The Orthodox Church News Magazine
Editorial of Lent 2008
Volume 44
The Orthodox Church News Magazine
Editorial of Lent 2008
Volume 44
The convening of the 15th All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America has been announced, and preparatory work has begun. In November 2008, the bishops and clergy and lay delegates will assemble in Pittsburgh. The last two years have been painful and difficult in our Church. Amid charges of financial impropriety in the Church administration, resulting in considerable disarray and confusion, loss of morale and trust, no one can predict what the Council in November will be like. Will it be yet another descent into painful trial and tribulation? Or will it be a turn towards healing?
It is surely the right time to begin prayerful reflection on the meaning of the All-American Councils in the life of our Church since the convening in 1907 of the assembly in Mayfield, Pennsylvania, which we have called the First All- American Sobor. Archbishop Tikhon was our ruling bishop at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1907, he returned to Russia. In 1917, became the first Patriarch of Moscow in more than two hundred years. He died in 1925, after much suffering resulting from the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church by the communist regime, and was canonized as a saint after the fall of communism in the early 1990s.
During his years in North America, Archbishop Tikhon showed remarkable wisdom and vision in every aspect of his ministry. At a time when the Church of Russia was in a kind of captivity as a department of the imperial state, Archbishop Tikhon regarded priests and laity in his diocese as co-workers with their bishop. It was this vision of the collaboration of the hierarchy with the clergy and laity which led Archbishop Tikhon to strive towards convening an assembly for discussion and deliberation on the life and mission of the Church in America. Ten years later, after his election as Patriarch, he presided over deliberations which led to reforms in Church governance. The councils of the Church of Russia were defined as assemblies regularly convened for review of Church life. Between councils, the administrative and financial affairs of the Church were to be governed by a mixed body composed of clergy and laity under the chairmanship of the Patriarch, while canonical, spiritual, moral, and liturgical matters were to be decided by the Holy Synod of Bishops, also under the chairmanship of the Patriarch. In this structure, the Holy Synod of Bishops retained final authority, yet the philosophy and practice of the collaboration of the hierarchy with the clergy and laity were a central feature. Many thought that this collaboration or “synergy” among bishops, clergy, and laity was a manifestation of conciliarity in Orthodoxy.
Due to the violent persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church by the communist regime, this structure of collaboration or conciliarity did not survive. The only ecclesial body with its roots in the Russian Orthodox Church before the communist persecution which continued the practice of the full participation of clergy and laity in church governance was the Russian Orthodox Church of North America—the “Metropolia”—from 1970 the Orthodox Church in America.
For some twenty years, the inheritance we received from Saint Tikhon was eroded and diminished in the Orthodox Church in America. There was a view that the model of Church governance in which all matters are decided by the Holy Synod of Bishop is authentically Orthodox, while the model of collaboration and conciliarity is in some way deficient and not authentically Orthodox.
As we move towards the 15th All-American Council, it is surely necessary to learn again the wisdom of Saint Tikhon. Only in this way can the council to be convened in Pittsburgh be a council of repentance, a council of healing, a council of renewed life and reinvigorated mission for the Orthodox Church in America.