Canon VIII.

Our brother bishop Rheginus, the beloved of God, and his fellow beloved of God bishops, Zeno and Evagrius, of the Province of Cyprus, have reported to us an innovation which has been introduced contrary to the ecclesiastical constitutions and the Canons of the Holy Apostles, and which touches the liberties of all. Wherefore, since injuries affecting all require the more attention, as they cause the greater damage, and particularly when they are transgressions of an ancient custom; and since those excellent men, who have petitioned the Synod, have told us in writing and by word of mouth 235that the Bishop of Antioch has in this way held ordinations in Cyprus; therefore the Rulers of the holy churches in Cyprus shall enjoy, without dispute or injury, according to the Canons of the blessed Fathers and ancient custom, the right of performing for themselves the ordination of their excellent Bishops. The same rule shall be observed in the other dioceses and provinces everywhere, so that none of the God beloved Bishops shall assume control of any province which has not heretofore, from the very beginning, been under his own hand or that of his predecessors. But if any one has violently taken and subjected [a Province], he shall give it up; lest the Canons of the Fathers be transgressed; or the vanities of worldly honour be brought in under pretext of sacred office; or we lose, without knowing it, little by little, the liberty which Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Deliverer of all men, hath given us by his own Blood.

Wherefore, this holy and ecumenical Synod has decreed that in every province the rights which heretofore, from the beginning, have belonged to it, shall be preserved to it, according to the old prevailing custom, unchanged and uninjured: every Metropolitan having permission to take, for his own security, a copy of these acts. And if any one shall bring forward a rule contrary to what is here determined, this holy and ecumenical Synod unanimously decrees that it shall be of no effect.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.x.xvi.xii.html

Consecrateion of a bishop is a profound jurisdictional act, one that made the Greeks nervous: at the time, neither the CoG nor the EP had made any claims to jurisdiction in the New World, nor done any jurisdictional act in the New World except some of their priests coming here. Since the priests came (and went) at the will and mercy of the congregations here, not by the jurisdiction of the bishops in Greece or Constantinople (who both were sending, contrary to Apostolic canon 34 of one jurisdiction per territory), and were not organized into any diocese (again, an uncanonical situation), the Greeks were in a very bad situation under the canons vis-a-vis the now fully functioning Russian Diocese, whose primate had assumed control of the province which had heretofore, from the very beginning, been under his own hand and that of his predecessors.

That St. Raphael and his flock might have “dual loyalties” should perhaps be expected. I don’t know if he expected, for instance, to die in America or to return, as did all the Russian bishops and many of his flock, to his homeland. I expect St. Raphael would retain feelings for his homeland. Technically speaking, however, Pat. Meletios and Antioch had no say in the matter: Fr. Raphael had been translated to the Russian Synod from Antioch in 1895, his Cathedral was consecrated by the Russian bishop, his ordination was by the Russian Holy Synod. The Brooklyn Cathedral was not a metochion.

However, taking a cue from Mark 10:42, the RM thought less about their own power and glory, and more about their flock, and thus they, as was right and proper (but, going strictly by the canons, not required) involved Antioch in on the formation of the Syrian Mission here. The extreme of this is the Albanians, where the RM Albanian mission actually gave birth to its own mother Church.

There are those who think ethnic dioceses should be only temporary and then die out (something like those who think the WRO is good only as a stepping stone to the Eastern Rite). I don’t share that view. The idea of constituent ethnic dioceses connected with sees in a united North American Holy Synod makes sense for the circumstances in this part of the New World. Btw, that is not only a thing of the New World: Alexandria has an Arab vicarate attached to the Bishop of Mansurah.

I should expect that the bishop of such a diocese for the Arabs/Antiochians would have his see in Brookline.

St. Raphael himself wrote the following in Al Kalimat (vol. 1, page 2): “That he [Raphael] was consecrated bishop by the order and permission of Meletios, Patriarch of Antioch.”

And again (vol. 2, page 95): “And the territorial jurisdiction of the See of Antioch became much more extensive during the time of his beatitude, for Syrians who emigrated to many other countries still retained their spiritual relations with and continued to yield allegiance to their mother church, the Holy Church of Antioch, and kept firm in the Orthodox faith. His beatitude manifested the most perfect evidence of his interest in and care for them to the best of his means and ability. In substantiation of this, when the Russian Holy Synod infomred him that the lot of presiding in this diocese had fallen upon our humble self, his beatitude hastened to write to the Holy Synod, to His Eminence Tikhon, then Archbishop, and to our humble self, sanctioning the choice and declaring that he had instituted the new diocese as one of the dioceses pertaining to the See of Antioch, and thus it is in actuality, notwithstanding its nominal allegiance to the Russian Holy Synod.”

And again (vol. 2, page 18): “Whereas, we, the Syrian Orthodox residents of Greater New York and all other parts of North America constituting our new diocese (may God keep it) are considered a vigorous branch of our mother tree, the Church of Antioch; and whereas, this branch has flourished luxuriantly during the days of the administration of our father, may his name be ever blessed, the thrice illustrious Patriarch Meletios; and whereas, his beatitude was the first to sanction and bless the establishment of this new Syrian diocese in this new world…”

Furthermore, in August 1910, St. Raphael published in Al Kalimat an order from the Patriarch of Antioch concerning marriages of Syrian Orthodox in America.

None of this means that St. Raphael was not a bishop of the Russian Church; he was, most certainly. But he was ALSO a bishop of the Church of Antioch. Given his own words and actions, I don’t see how anyone can deny this.

The website for his see (and the NY Times account of his arrival, the consecration of the Church and Cathedral and him as bishop) are quite clear that St. Raphael was under Russian jurisdiction, by canonical transfer from Antioch. The Cathedral’s website is clear that it was under the Russians until chaos overtook that jurisdiction (the picture of the original cathedral shows a Russian, not Antiochian, style Church). It also states that it was the OCA, not Antioch, who canonized St. Raphael.
http://www.stnicholascathedral.org/history.html

There are also other facts he would be confronting: large numbers of immigrants went back to the old country (though the Orthodox Arabs seem, for a variety of reasons such as not having an Orthodox state of their own, seem to have had greater staying rates) and I believe he would be the first bishop to die in the New World: all others eventually went back to the Old World.

But pressed for a “legal/canonical” answer, St. Raphael would no doubt list his jurisdiction as “Russian.” Whose Synod did he commemorate in the diptychs?

I’m as big a user of newspaper archives as anyone, but when you have the writings of the principal figures themselves, written contemporaneous with the events in question, those clearly have to take precedence.

If you want to use this same format in the future, you’ll need to add some sort of unique ID to the reference names (e.g., “RaphCons-ed1″ or the like) so that multiple posts on the same page won’t interfere with each other.