c. 1997 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ Leaders of Russian, Antiochian, Ukrainian, Serbian and other ethnic branches of the Orthodox Church in the United States have taken steps to heal a longstanding rift with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

In a closed meeting Friday (Oct. 24), the leaders of the autonomous, ethnic-oriented Orthodox churches assured Bartholomew _ head of the Greek Orthodox Church and the”first among equals”of all Orthodox leaders _ they were not seeking to establish an American Orthodox church that would rival his Istanbul-based leadership.

Rather, they said, they were jointly seeking to determine how Orthodox Christian churches can function in a distinctly American environment.”The patriarch stated his intention to support any form of cooperation between Orthodox bishops,”said Archbishop Spyridon, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the largest and most visible branch of Orthodoxy in the United States.”He was very supportive of the necessity of Orthodox bishops here to form a closer union to meet common concerns of people in the United States. It is clear now that the will is there to go forward together,”Spyridon added.

At a news conference held after their lengthy meeting with the patriarch, Metropolitan Philip, leader of the U.S. Antiochian Christian Orthodox Church, whose members include Christian Arabs and many converts, announced that the Standing Council of Orthodox Bishops in America (SCOBA) had by acclamation elected Spyridon chairman of the group.

The post had been vacant after Bartholomew forced the retirement of Spyridon’s predecessor, Archbishop Iakovos.

Iakovos had reportedly sparked Bartholomew’s ire for too aggressively pursuing greater independence for Orthodox Christians in the West from the ecumenical patriarch’s control.

His retirement came on the heels of a widely publicized 1994 SCOBA meeting in Ligonier, Pa., which was perceived by the ecumenical patriarchate in Istanbul as an aggressive move toward independence. At Ligonier, more than two dozen bishops from nine Orthodox churches signed a statement declaring that”the Orthodox Church in North America is one Church, and not multiple `jurisdictions'”and churches in the”Old World”erred in viewing the Americans as an Orthodox diaspora.

In March 1995, Bartholomew demanded the unity plan for the churches in America be dropped.”At our meeting today (Friday) with the ecumenical patriarch, the Ligonier meeting was very much clarified,”Metropolitan Philip said.

He said Ligonier was never intended as a move toward independence, but rather about how to better spread Orthodoxy in the United States.”There had been many misinterpretations and misunderstandings about the purpose of that meeting, both by the media and by our own people,”Philip said.”This afternoon we have clarified the situation with the patriarch once and for all.” Few solid statistics exist on the number of Orthodox Christians in the United States, but estimates range from 2 million to 6 million, most of whom are the offspring of immigrants from the Middle East, Greece and Eastern Europe.

Converts have also been drawn to Orthodoxy, including disaffected Roman Catholics and Episcopalians seeking a more traditional liturgy and evangelical Christians drawn to Orthodoxy’s historic roots. Honoring each branch of Orthodoxy’s historic roots and ethnic customs while remaining relevant to contemporary society is very much on the bishops’ minds.”We don’t want to Americanize our church; our task is to bring the message of Orthodoxy to America,”said Metropolitan Theodosius, head of the independent Orthodox Church in America, most of whose members are of Russian descent.”We have a very clear message to transmit; we don’t want to miss the boat and lose our ethnic roots.” To remain both tied to tradition and relevant to contemporary life is the challenge Orthodoxy must face in the next century, noted Bishop Nicholas of Amissos, head of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church, with headquarters in Johnstown, Pa.”All of us bishops are feeling an increase of members,”Bishop Nicholas said.”There is a thirst for knowledge of authentic Christianity. Thus we are not merely an ethnic church. We are preparing ourselves, our priests and our young people for the century ahead.” Sunday (Oct. 26), Bartholomew led a worship service at New York’s famed Madison Square Garden attended by 20,000 Orthodox. Monday, he was scheduled to meet with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and to visit an Orthodox church and museum in South Bound Brook, N.J.

DEA END CONNELL