Eastern Orthodoxy

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Eastern Orthodoxy

Eastern Orthodox Christianity arrived in North America in the late 1700s by way of Russian Orthodox missionaries from the Valaam monastery who evangelized among Alaskan natives. Within two years the Russian missionaries had performed eleven thousand baptisms, consecrated two thousand marriages, and put up a church and two portable chapels. The Valaam monks translated the Bible and sacred texts into native languages, with a view toward reflecting local spiritual ideas and practices in their mission and to creating self-sufficient Orthodox churches led by local priests. The missionaries followed the practice of working in native languages and representing local customs in Orthodox worship established by Byzantine missionaries who spread Orthodoxy in the Balkans, Russia, and the Middle East.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity expanded in the United States throughout the 1900s with the influx of Russian, Balkan, Greek, and Middle Eastern settlers seeking refuge from economic hardship, political oppression, and war that prevailed in their homelands. Within the framework of religious freedom and tolerance in the United States, Orthodox Christians established parishes in which they worshiped according to their spiritual vision and were governed by their understanding of episcopal polity. Orthodox settlers in North America in the early 1900s adhered to nationalism and ethnic divisions fostered in Orthodox regions that were under Ottoman rule in Europe and the Middle East. Divisions along ethnic and national lines in the Orthodox Church were further entrenched in a climate of ethnic and racial hostility structuring American settlements and social institutions before the civil rights movement of the 1960s. While ethnicity persists in Orthodox churches, congregations are gradually becoming ethnically diverse as a result of interethnic marriages among first- and second-generation Orthodox Christians and a growing number of converts drawn by the ethos of Orthodox worship.

The Eastern Orthodox Church in North America today consists of about twenty communions with approximately 6 million adherents. Some of these bodies are variously under the jurisdiction of the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia, Romania, and Albania; these churches rely on their patriarch to appoint archbishops and bishops but are otherwise independent and self-reliant. A smaller number of Orthodox denominations are largely autonomous; they are not under the jurisdiction of a patriarch, they independently appoint the head of their church, and they govern their affairs and are self-sufficient. Since the late 1870s lay groups have established Orthodox parishes in North America. Orthodox parishes rely on volunteers to raise funds to support the clergy, maintain the church building, and sponsor church programs. In North America Orthodox churches elect a parish council from their members to direct church administrative affairs. By the mid-1960s the local parish had become a significant spiritual and social institution among Orthodox Christian minorities in North America. Within the framework of the church they determined their identity based on their articulation of Orthodox tenets and practices.

While Orthodox church buildings in North America vary, their structures adhere to the requirements for Orthodox worship. The church is conceived as heaven on Earth, a place were Orthodox Christians experience God on Earth. In the eyes of believers the structure is the embodiment of the work of the Holy Spirit. The building structure and interior narrate an Orthodox worldview. Icons are placed throughout the sanctuary in positions that are prescribed by Orthodox cosmology and practice. Icons are essential elements in Orthodox worship, and they are used to impart church teachings. Most Orthodox sanctuaries in North America include pews, organs, choir lofts, and fellowship halls. The fellowship halls are used for church organizational meetings, fund-raisers, socials, Bible study, and Sunday school. In the early 1900s some Orthodox churches also established primary schools that taught children their native language and culture as a way of continuing the ethnic identity and character of the group. Since the 1960s the curricula in Orthodox Church–based schools offer a bilingual and bicultural program.

Beliefs and Practices

While the Eastern Orthodox Church in North America is composed of autonomous and largely autonomous bodies, its members are united by shared beliefs and practices. Orthodox Christians believe that they bear the unbroken apostolic legacy; they see themselves as embodying the true and comprehensive faith. Orthodox Christians agree that the foundations of Orthodox spiritual beliefs and practices were established in seven ecumenical councils: Nicea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (680), and Nicea II (787). Orthodox Christians rely on the teachings and writings of the holy church fathers. They also believe in scriptural authority revealed to humanity through the church. They agree that the church should be governed by episcopal authority. The Orthodox Church is also united by shared liturgical structure, sacraments, and church feasts. The liturgy of St. John Chrysostom has been used since the fifth century and is enacted on most Sundays in Orthodox churches. The liturgy of St. Basil, written in the fourth century, is a longer version of the text prepared by St. John Chrysostom and is sung ten times a year. The liturgy of the presanctified gifts, written by St. Gregory in the sixth century, is sung on Wednesdays and Fridays of Great Lent and on the first three days of Holy Week. There are seven sacraments enacted in the Orthodox Church: baptism, chrismation, Holy Eucharist, repentance, ordination, marriage, and holy unction. Each sacrament imparts a particular grace. The sacraments are the means by which Orthodox Christians are transformed into divine likenesses.

Orthodox Christians believe in a triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God the Father is creator of all things in the universe. God is Christ, the son of God who came to Earth as man and returned to God the Father in heaven. God is the Holy Spirit, who dispenses God's grace to humanity and the universe. Humanity experiences God the Father, who is transcendent and mysterious through God's energies. God is personal. God is reached by personal prayer and devotion conducted in the church and in private, everyday life. Orthodox Christians maintain a small iconostasis—a partition or screen—in their homes, where a small candle or lamp illuminates the family icons. The iconostasis is the site of private devotion and prayer in the home. Private devotion includes observing fasts that accord with Orthodox beliefs, taking part in the celebration of church feasts, and observing the sacraments.

There are twelve great feasts in the Orthodox calendar, excluding Easter. The celebration of Easter is the most significant church feast in Orthodoxy. Christ's resurrection is a central theme and a major structuring element in Orthodox worship; Christ's life, Passion, and resurrection figure prominently in the liturgies and icons represented in church interiors. Orthodox Christians venerate Mary, the mother of God; four church feasts are in Mary's honor. Commemorations of the church fathers and saints are represented throughout Orthodox thought and practice.

Ideological Conflicts

Second- and third-generation Orthodox Christians sustain the Orthodox Church in North America. Since the 1960s, ethnic divisiveness and separation have been waning in American society. New generations of Orthodox Christians who have been reared on American soil and have achieved upward mobility in American society are not defensive about their ethnic and religious identity. For this generation, the homelands of their ancestors are points of honor and pride but not places where they seek to resettle. Thus Orthodox parishes in North America are no longer defensive and inward-looking. The expansion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in a plural and open American society is creating the foundation for ecumenical and interfaith dialogue. Much of this dialogue is taking place at the local level as a result of the increasing pluralism in American society and the growing number of interfaith marriages and conversions. While some Orthodox Christians have left Orthodoxy since the 1960s, the signs of Orthodox renewal and revival abound. The first and second generations are restoring Orthodox churches, embracing the symbols and meanings embodied in Orthodox worship, and taking part in expanding church programs that include opportunities to discuss Orthodox sacred texts to give order and meaning to their lives. Orthodox parents are baptizing their children in the faith and fostering the Orthodox identity of their children.

Christian unity and ecumenical dialogue are major concerns among Orthodox Christians. The Orthodox Church takes part in the World Council of Churches (WCC). Within the framework of the WCC the Orthodox have an opportunity to address doctrinal differences that separate them from Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity. However, within the WCC the Orthodox see themselves treated as a marginal minority whose concerns are disparaged by the Protestant majority. The Orthodox believe that the WCC should focus less on what Orthodox consider ephemeral concerns of inclusive language and the ordination of women and more on theological themes such as the veneration of Mary, the significance of icons in worship, and the foundations for unity in faith.

On the global scene there are several initiatives unfolding to provide opportunities for dialogue on the divisive issues of the authority of the pope, the veneration of icons, secularism, the primacy of theological claims based on the authority of rational discourse in Western Christianity, and the privileged authority of science in Western society. Orthodox Christians look to their sources—scripture, the teachings of the church fathers, the teachings of Jesus, Mary, and the saints, iconography, the apostolic legacy—to address these concerns. In North America, Orthodox Christians are faced with questions about the ordination of women, abortion, homosexuality, violence, poverty, and the environment. The second and third generations must reconcile the tenets of Orthodox faith that stress humility, self-sacrifice, and stewardship with the secular practices of unencumbered individualism and competition. Orthodox Christians must reconcile the utilitarian ethic defining everyday transactions in American society with the Orthodox ethic of love outlined in Orthodox discourse and practice. Orthodox Christians in North America are increasingly in a position to endow institutions in which they can retrieve their past in order to contemplate and act in the future. Less encumbered by the exigencies of ethnic discrimination and limited economic resources, they are in a position to shed their parochial legacy and reach for the cosmopolitan outlook and practice embodied in North American history during the initial landing of Orthodoxy in Alaska.