Posted by by Terry Mattingly
on 10/25/2008, 10:14 am
The passing of the U.S. Orthodox Church as an 'ethnic club' is under way
Thursday, October 23, 2008
These were the sad, sobering conversations that priests have when no
one else is listening.
Father John Peck kept hearing other priests pour out their
frustrations on the telephone. Some, like Peck, were part of the
Orthodox Church in America, a church with Russian roots that has been
rocked by years of high-level scandals. But others were active in
churches with "old country" ties back to other Eastern Orthodox lands.
"These men really felt that their churches weren't getting anywhere,"
he said. "They kept saying, 'What am I giving my life for? What have
I accomplished?' I kept trying to cheer them up, telling them to look
20 years down the road. ... I told them to try to see the bigger picture."
Eventually, the 46-year-old priest wrote an article about the
positive Orthodox trends in America, as well as offering candid talk
about the problems faced by some of his friends. He finished "The
Orthodox Church of Tomorrow" soon after arriving at the Greek
Orthodox mission in Prescott, Ariz., and sent it to the American
Orthodox Institute -- which published the article in late September
on its Web site.
Bishops, priests and laypeople -- some pleased, some furious --
immediately began forwarding Peck's article from one end of Orthodox
cyberspace to the other. I received some of these urgent e-mails,
since I am an Orthodox convert whose name is on several public Web sites.
While his article addressed several hot-button topics -- from
fundraising to sexual ethics -- Peck said it was clear which theme
caused the firestorm.
"The notion that traditionally Orthodox ethnic groups (the group of
'our people' we hear so much about from our primates and hierarchs)
are going to populate the ranks of the clergy, and therefore, the
Church in the future is, frankly, a pipe dream," he wrote. The
reality is that many American clergy and laity -- some converts, but
many ethnic leaders as well -- refuse to "accept the Church as a club
of any kind, or closed circle kaffeeklatsch. No old world embassies
will be tolerated for much longer.
"The passing away of the Orthodox Church as ethnic club is already
taking place. It will come to fruition in a short 10 years, 15 years
in larger parishes."
Church statistics are, as a rule, almost impossible to verify.
However, experts think there are 250 million Orthodox believers
worldwide -- the second largest Christian flock -- and somewhere
between 1.2 million and 5 million worshipping in the 22 ethnic
jurisdictions in North America. That huge statistical gap is crucial.
The problem is that Orthodoxy is experiencing two conflicting trends
in America. Some parishes and missions are growing, primarily due to
an influx of converts -- especially evangelicals -- from other
churches. Meanwhile, many larger congregations are getting older,
while watching the children and grandchildren of their ethnic
founders assimilate.
Thus, many Orthodox leaders are excited about the future. Others are
just as frustrated about their problems in the here and now.
Thriving American parishes, said Peck, are finding ways to blend some
of the traditions of the old world with strong efforts to build
churches that welcome newcomers, whether they are converts or the
so-called ethnic "reverts" who rediscover the church traditions of
earlier generations.
The best place to see the big picture, he said, is in America's
Orthodox seminaries. One study found that nearly half of the future
priests are converts and that percentage is sure to be higher in the
evangelistic churches that emphasize worship and education in English.
"When I talk about the churches of the future, I'm not talking about
churches without ethnic roots," said Peck. "What I'm talking about
are churches in which there are no barriers to prevent people from
working and living and worshipping together. It doesn't matter
whether the people inside are Greek or Hispanic or Arab or Asian or
Russian or Polynesian or anything else.
"All of these people are supposed to be in our churches, together, if
we are going to get serious about building Orthodoxy in America. It's
no longer enough to have folk dancing and big ethnic festivals. Those
days are over."
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/oct/23/no-headline---mattingly/
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