Fr. Thomas Hopko on the future of Orthodoxy in America

(AOI) - It’s not clear what is now happening for the establishment of an autocephalous Orthodox Church of the United States made up of the member churches of the former SCOBA. These are my questions:
  • What concrete steps are now being taken to establish an autocephalous Orthodox Church of the United States that would be recognized as a “sister church” by all the autocephalous Orthodox churches in the world?
  • What can Orthodox Christians in North America and around the world expect the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Moscow, Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria to do with their North American “jurisdictions” to establish this self-governing Orthodox Church of the USA?
  • How will the future Orthodox Church of the USA relate to the dioceses and parishes in Canada and south of the US border that are now in North American “jurisdictions”?
  • And why should there be any problems regarding the OCA and its place in the US Episcopal Assembly and in the future Orthodox Church of the United States if the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and its North American missionary diocese was settled in 1970 and the OCA was always included in SCOBA?
It seems clear, at least to me, that the only real challenge in establishing an autocephalous Orthodox Church of the USA is the resolution of the current relationship between the old world patriarchates and their new world “jurisdictions”. There are no other problems. The Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Moscow, Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria have to bless their North American “jurisdictions” to interact with each other in establishing the autocephalous Orthodox Church of the United States. And the North American “jurisdictions” have to be willing to accomplish this task. That is all that is necessary...
Complete article here.

Comments

  1. JakeOctober 20, 2010 at 3:16 PM

    Fr. Thomas says:

    "There are no other problems."

    This seems almost naive, especially coming from him. For too many, administrative unity is a black box into which go all of our problems, and out of which comes all of our solutions. Here are a few of the other problems (by no means an exhaustive list):

    1) Orthodoxy will still be "in" America, not "of" America - it will still be a largely foreign/ethnic experience. Administrative unity does not solve this, and in my opinion is not even a significant step toward solving this. In fact, having "divided government" has been a good in the since that this diversity of jurisdictions has shown us how some integrate into America better than others.

    2) Despite the carefully cultivated self image of the OCA, their autocelphaly is not without a few asterisks. Further, their recent crises reveals deep cultural problems (from the top all the way down) that go quite deep. There is a reason I and others don't attend an OCA church (despite the occasional ray of Son-shine like Bishop Job of blessed memory and apparently Metro Jonah).

    3) No current "jurisdiction" is a real basis of a truly autocephalous church. Throwing them all together into a pile of administrative unity still does not get you house built on a strong foundation. This seems so obvious but for some reason unfathomable to me needs to be said.

    More could be added. As uncomfortable as some of these things might be they need to be discussed honestly...

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