Array Сборник: Приход Русской Православной Церкви в России и за рубежом. Материалы к изучению приходской жизни. Выпуск 4. Приходы Америки

One of the interviews was with abbot Nikodemus (Balyasnikov) who told us about the parishes of Moscow Patriarchate located in America – in fact, the parishes founded by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon. This particular story opens the first part of the fourth issue – “Orthodoxy in the USA: diversity as an American culture feature”.

An interview with Rev. Hieromonk Eutichius (Dovganyuk) of the Synodal Cathedral of the Icon of Our Lady of the Sign in New York (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) gets acquainted us with the parishes of Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. His story uncovers another page of the Church history and modernity – the birth of so-called “white church”, “the church of Russian emigrants” in America, the tragic destiny of which was shared by Patriarch himself after his return to Soviet Russia.

On November 1899 St. Tikhon sent a request to the Holy Synod of changing the name of diocese from “Diocese of Aleutians and Alaska” to “Diocese of Aleutians and North America” and thus, starting from February 1900 the new Diocese intended to give guidance for a big amount of Orthodox emigrants settled in the northern part of America. In May 1905 St. Tikhon was elevated to the rank of Archbishop of Aleutian and North American Archidiocese. The well-disposed administration and clear-eyed view of the situation led to increase the number of the parishes in the eastern part of America near the cities of New York, Pittsburgh and Boston.

After New York we went to Pittsburgh to see with our own eyes the legacy of St. Tikhon. As the biographers mentioned, St. Tikhon paid great attention to association with other local churches, in particular, he maintained relations with Syrian and Serbian Orthodox communities, often ministered at their churches, did everything he could to arrangement their life in America. He also guided and supported Greek Orthodox parishes, especially in the western part of the USA. For many times he officiated the divine services in Orthodox church of Chicago in Greek, that fulfilled Greek people with gratefulness and marveling.

There is no doubt that St. Tikhon was the symbolic center of Orthodoxy in America that unified people of the most different nations that time.

Being in Pittsburgh we met and interviewed the clergy and the laity of Antiochian Orthodox Church and Greek Orthodox Church. On the one hand we tried to look back to the past, on the other hand – we carefully examined modern fife: what had changed since the times of our Orthodox brothers’ arrival in America? Trying to feel the succession of history and discover new stories in the destiny of Antiochian and Greek Orthodox communities we interviewed the abbot of Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Pittsburgh, the priest Dimitry Mekowl, and the abbot of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Pittsburgh (American Archdiocese of Constantinopolitan Patriarchate), the priest Christopher Bender. These materials are also represented in the first section of the issue “Orthodoxy in the USA: diversity as an American culture feature”.

The peacefulness of His Grace Bishop Tikhon, his peace making service led to the realization of the necessity of bringing North American eparchy to the level of exarchate possessing extensive autonomous rights. Such a request to the Holy Synod was made in 1905. Moreover, St.Tikhon suggested a possibility of autocephaly of American Orthodox Church in the future taking in account the complexity of spreading Orthodoxy in poly-confessional America, raised a question of the need to train American clergy. As the result, the mission school in Minneapolis became a seminary. Over the time the problem of producing enough American priests fully disappeared as well as the necessity of sending priests from Russia unfamiliar with the reality of American life.

These entire solutions and reforms made by St.Tikhon are being continued even today in a remarkable manner – American Orthodox Church plays an increasingly prominent part in the process of Christianization of America. Other profile of Orthodoxy in the U SA is demonstrated in the issue by interviews with Archimandrite Alexander (Golitzin), the Bishop of Toledo and the Bulgarian Diocese (Orthodox Church of America); with Mother Christophora (Matichak), the abbess of the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church in America in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania; with Fr.Thomas Soroka, rector of St.Nicholas Orthodox Church in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania.

The second part of the issue is called “Parishes of Moscow Patriarchate and Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in New York. Memoirs of the past, review of the present, forecast for the future in interviews with the clergy and the laity”. It represents a set of interviews containing experience of the laity of various waves of Russian emigration of the 20th century. The interviews illustrate not just the evolution of the parish life of the two main orthodox churches of New York (St. Nicholas Patriarchal Cathedral and Synodal Cathedral of the Sign), but also the development of American society itself. In this context are of great interest interviews with Archpriest Alexander Golubov, the cleric of St. Nicholas Cathedral, with Nadya Mokhoff, the treasurer of the Cathedral of our Lady of the Sign Sisterhood, and with Eugenia Temidis, the precentor at daily services with Synodal Cathedral Choir. In retrospective manner starting from the middle of the last century our respondents gave us the portraits of the parishioners, described the reality of the parish life of that period. Two more interviews – with Sergei Yakushin, starosta of the Synodal Cathedral of our Lady of the Sign, and Protodeacon Igor Panachev, the cleric of St. Nicholas Cathedral – focus on the current time: who is the modern parishioner, what the life of the modern laity looks like, what difficulties they face and what place the church takes in their life.

In the third part of the issue – “Two sides of the parish fife. The Orthodox parish in non-orthodox and orthodox society” – there are interviews with two priests. Anatoly Shefer, the cleric of the Orthodox Church of Resurrection of Christ in Munich, and Lev Efremidis, the Rector of the Orthodox Church of St. Seraphim Sarovskiy in Thessaloniki tell us in details about their parishes’ weekdays and practices under conditions of non-orthodox confessional Germany and orthodox Greece, denote similarities and differences, peculiarities of the influence of the society and local communities. Such materials provide unique experience of getting acquainted with the state of Russian Orthodox parishes in the countries of Orthodox tradition and vice versa – Protestant and Catholic tradition. It should also be noticed that the interview with Lev Efremidis is a kind of prologue to the fifth issue of this collection dedicated to Russian Orthodox parishes of Cyprus and Greece.

The final fourth part of the issue called “Parish and Orthodox Migrant in Scientific Research Studies” is completed by the papers of the following authors:

– A. Krindach, who is famous for his fundamental research study of Orthodoxy in America;

– S. V. Ryazantsev, A. A. Grebenyuk, specialized for a long time and have a lot of publications on the study of the life being of Russian compatriots abroad, including Russian communities in the USA;

– N. S. Erokhova, which article is an analysis of Christian communities of the city of Pittsburgh, PA based on the results of the sociological research made by the Faculty of Social Sciences within the framework of cooperation between St. Tikhon Orthodox University and Theological Seminary of Pittsburgh.

One more article written by Podlesnaya M. A. and Kharchevkina N. N. is based on the translation of not published in Russia book by Peter Berger who considers the phenomenon of American religiosity in comparison with European secularism.