This post was originally published on this site

Since its formation in 2010, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the USA (AoB) has fostered inter-Orthodox cooperation in the United States of America. The precursor to this forum of the episcopal assembly was the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), collectively approved by the 4th Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference in 2009, and the fraternal relationships encouraged between SCOBA’s participating hierarchs. 

Founded and presided over by the late Archbishop Iakovos, SCOBA was never a complete representation of canonical Orthodox presence in America, but included only the leaders of certain jurisdictions. While not a formal component of the international pre-conciliar process—a six-decade endeavor—to prepare for the Great and Holy Council held on Crete in 2016, SCOBA worked in concert with preparations for the Council, especially on the question of the Orthodox diaspora. 

The success of SCOBA, first and foremost, was determined by the rapport and synergy cultivated between three leading Hierarchs who have since fallen asleep in the Lord—Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese (1959 – 1996), Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochian Archdiocese (1966 – 2014), and Metropolitan Theodosius of the Orthodox Church in America, also known as the OCA (1977 – 2002). These three hierarchs overlapped in ministering their flocks for nearly 20 years, and were able to develop a cooperative, brotherly appreciation for one another. And it was not always easy for them!  

Metropolitan Theodosius was the second leader of the OCA, which was formed by a unilateral and widely-contested decision of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970. From the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America (known as the “Metropolia”), the OCA emerged as a so-called ‘autocephalous’ American ecclesial entity. However, there was no universal Orthodox acceptance of this action and thus, it complicated inter-Orthodox relations both in the United States and abroad. Besides Russia, all of the Churches that recognized the ‘autocephaly’ of the OCA were behind the Iron Curtain in 1970: Georgia, Bulgaria, Poland, and the Czech Lands and Slovakia.[1] 

While not recognizing the ‘autocephaly’ of the Orthodox Church in America, the Serbian Orthodox Church, among other churches, did recognize the OCA’s canonical validity and status as autonomous. Even with their recognition of the OCA’s ‘autocephaly,’ neither the Georgian nor Bulgarian, nor even the Moscow Patriarchate itself, gave up their own jurisdictional presences in North America. The Moscow Patriarchate did give up its seat on SCOBA by an internal arrangement with the OCA, but rejoined in 2008 after making an official request in 2004. 

This very complicated ecclesiastical situation presented tremendous stresses and difficulties to SCOBA from 1970 onward. It was at this moment that the fraternal relationships between Archbishop Iakovos, Metropolitan Philip, and Metropolitan Theodosius proved to bear fruits unexpected by many. Despite the intimations of Soviet interference with the Church in the creation of the OCA, the hierarchs continued to work together. They promoted pan-Orthodox ministries, and encouraged liturgical con-celebrations where practical. At the same time, they all showed discretion and decency with one another so as to avoid any kind of confrontation relating to the ecclesiastical realities within which they lived. 

It is in this light that the first major meeting of most of the Orthodox hierarchs in North America, the 1994 Ligonier Meeting, should be viewed. Metropolitan Philip offered Antiochian Village as the setting for this event and was a gracious host. The determinations made by the 29 bishops at Ligonier were not particularly revolutionary. The Ligonier meeting, like other SCOBA meetings, actually worked concurrently with the pre-conciliar process undertaken at the international level in preparation for the Great and Holy Council. Composed of only the heads of certain jurisdictions, SCOBA laid the groundwork for the establishment of Assembly of Bishops, composed of all actives bishops in the USA, following the consensus achieved in the Pan-Orthodox response to the question of the diaspora during the Great and Holy Council’s pre-conciliar process. It is through the accomplishments of both SCOBA and the pre-conciliar process that the first Assembly of Bishops meeting in 2010 was convened with fifty-five bishops from every Orthodox jurisdiction in North America.[2]

Looking back on the leadership of these three hierarchs during complex and complicated times, we must recognize the great debt of gratitude we bear to them, for they acted with Christian humility and charity toward one another, and envisaged a shared future based in a commitment to upholding the unity of the Orthodox faith in the United States of America. May their memory be eternal! 

This article is published as part of the America at 250: Orthodoxy in a New Homeland media initiative co-organized by the Orthodox Observer and the Department of Inter-Orthodox, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Relations of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America to honor the contributions and experience of Orthodox Christianity in America and celebrate 250th anniversary of America’s founding.

  1. In 1951, the Moscow Patriarchate made the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia “autocephalous,” though this action was not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which regarded the Czechoslovakian church as being autonomous and under its own authority. Constantinople later granted a Tomos of Autocephaly to the combined nation-states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1998. This Church has never claimed an ecclesiastical presence for any Diaspora population in the Western Hemisphere.
  2. Since that time, following its own internal procedures, the 2010 Assembly was subdivided; Canada as a separate Assembly and Mexico attached to South America, leaving the United States as an integral ecclesial unit.

The post How three hierarchs fostered Orthodox unity in the U.S. appeared first on Orthodox Observer.