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CHAPTER I
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ORTHODOXY IN AMERICA BEFORE THE BOLSHEVIST REVOLUTION OF 1917
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The undistorted faith of our savior Jesus Christ and His Apostles reached the American continent in 1974, when eight missionary monks from Valaam monastery in Russia came to Kodiak Island and established an Orthodox Church there. 1 For the next century Holy Orthodoxy grew slowly but steadily on the new continent. During the mission's early years two radiant saints appeared in her ranks. In 1815 an Aleut named Peter suffered martyrdom at the hands of Roman Catholic Franciscans in California for refusing to renounce his faith, and twenty-two years later the holy Herman reposed in Alaska.
In 1872 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church founded the diocese of Aleutia and Alaska with its cathedral in San Francisco. The transfer of the cathedral from Sitka, Alaska, to San Francisco was indicative of the growth of the Orthodox population on the West Coast. Two years previously [1870] the first Russian parish was organized in New York City under the direction of Fr. Nicholas Berring, a convert from Roman Catholicism. The parish was even able to publish a journal in English, the Oriental Church Magazine.
The so-called "San Francisco period" [1870-1905],named for the location of the diocesan cathedral, was a time of considerable growth. As Basil Bensin puts it, "During the San Francisco period great progress was made by Russian Orthodoxy in America. The center of Orthodoxy was gradually moving from the Pacific to the Atlantic States with an increasing number of churches and parishes." 2
1. Most of the information in this section is taken from Basil M. Bensin, History of he Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America, New York, 1941.
2. Ibid., pp. 10-11.
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These were years of heavy immigration to America. Many emigrants from western regions of the Russian Empire came to make a living in the "land of opportunity." There also came a large number of Russian Uniates from Austro-Hungary. In 1891, led by the dynamic Fr. Alexis Toth, himself an immigrant from Austro-Hungary, the latter began to throw off the yoke of the Unia. Fr. Toth and his large Minneapolis parish were accepted into the Orthodox Church by Bishop Vladimir of San Francisco. Under Bishop Nicholas [1891-98], Vladimir's successor, nine Uniate parishes were received into the Church, and a "missionary school" for the training of clergy was established in Minneapolis. Two Orthodox journals, The Russian-American Orthodox Messenger and Svit, began to be published in Russian. From 1896 on the Messenger also included sections in English.
Under Bishop Tikhon [1898-1907], later to become Patriarch of All Russia and a confessor of Orthodoxy under the Bolsheviks, "the Orthodox movement grew among the Uniate parishes and immigration from Russia to America increased many-fold." 1 Under Tikhon, more than twenty new parishes - many of them sizable - were founded in America, and for in Canada. Bishop Tikhon soon acquired two suffragan bishops: Bishop Innocent was placed in charge of Alaska, and Bishop Raphael, an Arab, given charge over the Syro-Arabian Mission in America, which had been founded in 1895.
In 1903 Tikhon was elevated by the Russian Holy Synod to the title of Archbishop of Alaska and North America. Two years later the see was transferred from San Francisco to New York,in order to meet the
1. Ibid., p. 13.
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exigencies of the population shift in American Orthodoxy. In 1905 a rudimentary seminary was founded in Minneapolis, and in 1906, St. Tikhon's Monastery, "the first Russian monastery in the United States," was opened by Hieromonk Arseny Chagovetz at South Canaan, Pennsylvania.
Under Archbishop Platon [1907-14], who after the Revolution became Metropolitan of North America and subsequently led his flock into a disastrous schism, Orthodoxy continued to grow. Forty new parishes were organized in the United States and ten in Canada. Among them were formerly Uniate parishes." 1 In 1912 the seminary was transferred from Minneapolis to Tenafly, New Jersey.
Under Archbishop Evdokim [1914-17], who after the Revolution also disgraced himself by joining the "Living Church," thirty-five new parishes were organized in the United States and two in Canada. Thus in the ten years [1907-17] of Platon's and Evdokim's administration seventy-five new parishes were founded in America, a truly extraordinary rate of growth which was the result of mass conversion from the Unia and large-scale immigration. By 1916 Evdokim had four suffragan bishops to assist him-- Alexander [Nemolovsky] of Canada, consecrated in 1908; Phillip of Alaska, consecrated in 1916; Eftimios, Syro-Arabian Bishop of Brooklyn, consecrated in 1916; and Stephen, Bishop of Pittsburg, consecrated in 1916 "chiefly for work among Pennsylvania parishes consisting of Carpatho-Russians from Hungary." 2
A word about the Greek parishes in America is in order at this point. Before the 1890's the parishes of the Greek Church were "naturally and
1. Ibid., p. 16
2. Ibid., p. 17
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canonically under the protection and care of the Orthodox Catholic jurisdiction established by the Russian Holy Synod for all American residents." 1 There may have been exceptions, as the American Greek Archdiocese now claims, but, generally speaking, adherence to the Russian Church was the rule for Greek parishes in America.
Beginning with the 1890's, however, priests began to be sent to America by both the Holy Synod of Greece and the Œcumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople. In 1907 Constantinople agreed to allow all Greeks in America to be under the Holy Synod of Greece. Thus from 1908-1918 the Greek parishes were directed by the Church of Greece, although no bishop came to take charge of the flock. The existence of a jurisdiction [even without a bishop] apart from the Russian diocese obviously boded ill for Church unity in America. This was soon realized by those who had the interests of the Church rather than of themselves at heart.
In 1912 Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople "realizing that the Russians had already established a diocese in North America, suggested that the Russian bishop in America, through the Holy Synod of Russia, recommend to the Holy Synod of Greece that 'a Greek bishop be appointed for America who had studied in a Russian theological academy.'" 2
"This statement by Patriarch Joachim III, "Alexander Doumouras comments, "together with his expressed wish that the Orthodox in America would live in harmony,matched the program which had already been inaugurated in America by the Russian Church. This plan called for the
1. Alexander Doumouras, "Greek Orthodox Communities in America before World War I," St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, vol. XI no. 4, p. 188.
2. Doumouras, op. cit., p. 191.
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establishment of an American Orthodox exarchate which was to be governed by a synod of the bishops of various racial or national groups. It was begun in 1904 with the consecration of Bishop Raphael to head the Syrian Orthodox Mission and, at the same time, to be a vicar of the Russian Archdiocese. This plan was formulated by Archbishop Tikhon [who later became Patriarch of Moscow]." 1
The vision bequeathed to the Church by Patriarch Tikhon was thus that a strong American Orthodox Church should emerge under the watchful guidance of the Russian Church, to whom the American mission had been entrusted by Divine Providence. No Russian "dictatorship" was envisaged. Rather, full-scale and influential participation by the Greeks, Syrians, and other immigrant groups was to be encouraged, and each group was to have its own bishops. Surely here was the guarantee of a missionary Church against which the enemy of mankind could not have prevailed! All too soon, however, the blessed unity provided for by Archbishop Tikhon and other far-sighted archpastors was to be shattered on the rock of ecclesiastical greed and ambition.
Looking back at American Orthodoxy as it was before 1917, the following features stand out as particularly relevant to the ensuing developments:
1. Before the latter part of the XIX century the Orthodox mission in America was very small. One cannot contest the statement of a Protestant student of American Orthodoxy that, "the real growth of the Orthodox diocese in the United States began with the mass return of the Uniates to Orthodoxy, and the increase of Greek, Slavic, and Syrian immigration.
1. Ibid.
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This occurred around the end of the nineteenth century."
2. The remarkable growth of Orthodoxy in America at the turn of the century gave, great grounds for optimism. It is therefore no wonder that Archbishop Tikhon, riding the crest of this movement, we led to foresee the day when an independent American Orthodox Church would evolve.
3. It is equally evident that prodigious efforts were required to educate this heterogeneous Orthodox population in the faith. The newly-converted Uniates, who made up a considerable part of the flock, had yet t be thoroughly divested of Uniate customs and habits of mind. The newly-arrived immigrants, for the most part uncultured and with a tendency towards unruliness, presented a problem to be handled with great wisdom and skill. By 1917 only the initial steps had been taken to solve these and other problems. The American mission, so full of potential, was in dire need of the wisdom and guidance of a Church steeped in a thousand years of Orthodoxy. It was definitely not prepared to set out on its own,and such venture could lead to nothing buy disaster.
4. The importance of the control exercised by the Russian Church over Orthodox America is also demonstrated by the subsequent fate of a number of bishops who served in the United States and Canada before the Revolution of 1917. Archbishop Platon became a schismatic. Archbishop Evdokim, who governed the American Church at the time of the Revolution, entered the "Living Church." Of his four suffragans three followed similar paths. Alexander of Canada, who succeeded Evdokim, had to leave America.
1. M.L.J. Schrank, "Problems of Orthodoxy in America: the Russian Church," St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, vol. VI, no. 4, 1962, p. 186.
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because of his financial irresponsibility and eventually ended up in the Moscow Patriarchate. Eftimios of Brooklyn eventually abandoned the episcopacy for marriage. And Stephen of Pittsburg became a Roman Catholic.
5. Finally, all Orthodox in America, with the partial [and unjustifiable] exception of the Greeks, came under the ecclesiastical supervision of the Russian Church before the Revolution. If Archbishop Tikhon's plans had been followed, a strong American Orthodoxy encompassing all Orthodox ethnic groups could have resulted. Unfortunately this was not to be.
