A Thumbnail History on the Origins of ROCOR and the OCA

Source: from Fr. John Shaw’s post in the “orthodoxy-or-death” Yahoo discussion group, Saturday March 18, 2006, 8:37pm

 

 

Question: Can you tell us something about the "American-Russian Metropolia" [OCA], how it started, and how it was a different "entity" from the ROCOR?

Reply: The Russian-American Metropolia had been part of ROCOR from 1920 till 1926, when it separated over the decision of the first All-Diaspora Sobor to call for the restoration of the Russian monarchy. It rejoined ROCOR in 1936 at the urging of the Serbian Church, but again separated at the Cleveland Sobor of 1946.

In my opinion, a key underlying cause for the breach was the different makeup of the Metropolia.

ROCOR was formed by Russian refugees: people who left Russia against their will and hoped to go back. These people were mostly well-educated, and for about 50 years produced a great deal of religious literature in Russian and other languages.

The majority of the Metropolia's members had come, not from Russia, but from Austria- Hungary, and were former Uniates or the children and grandchildren of Uniates. They thought of themselves as "Russians", but today would have been classed as Ukrainians or Carpatho-Russians.

Most of those who had come from the Russian Empire had come to America looking for a new life, for economic success. Relatively few of them were well-educated.

The reconciliation of 1936 followed by a new break 10 years later marked a period in which Metropolitan Theophilus of the Metropolia tried to "unify" the former ROCOR parishes with his "Little Russian" flock, by reassigning priests. If the parish was pro-ROCOR, he assigned a committed Metropolia priest; the ROCOR priests were reassigned to "Little Russian" parishes that were not interested in ROCOR.

When the second break came in 1946, only Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, St. Alexander Nevsky parish in Lakewood NJ, and a few other parishes here and there remained in ROCOR.

In Christ,

Fr. John R. Shaw

[Currently retired Bishop Jerome of Manhattan, ROCOR-MP]