Cossack..
...I would take it all one step at a time.
Don't you worry to much about the UOCofUSA.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way:
In the case of the Metropolia, the responses and reactions of the other
Orthodox churches with populations or jurisdictions in America, to include the other
four ancient patriarchates, all point toward concern over the “canonicity” of the
autocephaly but also displayed a marked lack of consensus over what “canonical”
meant. A few months after autocephaly was granted, Ecumenical Patriarch
Athenagoras appointed Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of
North and South America as Patriarchal Exarch Plenipotentiary with “the right to
preside over consultations and meetings of the Orthodox Canonical Bishops in
America…provided that the existing Canonical ties of each hierarch with his own
mother Church are fully and unilaterally preserved and further continued until the
time the entire question of the Orthodox Churches in the diaspora is undoubtedly and
finally regulated…by the [forthcoming] Holy and Great Synod… .”271 This decision
can be interpreted as an attempt by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to assert a measure of
control over the North American situation and to prevent further organizational
fragmentation through autocephaly, while guaranteeing protection of the
patriarchate’s interests on North American soil against Russian encroachment.
AUTOCEPHALY AS A FUNCTION OF INSTITUTIONAL
STABILITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE IN THE
EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH
Charles Wegener Sanderson, Doctor of Philosophy
pp. 142-3
http://www.lib.umd.edu/drum/bitstream/1903/2340/1/umi-umd-2195.pdfThe issue of whether the autocephaly itself occurred as a result of initiatives
from Moscow (the Patriarchate) versus the United States (the Metropolia) is open to
debate.267 Still, viewed in this context, the rapprochement between the Russian
church and the Metropolia in the late 1960s makes more sense. The Metropolia had a
reason to seek autocephaly and the Moscow Patriarchate, in line with adjusted Soviet
foreign policy priorities, had a variety of incentives to grant it. In 1966 and again in
1967, the Metropolia approached the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople to
seek a grant of autocephaly, having been rebuffed by the Moscow Patriarchate in
previous years. The Ecumenical Patriarch, however, also rebuffed the Metropolia,
reminding them that it was the responsibility of the Russian church to resolve the
problem[/u] (a position from which the Ecumenical Patriarchate would reverse itself,
evidently for political reasons, immediately after the autocephaly was granted). The
official reason was that the Ecumenical Patriarchate then viewed the situation of the
Russian church as having returned to a semblance of normalcy following the
difficulties of the Stalinist period. Unofficially, however, it appears that the Russian
church exerted pressure against the Ecumenical Patriarchate possibly via the Russian
Exarchate in Paris, evidence that the rivalry between these two dominant
patriarchates, in the context of larger geopolitical rivalries, continued to play itself
against the background of détente. It also is possible that Constantinople did not
expect anything substantive to come out of negotiations between the Metropolia and
the Russian Orthodox Church. The shock expressed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate,
made clear in its response to the Moscow Patriarchate’s tomos granting autocephaly,
was viewed by the American architects of the autocephaly as disingenuous in light of
the fact that Constantinople had been aware of the status of the negotiations with
Moscow throughout. To emphasize, the autocephaly of the Metropolia must be
viewed in the broader context of the rivalry between the two patriarchates.268
268 See
pp. 142-3.
