Category: Inter-Orthodox


How Did Orthodoxy Get Into This Mess?


It almost goes without saying that the Orthodox world is a mess right now. The situation in Ukraine alone is a disaster: a Russian invasion of the country backed by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) by the state, and a recognized-by-only-some Orthodox Church of...

The Nine Years that Almost Destroyed the Orthodox Church


Back in March, I published a 9-part series on the global Orthodox crisis of 1917-1925. I've made a few revisions to that account and added an Epilogue and a partial bibliography. Today, I'm publishing all of that -- 9,000+ words, altogether.  Orthodoxy is currently facing a global crisis of unity....

The Biggest Pan-Orthodox Event in American History


In 1963, between 11,000 and 13,000 Orthodox youth, from seven jurisdictions, came together for a pan-Orthodox festival in Pittsburgh. Ten bishops and more than 150 priests celebrated Vespers in an arena, and a thousand-person pan-Orthodox youth choir sang. This was the biggest pan-Orthodox event in American history, and most Orthodox...

The Pan-Orthodox Council of 1998


Beginning in the post-Communist era in the early 1990s, a faction of schismatics emerged in Bulgaria, breaking away from the canonical Bulgarian Orthodox Church. These schismatics -- known as the "Alternative Synod" -- elected their own Patriarch in 1996, with the backing of the Bulgarian government. Under immense pressure, the...

Patriarch Athenagoras Clearly States How Autocephaly Must Be Granted


Editor's note: On Friday, Orthodox History published a 1970 letter by Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in response to the Moscow Patriarchate's decision to grant autocephaly to the "Orthodox Church in America." After posting the letter, we received the following article by “Petrus Antiochenus.”   Today, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is on the...

1970 Letter from Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras on Autocephaly


Editor's note: In 1970, the Patriarchate of Moscow issued a Tomos of Autocephaly to its former archdiocese in North America, which was commonly known as the "Russian Metropolia" and is now the "Orthodox Church in America." Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras protested against this act in multiple letters to the leaders of the...

Plans for an English-speaking seminary & an Orthodox census in 1943


Back in the early 1940s, several of the Orthodox jurisdictions briefly came together to form an organization with the unwieldy name, "The Federated Orthodox Greek Catholic Primary Jurisdictions in America." That's ridiculous, so we'll just call it "the Federation." Anyway, the Federation was a precursor to SCOBA, which morphed into...

The Early History of Orthodoxy in Chicago


In 2011, I gave a talk at Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church in Westchester, Illinois, on the early history of Orthodoxy in Chicago. Here's the text of that lecture, basically unedited since I wrote it 7+ years ago. ******* The story of Orthodoxy in Chicago really begins in the 1880s....

The Myth of Unity


Nine years ago, at a conference at St. Vladimir's Seminary, I presented a paper called, "The Myth of Unity and the Origins of Jurisdictional Pluralism in American Orthodoxy." My thesis, basically, was that, contrary to the prevailing narrative at the time, Orthodoxy in America was not administratively united prior to...