Приход Русской Православной Церкви в России и за рубежом. Материалы к изучению приходской жизни. Выпуск 4. Приходы Америки. Сборник
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полевой работы в приходе собора. Выражаем благодарность иеромонаху Евтихию (Довганю), клирику Знаменского синодального собора (США, Нью-Йорк), который радушно встретил нас и помог с размещением в Нью-Йорке. Спасибо Джону Бёрджессу, профессору Питтсбургской теологической семинарии, взявшему на себя все хлопоты с организацией нашего пребывания в Питтсбурге. Наконец, особую благодарность мы выражаем О. В. Трофимовой – нашему критику и редактору текстов, работающему с нами уже не первый год, Л. В. Рассохиной, а также всем студентам Факультета социальных наук, принявшим участие в расшифровке интервью и обработке материалов исследования.
Introduction
The fourth issue of the “Parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia and Abroad” of the Faculty of Social Sciences of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University is a new collection of interviews and analytical materials dedicated to the parish life of the Church started in the first three publishing series of 2011, 2013 and 2015. Over this time certain research prospect, methodological framework of studying parishes based on principles of non-intervention and maximum uncovering of participants’ point of view on the certain processes and events have already been shaped. Social actors themselves – interviews with the clergy and the laity that allow us to see not only social but also personal dimension of the Church life – are in the center of our attention.
The fourth issue is dedicated to the parish life materials collected in the United States of America and closely related to His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon (Belavin) – a divine protector of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University. Exactly there, in the USA far back in 1898 the future Patriarch began his service as the Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska holding a chair up to 1907 and has left a memory as of “serene apostleship”.
Staying on the American land, we perceived the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon found ourselves at the same places where he had been and worked. We were in New York City, where St. Tikhon had begun his service in the USA. The decision to reorganize the chair was made there – it was that place, where His Eminence Tikhon decided to carry the pontifical cathedra from distant San Francisco to New York. And right there on May 22, 1901, he blessed the cornerstone for the new cathedral of Saint Nicholas. Today the cathedral is one of the most beautiful orthodox churches of New York City. In St. Nicholas Cathedral we interviewed the clergy and the parishioners, made photos of material things left in the wake of Saint Spirit in memoriam of Patriarch.
One of the interviews was with abbot Nikodemus (Balyasnikov) who told us about the parishes of Moscow Patriarchate located in America – in fact, the parishes founded by His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon. This particular story opens the first part of the fourth issue – “Orthodoxy in the USA: diversity as an American culture feature”.
An interview with Rev. Hieromonk Eutichius (Dovganyuk) of the Synodal Cathedral of the Icon of Our Lady of the Sign in New York (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) gets acquainted us with the parishes of Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. His story uncovers another page of the Church history and modernity – the birth of so-called “white church”, “the church of Russian emigrants” in America, the tragic destiny of which was shared by Patriarch himself after his return to Soviet Russia.
On November 1899 St. Tikhon sent a request to the Holy Synod of changing the name of diocese from “Diocese of Aleutians and Alaska” to “Diocese of Aleutians and North America” and thus, starting from February 1900 the new Diocese intended to give guidance for a big amount of Orthodox emigrants settled in the northern part of America. In May 1905 St. Tikhon was elevated to the rank of Archbishop of Aleutian and North American Archidiocese. The well-disposed administration and clear-eyed view of the situation led to increase the number of the parishes in the eastern part of America near the cities of New York, Pittsburgh and Boston.
After New York we went to Pittsburgh to see with our own eyes the legacy of St. Tikhon. As the biographers mentioned, St. Tikhon paid great attention to association with other local churches, in particular, he maintained relations with Syrian and Serbian Orthodox communities, often ministered at their churches, did everything he could to arrangement their life in America. He also guided and supported Greek Orthodox parishes, especially in the western part of the USA. For many times he officiated the divine services in Orthodox church of Chicago in Greek, that fulfilled Greek people with gratefulness and marveling.
There is no doubt that St. Tikhon was the symbolic center of Orthodoxy in America that unified people of the most different nations that time.
Being in Pittsburgh we met and interviewed the clergy and the laity of Antiochian Orthodox Church and Greek Orthodox Church. On the one hand we tried to look back to the past, on the other hand – we carefully examined modern fife: what had changed since the times of our Orthodox brothers’ arrival in America? Trying to feel the succession of history and discover new stories in the destiny of Antiochian and Greek Orthodox communities we interviewed the abbot of Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Pittsburgh, the priest Dimitry Mekowl, and the abbot of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Pittsburgh (American Archdiocese of Constantinopolitan Patriarchate), the priest Christopher Bender. These materials are also represented in the first section of the issue “Orthodoxy in the USA: diversity as an American culture feature”.
The peacefulness of His Grace Bishop Tikhon, his peace making service led to the realization of the necessity of bringing North American eparchy to the level of exarchate possessing extensive autonomous rights. Such a request to the Holy Synod was made in 1905. Moreover, St.Tikhon suggested a possibility of autocephaly of American Orthodox Church in the future taking in account the complexity of spreading Orthodoxy in poly-confessional America, raised a question of the need to train American clergy. As the result, the mission school in Minneapolis became a seminary. Over the time the problem of producing enough American priests fully disappeared as well as the necessity of sending priests from Russia unfamiliar with the reality of American life.
These entire solutions and reforms made by St.Tikhon are being continued even today in a remarkable manner – American Orthodox Church plays an increasingly prominent part in the process of Christianization of America. Other profile of Orthodoxy in the U SA is demonstrated in the issue by interviews with Archimandrite Alexander (Golitzin), the Bishop of Toledo and the Bulgarian Diocese (Orthodox Church of America); with Mother Christophora (Matichak), the abbess of the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church in America in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania; with Fr.Thomas Soroka, rector of St.Nicholas Orthodox Church in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania.
The second part of the issue is called “Parishes of Moscow Patriarchate and Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in New York. Memoirs of the past, review of the present, forecast for the future in interviews with the clergy and the laity”. It represents a set of interviews containing experience of the laity of various waves of Russian emigration of the 20th century. The interviews illustrate not just the evolution of the parish life of the two main orthodox