Orthodoxy Today: Coming of Age

After a whirlwind summer tour of college campuses, Kristen, my oldest daughter, a High School senior, seems to have settled on my own alma mater as her first choice. I have dutifully cautioned her, however, that, as a prospective Penn alumna, she may face a lifetime of neurotic anxiety over the popular confusion of the Ivy League private university founded by Benjamin Franklin with the Big Ten state university associated with Joe Patero. As if being Orthodox in America were not disconcerting enough!

It has been at least fifteen years since someone has remarked, “But you don’t look Jewish!” upon hearing that I am Orthodox. I suppose that’s because I usually wear a cassock or at least a Roman collar—in either case, dress that is unmistakably Christian. My co-religionists still regale me, however, with such tales from their own experience. I don’t know whether to be amused, bemused, or annoyed that we Orthodox Christians, who have dwelt on the present territory of the United States since 1794, and who currently outnumber our Orthodox Jewish counterparts by at least four-to-one, have no purchase on this cherished Greek compound noun. This term, after all, means simply “correct glory” or “correct thinking,” both of which phrases reflect Eastern Orthodoxy’s self-understanding as the most authentic expression of ancient Christianity through the ages.

Orthodox Christians in this country obviously have a serious identity problem. Popular misconceptions to the contrary, we Orthodox are not merely Roman Catholics “without the pope,” or “funny” (as in odd or bizarre) Catholics, or “Eastern Catholics,” or “the first Protestants,” or Protestant in any sense of that too facile, catch-all term for Christians unaffiliated with the pope. We Orthodox tend to bristle when Catholics assume we’re Protestants or vice-versa. To be sure, neither label is offensive or unworthy. It’s rather a matter of historical accuracy and of collective pride in our sui generis ecclesial identity.

But we can’t blame western Christians alone. The Orthodox identity problem is due in large measure to a continuing crisis among the approximately four million Orthodox Christians in the United States. As Fr. Richard John Neuhaus once opined almost wistfully, “Orthodoxy in America is uncertrain about whether it is the church in America, an American denomination, or the Eastern Orthodox Church in Exile.”

The ethnic image representing Orthodoxy as an “Eastern” church in “exile” is perpetuated by intermittent waves of immigrants and by the jurisdictional jumble that segregates most Orthodox into Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Serbian, Antiochian, Bulgarian, and Albanian colonies. We Orthodox often resort to Latinisms such as “jurisdiction” to explain our ecclesial problems.

The denominational label is difficult to shake off when most of the Orthodox bishops and other national leaders seem determined (inexplicably, in my estimation ) to remain active participants in the National Council of Churches. That predominantly liberal Protestant organization has seen better days and is no longer a valuable venue for Orthodox moral witness. In no sense are the Eastern Orthodox, who share the same doctrine, sacraments, and administrative system, merely a congeries of distinct, Protestant-style denominations.

Despite misplaced concern among some Orthodox, particularly in Russia, that Patriarch Bartholomeos of Constantinople may have inordinate pro-Roman sympathies or neo-papal aspirations of his own, the primus inter pares of Orthodox bishops seems determined to forge a unique Orthodox identity as the Church that still embodies the doctrinal and moral integrity of the ancient undivided Church, especially the collegial spirit of the Seven Ecumenical Councils (A.D. 325-787).

As much as Eastern Orthodoxy and the Church of Rome have in common, several crucial doctrinal and practical issues still divide us. Chief among these, of course, is the vexing problem of the role of the papacy in the Church. Less appreciated, but more substantial, is Rome’s insertion of the filioque clause into the orginal Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which the Orthodox regard as a heretical change in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Perhaps the most sensitive issue in the post-Communist era is the revival of the “Uniates,” or those Eastern Christian communities whose premature union with Rome the Orthodox view as a betrayal of Orthodox ecclesiology.

And yet I remain cautiously optimistic. If we Orthodox have had, as I believe we do, no better friend in Rome for over nine hundred years than Pope John Paul II, then Rome can also take heart that Patriarch Bartholomeos may be able to unify his contentious brother patriarchs for a serious attempt at Orthodox-Roman Catholic reunion by the end of this millennium. That kind of cosmic coming of age would, incidentally, finally resolve the Orthodox identity problem.

Author

  • Rev. Alexander Webster

    Father Alexander F.C. Webster, an archpriest in the Orthodox Church in America, retired in June 2010 as an Army Reserve chaplain at the rank of colonel after more than 24 years of military service. He is the author or co-author of four books on topics of social ethics.

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