the agencies and endorsed organization of SCOBA (Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in the Americas). These agencies include the following: Eastern Orthodox Committee on Scouting (EOCS) – International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) – Orthodox Christian Education Commission (OCEC) – Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) – Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC) – Orthodox Christian Network (OCN) – Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry (OCPM); and the endorsed organizations are: Orthodox Christian Association of Medicine, Psychology and Religion (OCAMPR) – Orthodox Fellowship of the Transfiguration – Orthodox Peace Fellowship (North America) – Orthodox Theological Society of America – Project Mexico – St. Catherine's Vision, Inc. and Zoe for Life.
Speaking on this subject Archbishop Demetrios said “as the successor body to SCOBA, the Agencies and Endorsed Organizations are in need of direction from the Assembly, as to how and to what degree the relationship between these pan-Orthodox institutions and our Assembly will unfold. ” He also spoke of the great potential that lies ahead for Orthodoxy in America and around the world.
The Assembly continues its work today, May 26, with reports from all thirteen committees: Canonical Affairs, Canonical Regional Planning, Church & Society, Clergy Affairs, Ecumenical Relations, Financial Affairs, Legal Affairs, Liturgy, Military Chaplaincy, Monastic Communities, Pastoral Practice, Theological Education and Youth.
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While it makes perfect sense culturally and linguistically for the Central American bishops to join with the Central American bishops, it makes no sense for the Canadian bishops to have their own Assembly. There are simply too many cultural and linguistic commonalities between the two nations, not to mention the overlapping jurisdiction many smaller denominations and diocese have over both American and Canadian parishes (e.g., Met. Joseph of the Bulgarians and Abp Nathaniel of the OCA's Romanian Diocese). Any unique issues facing the Canadian churches would just as easily be handled by a "break out group" at each Assembly and for specifically Canadian issues. Separate statements and agreements necessary to meet any requirements of Canadian church/nonprofit law could also be issued from the same Assembly.
ReplyDeleteThat is, unless the real reason is nationalism or the lust for power.
I worked for years as a Canadian in ecumenical gatherings, and this was a perennial issue every time: Canada always refused to co-operate with the US because of its pathetic insecurity and neuroses about being alongside a much larger US. In reality this was just an excuse for Canadians to indulge in their favourite sport: sanctimonious carping against Americans, from whom, it is alleged, they are so very different. (This is a classic example of Freud's "narcissism of small differences.") When pressed to give a clear example of a Canadian cultural difference at a global ecumenical gathering of 4000 people in Australia in 1991, which difference was said to justify the lack of US-Canada ecumenical co-operation, my Canadian compatriots could only come up with (no joke) "maple syrup." What? There are no trees in Vermont? I mean, really. It is to laugh.
ReplyDeleteI have yet to hear from anyone (Canadian or otherwise) who sees any wisdom in a separate Canadian effort. The point, if I may say, is to present a unified Orthodoxy to the faithful and to the lost. If we are to respond to difficult problems of the day (bio-ethics, same sex attraction, abortion, abstinence) I cannot see how a Canadian response to these issues would be strengthened by cutting out the learned voices of bishops of the lower 48.
ReplyDeleteWe are already such a small portion of the population that, if we were to cut our slice of the pie even further by moving in this direction, you would need surgical tools to divvy up what remains without it all falling apart.
I'm a citizen of Canada and the United States and dislike the push for a separate assembly there for personal reasons, but I don't see why it's wrong. Russians and Ukrainians are incredibly similar, yet they have a feeling of being different, of nationality, and so there is a growing push in Ukraine for an independent Church of Ukraine. I dislike nationalism period, but Canada has a different ethos from the USA (less pushy, more respectful, more open to diversity, et cetera) and if its Orthodox want a separate assembly and, God willing, an autocephalous church, then what's wrong with that? The United States has more than enough parishes to support a freestanding American Orthodox Church and Canada has enough to have its own Canadian Orthodox Church.
ReplyDeleteVis-a-vis a comment above, the OCA's Romanian Orthodox Episcopate alone has enough parishes in Canada to form a separate diocese for the country :-). (I personally think it could and should be split into three Romanian Orthodox dioceses in North America, but that's neither here nor there.)
"And Canada has enough to have its own Canadian Orthodox Church."
ReplyDeleteThis is especially true in light of the size of some of the autocephalous and autonomous Orthodox Churches elsewhere in the world - the Churches of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Czechoslovakia, Sinai, Finland, and Japan all come to mind.
The US does not have enough Orthodox to form a healthy, autocephalous Church. There is still no stability in our numbers. Rates of attrition (apostasy) for converts are only outstripped by the same numbers among cradle Orthodox.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very different situation than is found in Ukraine where there is a millenium long history of deep, stable Orthodox roots. Even the Unia in Western Ukraine is 'stable' when compared with the U.S. church.
If that's true of the U.S., it's even more true of Canada. There are definitely difference between Canada and the US, legal and cultural - though Adam is right that it often devolves into a "narcissism of small differences." These could be addressed quite easily should any autocephalous church be founded for North America. The autonomy of the Ukrainian Church under the MP is an example, as is ROCOR.
However, the Episcopal Assembly is meant to be a culturally and geographically REGIONAL assembly of bishops. From that perspective, the common issues facing Orthodox in the US and Canada are almost identical. Here, as in so much of Eastern Christianity, the Prophet Woodrow Wilson and his gospel of self-determination are more important than the Gospel and Tradition of the Orthodox Church.
Sad silliness.
...the Churches of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Czechoslovakia, Sinai, Finland, and Japan all come to mind.
ReplyDeleteSinai, Finland and Japan are not autocephalous. They are autonomous and tend to prove my point that autocephaly is not required, and that any differences can be handled within a given local church.
Jerusalem and Alexandria are wholly controlled subsidiaries of the EP and the Republic of Greece. Still, they have ancient, until recently stable populations and institutions such as neither the US nor Canadian churches have.
Constantinople is not simply those Orthodox living in Turkey. It has large numbers of faithful in other regions of the world, as well as its client local churches.
the Czech and Slovak Church, as well as the Polish are good examples of churches that should really not be autocephalous for reasons of size and their ability to produce enough qualified candidates for the episcopacy. They are autocephalous more for Wilsonian and anti-Muscovite reasons as anything else.
"This is a very different situation than is found in Ukraine where there is a millenium long history of deep, stable Orthodox roots."
ReplyDeleteYes, so stable and deep that no one fasts or goes to church (relatively speaking). I haven't visited every village in Ukraine, but my experience living there was more of living in a secular country than in an Orthodox one.
"Here, as in so much of Eastern Christianity, the Prophet Woodrow Wilson and his gospel of self-determination are more important than the Gospel and Tradition of the Orthodox Church."
In principle I agree (why is a tiny area like the Balkans divided into so many autocephalous churches, for example? ;-) ), but do we all need to be as huge and diverse as the Church of Rus'?
"Sinai, Finland and Japan are not autocephalous."
I said that :-). Thanks for the correction though...
"Still, [Jerualem and Alexandria] have ancient, until recently stable populations and institutions such as neither the US nor Canadian churches have."
Doubtful, especially given Alexandria's reliance on Cypriot and US money and manpower. Only two members of the hierarchy are actually native to Africa in any sense of that word (unless one of the Cypriot Greek metropolitans was born in Africa?).
"Constantinople is not simply those Orthodox living in Turkey."
I forgot its territory extends into southern Thrace and Macedonia as well as the Aegean. Outside of those areas I'm not sure one can count on its jurisdiction enduring...
"The Czech and Slovak Church, as well as the Polish are good examples of churches that should really not be autocephalous for reasons of size and their ability to produce enough qualified candidates for the episcopacy. They are autocephalous more for Wilsonian and anti-Muscovite reasons as anything else."
Both were granted their tomoses of autocephaly by Moscow (although Poland's was a reissue of autocephaly), but agreed, they're around at least partly to counterbalance Constantinople's plethora of satellites. And, I believe (perhaps naively), to incarnate the Gospel in their countries in ways that a church perceived as foreign could not do (as a US-based Orthodox Church would be/is perceived, for example ;-) ).
Okay, "maple syrup" is a stupid answer, but you want a difference between the US and Canada?
ReplyDeleteThey're different countries. They have different laws. They guard their borders and don't guarantee free passage.
How about Her Royal Majesty the Queen? How about the officials at the border who search your car and grill you about your passport stamps? How about the fact that Americans with a DUI record aren't allowed in Canada?
If you have a criminal record, no matter how distant and no matter how thoroughly repented, even if it was years before your conversion to Christ, you can't enter Canada. So if there are clergy with that spot on their record, it's a complication. If, God forbid, there's a hierarch with a record, it becomes a big old problem.
Financial law is different, and the border is protected and enforced when it comes to money. An institution has to have legally distinct entities in each country in order to manage finances in both countries.
These aren't good enough reasons for Assembly institutions such as OCF, OCN, OCMC, FOCUS, etc to have just lost their mandate in Canada and for Canadian participants in those programs to have just been hung out to dry. These aren't good enough reasons for American, Mexican and Canadian Orthodox Christian hierarchs to assemble and work cooperatively. But these are two sovereign nations, one nominally ruled by an overseas monarch and the other nominally ruled by a Constitution, and they are distinct.