Met. Leonty Turkevich

When Matthew asked me to write a piece about Leonty, I kept coming back to a single moment at the end of his life, a story for which there is a rare corroboration of accounts from multiple sources (one from the Moscow Patriarchate, the other from the Metropolia) that each give a unique picture of who Leonty was, and how his personality, longevity, and the weight of his institutional memory impacted those around him.

In early 1963, at the height of the Cold War, the National Council of Churches invited a delegation from the Church of Russia to visit the United States for a goodwill visit to acquaint the American religious establishment with leaders of the living, breathing Church behind the Iron Curtain.  Led by Archbishop Nikodim Rotov of Yaroslavl, head of the Patriarchate’s Department of External Relations, a side benefit of the delegation would be an opportunity for an informal assessment the true situation of the tensions between the Metropolia and the Patriarchal Exarchate as it existed on the ground, if not possible dialogue. Through the formation of the Exarchate in 1933, a longstanding lawsuit over control of St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City, and stalled negotiations following the decision of the 7th All-American Sobor to renew the Metropolia’s administrative ties with Moscow in 1946, a bitter period of animosity between two jurisdictions with a shared history had dominated both local and national church life for decades.  Aside from an informal meeting in 1961 at a World Council of Churches meeting in New Delhi, by 1963, no formal or significant dialogue between the two parties had occurred for over a decade.

As he would recall over a decade later, one evening in March of 1963, Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, received a telephone call from an Episcopalian acquaintance announcing that Nikodim and the delegation wished to visit the seminary, and would be arriving on campus within a few hours.  Schmemann quickly dispatched a call to Metropolitan Leonty to ask for permission to receive the delegation.  Leonty quietly replied, “receive them with love.”  The visit went well, and Schmemann arranged for Nikodim to meet with Leonty several days later over dinner at the Metropolia’s Chancery in Syosset.

Schmemann recalled the elderly Leonty descended the Chancery stairs that evening dressed in his trademark white cassock, “so majestic… and yet so simple and joyful, so obviously the head of the Church to which he had given his entire life.”  After dinner, Leonty rose to give an informal speech, in part a narrative of his ministry in America, as well as an expression of what the events meant for the future of Orthodoxy in North America.  His was an institutional memory that stretched back to the administration of Bishop Tikhon Belavin, the bishop who had invited the young Fr. Leonid Turkevich to the United States in 1906 to oversee the Minneapolis Seminary, which Turkevich repaid in turn by personally nominating his former bishop for the office of Patriarch of Moscow on the floor of the All-Russian Sobor eleven years later.  In fact, it is likely many of the events he described that evening occurred before the relatively young Nikodim (born in 1929) was even alive.  According to Schmemann, Leonty’s words movingly expressed his love for the Church of Russia, yet also his firm belief in the future of the Church in America. (Constance Tarasar, ed. Orthodox America, 1794-1976. Syosset, 1975. 262-3.)

Met. Nikodim Rotov

Several years later, Nikodim would recall the events of the Syosset dinner to Archimandrite Serafim Surrency, a priest who served as an assistant to Metropolitan John Wendland (then head of the Patriarchal Exarchate) at St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City.  Surrency describes the elderly Leonty asking Nikodim firmly and directly, how he viewed Leonty and the other bishops of the Metropolia.  Though Nikodim was clearly moved by his meeting with Leonty, and the momentum of the evening would carry into several more informal dialogues between the Metropolia and the Patriarchate (especially Nikodim) in the ensuing years, reality dictated he reply “as kindly as he could:”

“Your Eminence, forgive me, but I have no choice but to regard you and your bishops as schismatics.”  According to Surrency, “…tears welled in the eyes of the aged Metr. Leonty.”  (Archimandrite Serafim Surrency. The Quest for Orthodox Church Unity in America. New York, 1973. 78.)

As a historian, this moment in a lifetime of truly monumental moments offers a good entry point by which we can understand the broader picture and historical narrativity of Leonty’s impact in America.  His role as a priest in the highest levels of diocesan administration, theological education, and publication shows the ambitious vision of the pre-Revolution North American Diocese to serve a rapidly growing, geographically expansive flock, and the extent to which the Revolution would fundamentally change this trajectory.  Leonty’s episcopal career (and the process by which he became a bishop) is a lens by which we can explore the deep divisions of the jurisdictional fracture of Orthodoxy in America in the wake of the rise of Bolshevism.  And in his final years, his hospitality and dialogue with Abp. Nikodim put in motion a series of sometimes tense, yet ultimately fruitful meetings leading to the granting of Autocephaly to the Metropolia in 1970, forming what is now the Orthodox Church in America.

In the months to come, I hope to further explore this dynamic figure, exploring how his roles within the Church found him intimately involved in some of the most controversial and heated moments Orthodoxy has seen on the North American continent, yet whose demeanor, deep spirituality, and kind and quiet disposition found him almost universally revered even in the face of discord.

Met. Leonty: A Life in Moments is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

LIFE Magazine cover with Archbishop Iakovos and Martin Luther King, Jr., 3/26/1965

When I hear “Archbishop Iakovos” and “civil rights,” I immediately recall that famous cover of LIFE, with the powerful Greek Archbishop standing next to Martin Luther King, Jr. during King’s legendary 1965 march in Selma, Alabama. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled onto an August 14, 1963 Los Angeles Times article in which Iakovos argued against public civil rights demonstrations.

Don’t get me wrong — Archbishop Iakovos was opposed to racism, and he supported the civil rights movement. But he told the LA Times that he wouldn’t participate in a planned demonstration in Washington, DC, even though the National Council of Churches (in which Iakovos was a leading figure) was involved.

“I am for civil rights and equality,” Iakovos explained, “but I think that if we believe we have some sort of moral influence over our congregations we should limit ourselves to that task and not try to exert influence in massive demonstrations.”

He continued, “Too often the demonstrators go home and say, ‘I did my part,’ but refuse to carry through. How many of them are willing to live with Negroes as neighbors, or give them a job or train them for a skill? In those areas lie the long-range benefits.”

What about Orthodoxy and the black population? “Our doors are open to all who care to worship with us,” Archbishop Iakovos said, but then he added, “though of course it is difficult for one of a non-Orthodox background to come into our faith.”

Just a couple of months before this, both Iakovos and Martin Luther King had been named to the National Council of Churches’ Commission on Religion and Race. The 20 or so months that followed must have changed the Archbishop’s views, because in March 1965, Iakovos joined King in his Selma march.

This article was written by Matthew Namee.

Abp Iakovos opposed civil rights demonstrations in 1963 is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann in 1963

Fr. Alexander Schmemann was one of the observers at Vatican II, the landmark 1960s council of the Roman Catholic Church. His reaction to the event is priceless — Schmemann took the “opportunity to thank God” that he was Orthodox. Here’s the story, from the New York Times (11/16/1963):

A Russian Orthodox theologian-observer at the second session of the Vatican Council said Thursday that the gathering in Rome was “sobering from the Orthodox point of view.”

The Rev. Dr. Alexander Schmemann, dean of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary in Tuckahoe, N.Y., said that he had “no doubt the actions of the council thus far are good for the Roman Church itself.” But, he added, “the reality, unfortunately, is that they are far from ecumenity.”

Dr. Schmemann delivered his report on the council at the quadrennial sobor, or convocation, of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America. The sobor, at the Holy Virgin Protection Cathedral, 59 East Second Street, ended yesterday.

Dr. Schmemann, who was also vice chairman of the sobor, emphasized that he had not gone to Rome as an official delegate for his denomination but rather as a special guest.

He explained that the Moscow Patriarchate of Russian Orthodoxy had several official delegates at the council, as had the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. The Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church severed administrative relations with the Moscow Patriarchate in 1924 and regarded the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia as a splinter group.

In his report to his denomination, Dr. Schmemann said he did not bear “any bad will” to Roman Catholicism. But, he said, considering the actions of the council in their ecumenical aspect, he had “opportunity to thank God” that he was Orthodox.

Dr. Schmemann’s objections to the council’s discussions were based on the Roman Catholic view of the papacy. “What builds a wall between the Roman Church and Eastern Orthodoxy is the doctrine of papal infallibility,” he said.

“There may be democritization going on,” the theologian added, “but so much of the Catholic Church is built on reverence of the Pope.”

He said that even the collegiality of the bishops was defined purely in its relationship with the papacy.

“In 17 lines of definition of the bishop in the schema on the church,” he went on, “the word ‘pope’ appears four or five times.

“In Eastern Orthodoxy it is our understanding that teaching about the Pope should be balanced with teachings about the bishops.”

Now, I’m no expert on Vatican II or Orthodox-Roman Catholic relations in general, so I don’t really have any commentary to add. But I stumbled upon this article in my collection and thought it might be of interest to others, so I figured I’d publish it here.

Source of the week: Schmemann on Vatican II is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.