Tag Archives: American Orthodoxy

American Orthodox Christianity Series 2: How Orthodoxy is Significant for American Religion

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For this post, I hearken back to an earlier one from the first series in which I mentioned one of the studies by Alexei Krindatch.  Krindatch’s report on five interesting facts (which contained a lot more data than simply five data points), included the following observation:

“Further analysis of the data on attendance in various parishes revealed an interesting phenomenon. When the total parish population reaches
around 150, Sunday attendance drops significantly. This may be explained by something known as “Dunbar’s number,” which is a theoretical
cognitive limit of the number of people with whom one can maintain stable and close social relationships. These are the type of relationships
in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. When Dunbar’s number is reached, the
parish may transform in the perception of the laity from a small family-like community to a more amorphous group of not really well known
people. In short, Fig. 3 suggests that the sense of the close-knit community has obvious effect on proportion of parishioners involved regularly
in the life of a parish.”

This is significant, I think, because of the influx of priests into both the OCA and the Antiochian Archdiocese.  We have an increase of missions across North America.  I expect that trend to continue.  If it does, then we will have an increasing number of parishes with a “Dunbar’s number” of 150 members.  If that happens, then Orthodoxy might be seeing the beginning of a trend here toward many more smaller parishes rather than large parishes.  If this happens, and I think it’s starting, then Orthodoxy (at least in the OCA and other jurisdictions with smaller parishes) may offer a counter-point to the mega-church model.  No, our counter-point won’t have the influence of a large mega-church.  You’re most definitely not likely ever to see a presidential candidate publicly answer questions sitting across from an Orthodox priest near the front of the nave, but given enough time, we might prove an interesting counter-point for some sociologists and anthropologists of religion.

The Orthodox Christian World, Edited by Augustine Casiday

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Today is the Dormition (“falling asleep,” or repose) of Mary, the Mother of God, ending a short August fast.  The fast comes to a very nice ending for me, but also, hopefully, others, not only for spiritual reasons, but also because The Orthodox Christian World, edited by Augustine Casiday, is now available in print.

http://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Christian-World-Routledge-Worlds/dp/0415455162/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344542507&sr=1-1&keywords=Orthodox+Christian+World

This project ran a little late, but I’m hoping people will find it worth the wait.  I say this not only because I happened to author chapter 13 on Orthodoxy in America (yay!) but also because this should prove to be a helpful resource to many.  I would suggest parishes (including non-Orthodox ones that want to be up-to-speed on world Christianity) purchase copies in addition to libraries.

As with any such work, there are always areas that could be improved.  Each chapter is really a survey of the topic and cannot highlight every aspect.  That said, there are some things missing here and there.  For instance, in my own piece, there is no mention of Amy Slagle’s important book on American converts: http://www.amazon.com/Eastern-Church-Spiritual-Marketplace-Christianity/dp/0875806708/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344542552&sr=1-1&keywords=Amy+Slagle.  Why not?  Well, because I wrote the piece before her book was published and by the time I noticed that I had not followed up with the editors on it, it was too late.  Sorry Amy! :-(  Sticking with American Orthodoxy, I did not notice Bishop Basil (in his essay on St. Raphael of Brooklyn) make any mention of  St. Raphael having possibly been involved in a shooting.  St. Raphael was accused of fleeing the scene and shooting at a police officer.  He said he simply fled and hid when the shooting started and had never once held a handgun.  I honestly do not think he was guilty and he wasn’t found guilty of the accusation back then, but it seems odd to have omitted it entirely, especially since this is an incident that can also serve to highlight how difficult things were back then within the Syro-Lebanese community.  BTW, if you’re interested, Matthew Namee, on a church history blog I helped establish a few years ago (though as of this spring, I’ve pulled back from involvement), has a good post on that incident:

http://orthodoxhistory.org/2010/10/05/did-st-raphael-try-to-shoot-a-police-officer/

Also, one might wonder why this person or that person was left out of The Orthodox Christian World.  It’s a judgment call, and it’s bound to happen.  Indeed, it has to.  Neither the entries/chapters, nor the work as a whole, can be comprehensive and decisions must be made by authors and editors alike.  Nonetheless, it’s still fair to ask:  why include St. Raphael, but not St. Tikhon and/or St. Alexis, for instance?

Another question people might have is why not include a significant woman in addition to the Theotokos?  Have there been no significant Orthodox women?  Ever?  What of St. Macrina?  Or St. Melania the Younger?  Or the Empress Irene? Or St. Helena or Olga?  Anyhow, I do think this was an oversight, and one that I expect will be noted by some.

Those sorts of questions aside, I really do think this is an important resource and I would highly recommend it.  Again, this is a collection of essays on various topics.  They won’t provide the depth that the culmination of an intense research enterprise can produce (such as in Scott Kenworthy’s The Heart of Russia, which I’d also highly recommend: http://www.amazon.com/The-Heart-Russia-Trinity-Sergius-Monasticism/dp/0199736138/ref=la_B004IZWNS0_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344542456&sr=1-1).  That said, I really hope libraries and parishes will purchase it.  The cost (currently in hard cover) will prevent a lot of individuals from purchasing it, but hopefully their parish could throw it into their library holdings.

American Orthodox Christianity Series 1, the Insignificance of Orthodox Christianity to America, Post 5: The Ghettoization of American Orthodoxy

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In this post, I thought I’d highlight the main reason for the insignificance of Orthodoxy that is often given: ethnic ghettos.  Indeed, this is the standard sociological narrative and, indeed, a narrative given by many Orthodox themselves.[1]  Now, there is a fair amount of  truth to this.  The new immigrants often formed brotherhoods, or mutual aid societies, which created life insurance and other social support systems for the new immigrant communities.  Also, there was real, legitimate discrimination against the new immigrants.  For example, new Orthodox immigrants might be given low wages or sometimes not paid at all or even run out of town!  [Perhaps I'll post on some of these specific examples in the future.]  My own work in American Orthodox historical theology has been, in large part, to show that such ghettoization is not the entire story.  Yet, it has been a very important, ongoing part of the story.  Even to this day, one may still find parishes in America that are heavily identified by their attachment to a particular Eastern European or Middle Eastern ethnicity.

Some aspects of American culture reinforced this “refuge-seeking” aspect of American Orthodox Church life, even beyond the need to respond to American Nativism.  Or, perhaps stated more accurately, American Nativism affected more than simply hiring practices and whether a group might be run out of town on rare occasion.  For example, when Orthodox did make the newspapers for their services and such, it was presented as something “exotic,” as something “other,” sometime not quite typically American but weird and strange, even if the journalist happened to like the music or service itself.  Or, as I believe I’ve mentioned on here before, Orthodox Christianity wasn’t something the Selective Service formally recognized.  Relatedly, when there were public, ecumenical prayer events, one might find a Catholic priest, a Protestant pastor, and a Jewish rabbi, but not an Orthodox priest.  All of these additional cultural factors reinforced the “ethnic ghetto” aspect of Orthodox religion.

So, although I would contend such does not summarize all of earlier American Orthodox history, it did play an important role.  This is especially true when one considers that  ethnic ghettos meant Serbs, Greeks, Russians, and Ukrainians would each go to their own church in their own neighborhood.  This has had consequences for Orthodox.  This ethnic division has slowed Orthodox cooperation and unification in America.  What the future will bring on this, is hard to say, but certainly, this ethnic ghetto approach has helped make Orthodox Christianity insignificant for American religion and culture in many ways.

[As a programming note, this ends the first American Orthodox Christianity Series.  In my second series, I'll note some ways in which American Orthodoxy has worked to be significant for American religion and culture.]

[1] See, for example, Peter Berger, who claimed Orthodoxy has responded “defensively.”  Peter L. Berger, “Orthodoxy and the Pluralistic Challenge,” in the Orthodox Parish in America: Faithfulness to the Past and Responsibility for the Future, edited by Anton C. Vrame (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2003), 39.

American Orthodox Christianity Series 1: Orthodoxy’s Insignificance for American Religion and Culture, Post 4

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In continuing this series, I thought I’d mention another factor that has kept Orthodox Christianity to the margins of American religion–our immigration numbers.  It was common for priests and parishes without priests, to exaggerate their numbers when writing back home to their bishops.  This exaggeration has had an ongoing effect.  I remember reading a pamphlet while still a Lutheran that claimed Orthodoxy had 5-7 million members in America.  I had also encountered more realistic numbers by then, however, and so I was skeptical.  As it turns out, there is good reason to be skeptical and, indeed, downright critical of such exaggeration.  For example, if we look here, we see a claim of 2-3 million Carpatho-Rusyns alone (!):

Greek Catholic Union, Opportunity Realized: The Greek Catholic Union’s First One Hundred Years, 1892-1992 (Beaver, PA: Greek Catholic Union of the U.S.A., 1994), 5.

In reality, there were about 200,000:

Bohdan P. Procko, “The Establishment of the Ruthenian Church in the United States, 1884-1907,” Pennsylvania History 42 (1975), 139, 143 n26, 149 n48, 150, and 152.

I do not mean to pick on Carpatho-Rusyns, here.  I just happen to have these sources handy due to my research work on St. Alexis Toth, but this example could be repeated for the other ethnic groups.  In the case of the Carpatho-Rusyns, it’s easy to see as well that the more conservative number is more accurate, for many of the Carpatho-Rusyns became Orthodox (under St. Alexis’ guidance) and led to what we now know as the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), of which our parish is a part.  Were there 2-3 million, his conversions would have numbered in the millions and the OCA would be much bigger than it is today.

So, one of the reasons we have had a negligible impact is because our numbers were never very large to begin with.  Next Monday, I’ll have the next post in this series.  My goal is to make these American Orthodoxy series a Monday series.  Other days will then be open for other posts.

American Orthodox Christianity Series 1: Exploring the Insignificance of Orthodoxy for American Religion, Post 3

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In this this post, I wish to start exploring the historical angles.  Again, the point to this first American Orthodox Christianity Series is not to make all Orthodox feel bad or to show us as pathetic, but to explore a reality–we are largely insignificant to American society and religion.  The second series will explore some areas of importance and some ways in which we can possibly expand our influence, but for now, I turn to the first “historical” post for this series.

Early on in Orthodoxy’s engagement with American society, there was little effort to promote Orthodoxy to the broader American populace except as Orthodoxy might relate to Anglicanism.  Initially, this was as an underground    response to the situation in the Anglican Church.  Following the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, which deposed King James II and installed William and Mary, many Anglican clergy and laity refused to go along and the clergy became known as “non-jurors” for refusing allegiance to William and Mary.  One early Virginian, Philip Ludwell III, an early aristocrat in the British colonies (http://orthodoxwiki.org/Philip_Ludwell_III), converted to the Russian Orthodox Church and kept Orthodoxy alive within in own house in Virginia.  He taught his family the Orthodox faith and brought pre-sancitified gifts across the sea for communion, all of which is commendable, but did not, to my knowledge, establish or even back serious efforts to engage Virginia publicly on matters of faith and religion that would have given Orthodoxy a serious voice.

If one fast forwards to the nineteenth century, we find Orthodoxy primarily ensconced in Alaska and, to a much lesser degree, the coastal fringes of California.    In what we now consider the Lower 48, the only visible presence was the missionary chapel of Nicholas Bjerring (http://orthodoxwiki.org/Nicholas_Bjerring) in New York.  Bjerring did make the newspapers and briefly established the first Orthodox journal, but in doing this, he was “ecumenical” to the extreme, seeking merely to inform and the chapel, under the auspices of the Metropolitan in St. Petersburg, existed as a show chapel to the Protestant Episcopal Church, the American wing of the Anglican Communion.  The chapel lasted from 1870-1883.  Bjerring had been a convert from Roman Catholicism (and before that, from Lutheranism to Catholicism).  He became Presbyterian before reverting to Catholicism shortly before his death.  The impetus for going from Orthodoxy to Presbyterianism was that Russia closed his chapel.  Although offered a teaching position at the St. Petersburg Academy, he preferred to remain in America and so became a Presbyterian pastor.  There is more to his story, and much that is venerable, but for my purposes here, I think I’ve given us what we need.

These  two examples serve to show that prior to immigration, Orthodoxy had not made any efforts, outside of the Natives in Alaska, to influence and shape the American religious landscape.

Fr. Peter Gillquist and Fargo, ND

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Earlier, I had mentioned that I would post again on Fr. Peter Gillquist and his connection to the Orthodox mission in Fargo.  Fargo is allegedly the first mission Fr. Peter enacted upon becoming Orthodox.  According to Fr. Andrew Harmon (Orthodox priest in Ohio), he and Fr. Peter decided upon Fargo as a good location for a mission.  Fr. Andrew has family within the region, east of Fargo-Moorhead.  So, they grabbed a phone book Fr. Andrew had and called every Eastern European name in the phonebook, asking whether the person would be interested in having an Orthodox mission in Fargo.  Most said no, of course, and were Roman Catholic, but enough said “yes,” that they decided to establish the mission.  That was back in about 1987.  Our mission had a priest for a few months back then, but he had difficulties with alcoholism.  Sometime thereafter he returned to the Protestant Episcopal Church.  Fargo would spend the next 20 + years being sporadically serviced, though the priests who came here came in good faith and with plates already full due to work in other parishes.  Fr. Peter never forgot about Fargo and when I came here, he and I would discuss Fargo periodically.  Although he was sad to see the mission move from the Antiochian Archdiocese to the OCA a few years ago, he conceded to me that such was probably best for the mission itself and the mission remained in his thoughts and prayers.  I realize that Fr. Peter’s influence on the larger religious scene in America may be minuscule, and few who are not connected to Orthodoxy or 1980s evangelicalism will know of him, but that is the case with nearly every significant Orthodox Christian leader, for various factors that may be worth exploring in future posts.  Within Orthodox Christianity, however, his influence is quite important.  Indeed, I’d argue it is very important.  His energy will be sorely missed by many.  May his memory be eternal!