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July 3, 2009

Orthodoxy In America: The Myth of Past Unity


This lecture was delivered by Matthew Namee on June 20th during the conference hosted by St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary titled Orthodoxy In America: Past, Present and Future. All the lectures can be seen here, though I personally enjoyed this lecture by Matthew the most. He engages the historical sources to evaluate the various myths many hold concerning the unity among the various Orthodox jurisdictions. By doing this he demonstrates that there was never any true unity among the jurisdictions of America and that today there is more unity among us than ever. The significance of this fact is that jurisdictions like the OCA (Orthodox Church In America) are doing a great disservice to the future of Orthodox unity in America when they seek to justify their autocephaly by referring to themselves as the original founders and unifiers of Orthodoxy in America, and promote the myth that the Ecumenical Patriarchate disturbed this unity by laying his claim over America. It is definitely worth a listen as being a good basic overview of this subject.