Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
Psalm 133, 1
Exactly 50 years ago I stood in the then newly-built Serbian church in Birmingham and listened to a sermon given by the late Fr Vladimir (later Bp Basil) Rodzianko. He spoke of the ‘sin of jurisdictions’ and looked forward idealistically to a time when there would no longer be any jurisdictions. I knew then that that was unrealistic. Indeed, 50 years have passed and there are now more ‘jurisdictions’ than ever. After over fifty years of life in the Orthodox Diaspora in Western Europe, divided into several separate Church jurisdictions, I have come to certain conclusions.
These conclusions were fed firstly by observing how the post-1917 Russian Diaspora died out in Western Europe (as a clergyman in Paris in the 1980s and 1990s I buried many of its last very elderly representatives, who had been adults before 1917). Then, secondly, I have seen how the 1950s Greek Cypriot Diaspora has also nearly completely died out in Britain. They both died out because they failed almost wholly to pass on the Faith to their locally born generations.
In 1973, I met the future Metr Kallistos (Ware), who tried and failed to unite local Russian, Greek and Serbian Orthodox into one shared church in Oxford. In 1980 I met the late Fr Alexander Schmemann, who invited me to become a priest in the USA. I politely refused his offer, as I felt my place was in Europe. I witnessed how in North America his attempt to found a new Local Church, called the OCA (the Orthodox Church in America), failed to unite Orthodox there – it unites only some 10-15% of Orthodox. Both were valiant attempts by sincere and often admirable people to do good, but both failed.
Others also tried to do something in this respect, like those who argued with each other, Fr (now St) Sophrony (Sakharov) and Metr Antony (Bloom), who tonsured me reader in 1981. The outstanding figure with Fr Sophrony was undoubtedly Fr Raphael (Noica), who gave me very good advice between 1975 and 1983. Another influence was Protopresbyter Alexei Kniazev, the rector of the St Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology, where I studied.
However, the most outstanding figure I met was Archbishop Antony (Bartoshevich) of Geneva, who ordained me priest in 1991, after I had served for seven years as a deacon. He led the multinational Archdiocese of Western Europe, veering neither towards liberal modernism, nor to sectarian old calendarism. He was the successor of St John Maximovich as Archbishop of Western Europe. Clergy of seventeen different nationalities concelebrated at his funeral.
One of the problems with the experiments in Oxford and the USA was the lack of respect for the people in the parishes. Firstly, any Diaspora parish must use at least two languages, that of the main national group (or national groups, if there is more than one) and the local language. The latter is necessary for the children and grandchildren of immigrants in the Church, for the locally-born spouses of the inevitable mixed marriages, as well as for those received into the parish from local people who wish to join the Orthodox Church.
We do not wish the children of immigrants to lose the language of their parents, but they go to school in English, they think in English, they speak their parents’ language with an English accent. If they can understand the Church in English, then they will not reject the Church in the language of their parents. This is a psychological fact and, as any pastor will tell you, more than 50% of what we do is understanding our parishioners’ psychology.
Respect must also be shown for the calendars used by the parishioners, and for their cultures and customs. In order to do this, there may need to be at least two priests of different nationalities in each parish and choirs must be organised. We have seen too many cases of just the opposite, of disrespect and even mockery for different languages, calendars, cultures and customs. That is unacceptable because it is unChristian. Expressions of hatred for others are unChristian and eventually will lead to the downfall of parishes and even of whole dioceses. We are eyewitnesses of this. You cannot build a Church on negativity or hatred.
Here is a brief outline as to how we could perhaps proceed to keep locally-born generations inside the Church and also to help unite the Diaspora Church, which is divided administratively. The secret is in not being exclusive. Thus:
- No National Flags
A Church with flags is a Church which divides. Christ has no flag. Our only ‘flag’ is the Cross. Flags belong to the secular world, not to Christ. The absence of a flag, Russian, Greek, Romanian, Serbian or other, does not of course mean that it can be replaced by a local flag, by some sort of local nationalism, British, American, French or other. That is just as negative. If we want to have flags with their nationalism, let us keep them at home and not bring them to church.
- No Political Ideologies or ‘Isms’
Ideologies, or ‘isms’, are always divisive because they are narrow and sectarian. For instance, I have witnessed how the OCA tried to impose the new calendar on Slav origin parishes in the USA and condescendingly impose non-traditional, liberal and even modernist liturgical practices on them. This was very divisive and as a result many parishes left the OCA and many more did not want to join it. They felt they had been excluded.
On the other hand, I have also witnessed how certain clergy in one Russian emigration splinter tried to impose an extreme right-wing ideology, allied with old calendarism. They promoted themselves rather pharisaically as an exclusive ‘One True Church’, refusing concelebration and communion with the Local Churches, as ‘they are in error’ and ‘we do not like them’.
This sectarianism was very divisive and it only attracts converts from Catholicism and Protestantism with pathological problems, while turning away from the Church those with healthy psychologies. Such an aggressive splinter can never be part of a future Local Church and does not want to be. That is why we belong to the Romanian Orthodox Church, away from all extremes and schisms.
- No Money
What makes Orthodox of all nationalities reject their own Church more than anything else is the story that the clergy are only interested in money. Fixed tariffs for baptisms, weddings, funerals, memorials etc are fatal in this respect. The stories of laypeople about such matters, true or untrue, are legion. Either priests must have a secular profession and parishioners pay only for the often high costs of the church-building, or else an arrangement must be made with parishioners that they make known their salaries and they give a percentage of their salaries to the priest. In this way the priest’s salary will be the average of their salaries. For example, if there are 100 salaried parishioners, they could each give 1% of their salary to the priest. If there are 200 salaried parishioners, they could each give 0.5% of their salary to the priest etc.
The Church as a Family
Without national flags, political ideologies or money scandals, if we wish to keep everyone together inside the Church, then we must experience the Church as a warm and loving Family, to which all Orthodox can belong.
Orthodox who have been uprooted from their homelands, usually for economic or else, as in the Communist past, for ideological reasons, want to belong to something. Perfectly naturally, they have a problem of identity. ‘Who am I’?, they ask. However, those born locally, of such Russian, Greek, Romanian, Serbian or other immigrant parents, and who all speak the local language better than that of their parents, also want to belong to something, they also have a problem of identity. I tell all my people that, although we have a State passport with a flag on it, our spiritual passport has no flag, or political party, and under the Nationality section, it says: ‘Orthodox Christian’. This is our spiritual nationality and identity, we belong to the Orthodox Christian Family. Our unity is in our common Orthodox Christian Faith and Love.