In an article reprinted in the recent issue of The Dawn, published by the OCA Diocese of the South, Archpriest Vladimir Berzonsky laments the “non-evangelical attitude” of our churches. [Tangentially, I am not sure why I receive The Dawn--I have never been a dues-paying member of the OCA and have never paid any subscription fee.]
In his article, Fr Berzonsky attributes this “non-evangelical” attitude to several factors, particularly to the fact that parishes in predominantly Orthodox nations have no experience or need for evangelism and that parishes in America primarily cater to immigrants, seeing Americans as an unnecessary “dilution of the purity of the ethnic traditions.”
It’s unfortunate that, like many of the newly self-proclaimed “non-ethnic Orthodox”, [who, incidentally, just 30 years ago were called the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America (emphasis added)], Fr Berzonsky seems to believe that reaching out to modern America means laying aside Orthodoxy’s rich ethnic traditions. Sadly, for many, many pastors in this camp, Evangelism has become Ethnophobia.
But this absolutely is not the case. Orthodoxy came to Russia in the 10th Century. Between the 10th century and the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church evangelized three continents, from the banks of the Dniester to the Pacific Ocean to the hills of Pennsylvania. The Russian Church converted most of the ethnicities of Siberia to Orthodoxy as well as the native peoples of Alaska. It was not a non-ethnic brand of Orthodoxy that was presented to the Alaskan natives by St Innocent, St Herman, and others; it was the Orthodox faith as it came to be understood, practiced, and lived by the Russian people. And these evangelists, too, were immigrants to America.
Many in America have come to Orthodoxy through reading Russian literature, particularly the works of Dostoevsky, Gogol’, and others. This is because the writings of these people were intertwined with the teachings of the Church, and the teachings of the Church came to be expressed through these writings.
The Orthodox faith does not exist and cannot exist in a vacuum, apart from the people who live it. This is why we have the terms “Russian”, “Greek”, “Serbian”, etc. Orthodox. And when we evangelize, we bring the faith as it was understood by our ancestors, in our cultural context. Converts who come to the faith from outside this cultural context have much to glean from it, not having the experience of a millennial cultural tradition.
“We can and are accommodating to immigrants … but that is not the reason we are blessed with the true faith of our spiritual parents,” Fr. Brezonsky writes. No, on the contrary, it is through these immigrants and their descendants, that our connection to our Mother Church continues to exist and through that connection we can continue to thrive in the true faith. And not only to thrive ourselves but also to present it to those around us.
You also bring your cultural context itself. Converts have to accept not just a religion but a culture set as well. That’s difficult.
I think the Orthodox leaders are afraid that their very orthodoxy will be weakened by converts that fail to assimilate into the underlying culture. As you said, “The Orthodox faith does not exist and cannot exist in a vacuum, apart from the people who live it. ”
Just look at the Jews. They have a huge problem in the US with people falling away from many of the orthodox practices – because those practices were rooted in a culture that isn’t the one they’re living in now.
[...] there is the whole “anti-ethnic” attitude about which I commented earlier. It really is a crisis of mentality: on the one hand, the OCA claims to be the exclusive heir of [...]
Converts who are resistant to Russian or Greek culture are sadly missing an important element of the faith they have chosen to profess. You can’t go back to Pre-Schism Ireland in the year 600 and be “Celtic Orthodox.” You can’t do it, because there are no time machines to transport you! For whatever reason, God chose Greece, Russia and other Eastern countries to preserve the true faith. If you don’t like the “ethnic” side of Orthodoxy, I’m afraid your journey will somehow lack some very nourishing fruit.