AMERIKA

Recently I received a catalog from Conciliar Press, a great source of Orthodox literature, icons and jewelry. There were many books about the beautiful theology of the Orthodox Church, its faithfulness to Holy Tradition, the glory of its worship. I also noticed books on contrasts with Catholicism and Protestantism and, of course how those other traditions compare unfavorably with ours. Obviously we who are Orthodox believe that our way is the most faithful to scripture and the traditions of the apostles; if we did not believe it we would not be Orthodox!

What one does not find in the catalog of Conciliar Press, however, are books on what is problematic with the Orthodox Church. I propose that it is not fully Orthodox to dwell on the errors of the other Christian confession and to ignore our own. Consider the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian, which we recite during Lent:

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant. Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen

This simple and beautiful prayer reminds us that we are more blessed if we consider our own faults and try to ignore the faults of others. In this way we escape the diabolical trap of judgmentalism. As my neighbor in South Carolina, a former Baptist minister observed to me, "Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, but he called judgmental people serpents."

Perhaps the Orthodox hierarchs, priests and lay people should spend more time in the deep consideration of what is wrong with our church. We have a number of problems that merit serious consideration:

1. The cool reception of the convert. I can only speak of this issue as it applies to the process of becoming Greek Orthodox; I do not know if this experience applies to those brought into the other Orthodox national churches.

As I was retracing the steps of my Arbëresh (1) ancestors toward the Orthodox Church, my family and I experienced the predicament of converts to Orthodoxy. This experience is vividly related by Peter Gillquist (I believe he is Chairman of Conciliar Press) in his book "Becoming Orthodox." He had hundreds of people behind him who yearned to be joined to the historical church; he had made an appointment to visit the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul to discuss being received into canonical Orthodoxy but after the long journey he was told that His All Holiness was too busy to meet with him, as if Gillquist had just dropped in, unannounced!

It is a difficult matter to secure a sense of belonging in an Orthodox church. When you are a convert you are always aware of the nagging feeling that you are an intruder. Even cradle Orthodox have to contend with it. One of my patients, an elderly Greek-American originally from Cephalonia, returned from World War II and went to worship in a Greek Orthodox church in San Francisco. He was fair skinned and blue eyed, and when he entered the narthex and began venerating icons, a very saturnine (2) man with a great handlebar moustache whispered to him with a heavy acccent: "This church for Greeks!"

The largest Orthodox community in the US is the Greek. Because of recent immigrations from Eastern and Oriental Orthodox countries, most Greek churches now have significant minority groups, like Romanians, Albanians and Slavs. I believe that the church I go to, although a Greek Orthodox church, is now mostly non-Greek. Some Greeks refuse to attend such churches as ours because they feel that the emphasis on Greek culture is lacking, and because the Orthodox churches have nationality affiliations, culture often obscures faith as a reason for being a part of the community. The emphasis in some cases is so disproportionately on Greek as opposed to Orthodox, parishioners who don't even believe in God come anyway to be with other Greeks. The Romanians and others often feel they are not altogether welcome among the Greeks.

I believe that most Greeks, Romanians, Serbs and so on would be somewhat embarrassed if they could feel the sense of exclusion and isolation my family and I felt as we drew ourselves into the ancient church. While I wholeheartedly agree with our tradition's proscription against proselytism, that is not to say we cannot make people feel they will be welcome in our community.

2. The lack of communion with the Oriental Orthodox. Division is lethal to the Church. Some divisions in Greater Christianity seem pointless, and the rift between the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox seems to me particularly unjustifiable. The Eastern Orthodox believe that Christ has two natures: One fully human nature and one fully divine nature. The Oriental Orthodox (Copts, Ethiopians, Armenians and so on) believe that Christ has one nature that is fully human and fully divine. Is not that an example of splitting hairs? Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity; Ethiopia was second. Ethiopia is the only country in black Africa where Christianity was not imported and imposed by colonial powers.

Orthodox Christians are more often a religious minority in their own country than is true for Catholics and Protestants, and without diminishing the hardship Catholics and Protestants have endured, they have more experience with oppression. Solidarity will enhance the likelihood of our survival and growth. There is only one powerful Orthodox country in the world and that is of course Russia; her foreign policy includes promoting the interests of smaller Orthodox nations like Serbia. The desperate plight of the Coptic Christian community of Egypt, ignored by the West, needs a amore passionate advocate of the stature of Russia.

Certainly theologians on both sides of the Oriental Orthodox/Eastern Orthodox divide perceive other important reasons why the two families of churches cannot merge to some extent. I suspect that these theological disputes are beyond the understanding of the ordinary person. It seems to me harmful, however, that these two ancient Orthodox bodies view each other warily, each fearful of being contaminated by the other. It feels very un-Christian. The problem is very visible when for example Ethiopians attend a Greek church and they cannot take communion. Ethiopian churches in the U.S. are even rarer than Greek churches, and Greek churches are already uncommon in this country. Where are the Ethiopians to go for communion? Perhaps our hierarchs could find a way to define our differences as important but yet, in brotherly love, allow Oriental Orthodox Christians to take communion in Eastern Orthodox churches and vice versa when to attend a church of one's own origin would be extremely difficult.

3. The "irregularities" of the administrative structure of the church in America, and their implications for American culture. A recent Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America declared its commitment to "the swift healing of every canonical anomaly that has arisen from historical circumstances and pastoral requirements." Although they are not speaking in plain language, I believe what they are referring to is the overlap of jurisdictions in the New World.

The canons of the church apparently decree that bishops' jurisdictions should not overlap. It is a simple matter to see how this overlap could cause conflict. And yet with immigration to the New World, the Greek immigrants needed a Greek bishop, the Serbs a Serbian bishop, the Arabs an Arabic (Antiochian) bishop and so on. So each Orthodox church covers the map of North American with dioceses and bishops.

It is easy to see why and how this "irregularity" occurred. Immigrants wanted to be with their own kind, and what better place is there than the church to share culture and tradition. But the strong link between nationality and church is perhaps the most important reason why many people seeking conversion to Orthodoxy are inadvertently made to feel unwelcome. Although most catechumens readily adopt the non-spiritual cultural elements of their prospective religious communities, some are bound to feel uncomfortable. "My ancestry is English," one might legitimately ask, "what is wrong with being English? Why must I become a poor imitation of a Romanian to become a full member of this church, when I have accepted all of the theological tenets of Orthodoxy?

If the jurisdictional "irregularities" are ever remediated, the result will be viewed with anxiety and dismay by our immigrant and second-generation families. For they will be thrown together with strange-smelling people who don't know how to make real baklava or lamb. Suddenly the all-important cultural elements of their communities will wither, and be replaced with...what?

Amerika, the Orthodox New World.

Cases of Autocephalous Orthodox Churches in lands where they are a minority religion are not rare. There is the Ecumenical Patriarchate, of course, which is a tiny island of Christianity in a Sea of Islam. But there are also the Patriarchates of Jerusalem, Alexandria (where Eastern Orthodox are a minority even among the minority Christians of Egypt), Antioch, Poland, Albania and that of the Czech Lands and Slovakia. Certainly a Partriarchate of the United States would represent an Orthodox Christian minority, but if all 1-4 million of us were under one canonical roof, we would stand to gain much. The greatest benefit can be illustrated by Boise, where there are three tiny Orthodox churches, Greek, Russian and Antiochian. Each church struggles to survive, and since they are so small, their places of worship do not reflect the beauty and majesty of the churches in the old homelands. If we were one church, we could construct a beautiful building--what could be more Orthodox than having a majestic house of worship? As it is our churches are rather plain by Orthodox standards. We could have more effective Sunday School and youth programs, there would be more voices for the choir, we would have more experience and talent for the Parish Council. Pooling our resources would make many things possible that we only dream of today.

It is interesting to think about what the possibilities are of a truly American Orthodox Church. The culture of America is a culture of freedom and unleashed creativity, of open minds and open possibilities, of a durable Democratic Republic. What would be the flower of the cross pollination of America and Orthodoxy? What kinds of church architecture would emerge? What kinds of domes would appear on the horizon? What kinds of iconography would appear? What kinds of chant might develop when American English can make use of its own poetry, instead of the awkward translation of it from a church's original tongue? America needs Orthodoxy, for throughout her historical development, the Church of the Apostles has been a marginal, foreign element. Orthodoxy needs America, too, because the minority churches around the world need a champion like the U.S. American Protestants and Catholics may not be too interested in the plight of people who look strange and worship in a way they find difficult to understand. And an Amerika, an Orthodox American Church, would breathe new life into Orthodoxy, which is in some ways like a bearded old man. Finally, I believe that if the Ancient Church is brought to Americans in their own culture, they will embrace it in much larger numbers than we have seen so far. Many ordinary Americans find our way very attractive, but our foreign languages and cultures are simply too great a barrier.

Certainly it would be difficult for Serbs, Romanians, Greeks and Russians to gather together under the same dome. But we have seen a precedent for this dilemma in the Catholic Church in the U.S. Some Catholic churches were established by one ethnic group and for many years they remained Italian or Polish or Irish in culture and tradition. Other churches brought these ethnic groups together to good effect, such that one church could raise money with several different food festivals during the year, and people enjoyed the diversity of their communities.

The truth is, though, that Orthodox Christians in America are changing whether or not the church chooses to change with them. New immigrants to the U.S. are streaming into Greek churches because it will take many years for their communities to be able to build a church of their own. And the young people are fully American, no matter how recently their families immigrated. How about this for irony: In my Sunday School class it was me, the Italian, who had to teach the students how to say the Lord's Prayer in Greek (only a few were fluent in Greek). Our inability to retain the young people in our churches is in my opinion a tremendous obstacle to life and growth in our greater spiritual community.

I hope I live to see a truly American Orthodox Church. I enjoy the dream of an American School of Orthodox theologians, American schools of iconography, and an American style of church architecture that rivals the Russian and the Byzantine. I do not cling too tightly to that brilliant vision, though, because in the long history of the church there is very little of importance that takes place in a person's lifetime.


(1) The Arbëresh are Albanians who fled to Italy when their homeland capitulated to the Turks. They have assimilated into Italian culture but maintain elements of their origins, for example, they speak Albanian and while most have gone under the jurisdiction of Rome, they maintain the Byzantine rite in their churches. My last name means "Albanian" in the Italian language.

(2) Very Mediterranean in appearance.

(c) Copyright 2011 Robert Albanese