Episode 306 – Russian Orthodox Churches in the US
This week we’re joined by Jason Ward. We wrap up with the Russian Orthodox Church. In the news Russia is fueling the antivax movement, SCOTUS gets one wrong and one right, Theocrats in Alabama are destroying marriage, and more!Email us at contact@htotw.com or leave us a voice message using htotw.com/speakpipeSupport the show at htotw.com/donateSubscribe at htotw.com/subscribeDustin’ off the Degree - Russian Orthodox Churches in the USThis week we’re resuming the Dustin off the Degree series on Orthodox Christianity. That started in Episode 297 and continued in episodes 298 and 299.The Russian Orthodox Church’s history in Russia is long and it’s history in the United States is convoluted. Why? Empire, revolution, and immigration. The end result is the various Russian churches within the US.Orthodox Church in AmericaThe oldest is the Orthodox Church in America which got its start when a priest was sent to Kodiak Island where a Russian colony was being established in what was then Russian Alaska in 1794. Part of why the priest was sent was because there were already Russian Orthodox Christians among the Alaskan Natives in the Aleutian islands, having been converted during trade contact with Siberian fur traders. By 1796 one of the priests was consecrated a Bishop and just two years later he returned to Russia to report to the Imperial authorities about how the natives were being treated in the colony. He died during his return and he was not replaced. In 1811 the episcopal see in Alaska was officially closed.In 1824 another priest was sent to Alaska and in 1840 he was made Bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, taking the name Innocent.In 1867 the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire, which prompted the Diocese to be reorganized as the Aleutian Islands and Alaska and after a church was established in San Francisco and the episcopal see moved to San Francisco the diocese was renamed Aleutian Islands and America.Once they were in the continental United States the church quickly became multiethnic as other Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic immigrants joined with them. This all continued until the Bolsheviks took over in Russia. Many of the non-Russian churches joined with their own national churches, such as Greek churches moving to the Greek Orthodox Church of America and the Antiochian Orthodox churches that has been founded by a Syrian priest and under the support and funding of the Russian Orthodox Church.Patriarch Tikhon, who had previously been the Archbishop in the US, resisted the communist government. Before he was sent to prison he directed churches outside of Russia to become self governing until normal communication and relations could be restored. However, when communication was restored this group in the US refused to give up their self governance calling themselves the American Metropolia. Finally in 1970 they were able to patch things up with the Moscow Patriarchate which agreed to grant them Autocephaly, making them an independent Orthodox Church taking the name Orthodox Church in America.They are recognized by the Russian church and a few other Slavic churches, but not by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople who objects under the claim that the Russian Patriarch did not have the right because he under Soviet control.The Orthodox Church in America continues to this day and considering a possible merger with the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Diocese in the United States and they are part of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America, which churches under the Russian Patriarchate have left as a result of the schism between Moscow and Constantinople over Ukraine.Most of the members of the OCA today are not ethnically Russian. They have a proportionately large number of members from Alaskan Native and non-Russian Slavic populations within the US and a decent number of members Support the show