ORTHODOX CHURCH IN AMERICA (OCA)

ORTHODOX CHURCH IN AMERICA (OCA). Russian Orthodox missionaries first arrived in Alaska (q.v.), then part of the Russian Empire, in 1794. The original dozen or so missionaries from the Valaamo Monastery near Finland included Herman (q.v.), a monk who lived forty-three years on Spruce Island near Kodiak, and who was canonized as the first American Orthodox saint (q.v.). The Orthodox Church in America is the direct descendant of this Russian Orthodox Missionary Diocese and is the only canonical autocephalous (q.v.) Orthodox church based on the North American continent.

In 1824 the Alaskan mission received new life with the arrival of the priest, then bishop, Innocent Veniaminov (q.v.). He fostered indigenous church life, translating Church documents into Aleut. Innocent was appointed Bishop of Kamchatka, the Kuriles and Aleutians (1840), with residence in New Archangel, now Sitka. He became the first Orthodox bishop with North American territory in his episcopal title. As bishop, Innocent traveled extensively in Asia and North America. He called for a self-governing American Orthodox church, with leadership representing Orthodox Christians from all ethnic and national backgrounds.

Toward the end of the 19th c. Russian America (q.v.) and Orthodoxy therein experienced tremendous growth as thousands of Orthodox Christians from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Albania, Greece, Turkey, and various Middle Eastern countries immigrated to the United States and Canada. A large number of Uniates (q.v.) in the United States also reunited themselves with the canonical Russian Orthodox Church here.

Bishop Tikhon Belavin (q.v.) headed the North American Missionary Diocese from 1898 to 1907. He moved the Church’s center from San Francisco to New York City, founded St. Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania, and built St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City. Tikhon called for greater autonomy of the North American Missionary Diocese, including development of local leadership and increased use of various liturgical languages, especially English, later sponsoring a translation of services. He returned to Russia (1907) and was elected the first Patriarch of Moscow (1918) since the time of Peter the Great. Before the Russian Revolution in 1917, Orthodox Christians from various backgrounds remained a unified Missionary Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church (q.v.). After the revolution the Russian emigre community in the new world was fractured, and changing ecclesiastical jurisdictions divided along lines of ethnic origin and political differences.

In 1920 Tikhon ordered all dioceses to continue governing themselves until the return of normal conditions within the Russian Patriarchate. In response to his decree a council met in Detroit (1924) and moved to become self-governing until proper free relations with the Russian Orthodox Church could be reestablished. In the intervening years the Missionary Diocese experienced a strained relationship with its parent Russian-now Soviet-Church. Chaotic disorder persisted into the 1950s. Yet Orthodoxy in America continued to grow through immigration and conversions. The Missionary Diocese, called a metropolitan district (“Metropolia”), gained recognition as the autocephalous Orthodox Church in America in 1970 by Aleksy I and the Patriarchate of Moscow. Today the OCA includes the American descendants of Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians, Galicians, and Carpatho-Russians, (Alaska’s) Aleuts, Eskimos, and Tlingits, and members of the Romanian, Albanian, and Bulgarian episcopates in the new world.

Nevertheless, the autocephaly of the OCA did not resolve the complex question of American Orthodoxy, since there are an estimated four million Orthodox Christians in North America who look to the Church for sacramental and pastoral services, a great many majority of whom are in the OCA. In 1960 delegates from various canonical European Orthodox traditions formed the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in America (q.v.). The Conference is working at bringing unity among North American Orthodox Christians-including all national and ethnic backgrounds-through a traditional ecclesiastical structure built on one bishop for one geographical area. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, an exarchate of the Patriarch of Constantinople, is the largest group in North America, headed by Archbishop Iakovos Coucouzis (qq.v.). Next in size and influence is the OCA, which has more than six hundred parishes. In addition, American Orthodoxy includes the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, the Serbian Orthodox Metropolitanate, Romanian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Carpatho-Russian, and Albanian dioceses, among others, not to mention a substantial group of Americans who have converted to Orthodoxy, most of whom find their ecclesiastical home in the OCA.