…your superior prelates of the Russian jurisdiction, by an official communication of theirs, as far back as 1921, “look to me and to my Canonical Superiors as the head in America North and South of the interests of the Hellenic members of our faith” and “until further action by the Oecumenical Patriarchate at Constantinople … are in full Communion with me, as the only valid and Canonical head of the Hellenic Mission for care of the spiritual interests of citizens and former citizens of the Kingdom of Greece” etc.”

This might have more to do with the fact that both Meletios and Alexander had been both been deposed and defrocked by the CoG at the time, and none of the Greek Churches (CoG, Alexandria, Jerusalem, not sure of Cyprus) recognized either Meletios authority over any Greek, nor his election as Ecumenical Patriarch in 1921.

Among other things, Erickson says, “But noteworthy is (a) the absence of any reference to episcopal authority and supervision, and (b) the tendency to view the priest simply as a hired employee of the parish corporation, along with the cantor or choir director, the janitor, and the gravedigger for the parish cemetery.”

He continues, “In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this was particularly true in parishes whose founding members came from Old World churches that at the time lay outside what might be called the “Russian sphere of influence” – the Romanians, some Bulgarians, but especially the Greeks. In practice these parishes were independent of any authority beyond the local community. Some might ask the Church of Greece to supply a priest. Others turned to the patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, or Jerusalem. [...] But whatever arrangements were made, the lay board of trustees continued to view itself as the ultimate authority within the parish, particularly when the parish’s finances and property were involved.”

After the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of the Living Church, many Russian parishes also adopted similar constitutions. Erickson writes, “In response to this grim situation, they responded by effectively severing the administrative and financial life of their parishes from the wider concerns of Orthodoxy in America, becoming in practice every bit as independent as their counterparts in other ethnic parishes.”

No mention of episcopal oversight, at a time when the CoG was asserting jurisdiction in the “diaspora.”

Re. Your Comment #4

Your response to my comment #3 is quite logical; I’ll have to agree.

Also, I never meant to imply that the Greeks ever considered themselves under the Russian-American Archdiocese, except in some very limited situations. In fact, that is why I am so pleased that I have come upon this site. The OCA has done an excellent job promoting their singular jurisdiction until 1918, perspective. But, I have always believed it to be wrong, factually. Not-with-standing the OCA’s corrupt leadership problems of the past 20 years, I have a great appreciation for the holiness of its history and present holiness in its parishes, living in an area as I do with a large (comparatively) population of Eastern Orthodox Churches. While I challenge the OCA’s historic propaganda, that doesn’t diminish my love for it and my prayers for its unified work within American Orthodoxy. The Greeks in the prior to 1918 era, were not organized as parishes, by and large. They were fraternal associations that offered Orthodox Divine Services and Greek School as a part of their community’s services. Even when the Church of Greece, under Metropolitan Meletios, established the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America, as it Exarch, +Meletios and his Synodal Representative, Bishop Alexander of the Titular See of Rhodostolon, had great difficulty organizing “parishes” under their authority, as we would know ecclesial obedience, primarily, because the societies were not constituted as parishes.

More on this later, but I wish this site the very best in getting a factual history of our Holy Orthodoxy on this continent promoted and understood, which could help enable the unification of our Church into a single administrative jurisdiction.

Sincerely, Bruce Wm. Trakas

Thanks for your comment!

What you say about this photograph is possible. (Here’s the post you’re referring to, for those wondering.) It may well be that there was a hierarchical service held in conjunction with this meeting. But in the photo itself, no one is vested except for the deacon. Also, this seems to be in a house, apartment or office chapel rather than in any of the New York churches. It doesn’t make much sense to hold a hierarchical service in a chapel when there were some nice churches available at the time.

So, while your suggestion is certainly possible, I don’t think we can (yet) say for sure that this is indeed from the farewell service before Meletios’s trip to Constantinople.

As for the Greeks in America being under the Russians, there really seems to be no evidence that any but a handful of Greeks ever accepted Russian jurisdiction, no matter what the Russians themselves may have thought or wished. See various posts in the Pre-1921 Unity category for more on that.

Also, as to the reference above to the Russian Bishop’s acceptance of the Greek jurisdiction in America, I would suggest it be understood within the context of being subject to the Russian American Archdiocese, much as the Syrian jurisdiction was, though unstated, because he knew the Greeks wouldn’t see it that way. There was a little rapprochement between the Russian and Greek jurisdictions when problems began to increase with the Moscow relationship. The Greeks were experiencing their own problems at the time due to the presence of the Church of Greece’s Synodal Exarch in America.

After Russian American Archbishop Alexander resigned the American Throne, he travel to Constantinople and participated in the Pan-Orthodox Congress of 1923 and was accepted as a representative of the Moscow Patriarchate by Patriarch Meletios IV.

As yet, we are not hosting an archive of full texts of primary sources, though that is one of the projects we have in the works. Much of that work has to do with working out the copyright status of the many thousands of documentary sources that our members have collected, what may legally be republished in full, etc. As you can imagine, this is a pretty big project.

We have a number of projects we’re working on, including a journal and a newsletter. This weblog, which mainly consists of commentary and presentations of portions of primary sources (the kind of thing which is permitted under the “fair use” provisions of copyright law), is our first project which has come to fruition.

The reason why we mention primary sources so often is because we’re concerned that those discussing Orthodox history in America do so by engaging those sources. Too much has been published that is based essentially on hearsay, or sometimes a circle of secondary and tertiary sources all quoting each other, but without anything underneath it all except appeals to authority.

At the moment, we do have a number of links in our resources section which point to many primary (as well as secondary) sources on the web.

In searching around the website, I see a lot of articles, some of which include snipets of primary source material, but nothing approaching what i was expecting to see…which was the full, unvarnished English primary source documents.

Was I mistaken? Is it here somewhere that I am not seeing?

Please advise.

thanks in advance,
Dean Calvert