ABOUT OUR CHURCH          

A BIT OF HISTORY

Our culture is not very history hungry. But a bit of history will go a long way toward helping understand who we are.

For all its trials and tribulations, the Church of the first ten centuries held a basic unity of beliefs in the midst of much diversity of practice. A flock of factors converged, however, to provoke a formal split which became in the east, Orthodox, and in the west, Roman Catholic. Reunity, despite centuries of attempts, has thus far failed.

Even with famous splintering of 1054 A.D., no one would think in terms of a new church being formed. The continuing Church rooted in the experience well described in the Book of Acts would have two major expressions even if splintered: Roman Catholic and Orthodox. Migration to new lands would not mean starting a church. Rather, it would mean bringing the Church to a new place and finding new ways to enflesh the continuing Church of the Apostles. The Church authentically begins a new expression in a new place only with the mandate and blessing of a Synod of Bishops and Metropolitan in an "old" church jurisdiction. The first Orthodox on American soil were from Russia. Our church owes something of its origins to the communication that occurred between the Russian metropolitan and the man who would become our first archbishop.

The Orthodox-Catholic Church of America, with its roots in the America of the 1880's, is one of a number of churches seeking to blend the genius of Orthodoxy in an American setting. Rene Joseph Villate, our first archbishop, served as a missionary priest (ordained in Berne, Switzerland, 1885), establishing parishes in the upper midwest. Ordained a bishop (in Ceylon, 1892, in the Jacobite tradition), Villate then returned to the United States, ordaining priests and bishops for the midwest, east coast, and south. What can be said about a man who traveled worldwide, who was influenced by Gallican, Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Old Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions? Some think Villate to be a saint, others a church rogue. He may have been a bit of both, doing both well! When it's all said, let history be the best judge. Villate's community was declared a self-governing branch of Orthodoxy nearly a century ago, becoming the first to give status to a western way of worship in Orthodoxy. The first Orthodox church in the U.S.A. to consecrate a native born and African-American as bishops. Our Synod of Bishops traces its heritage from Villate, Sherwood, Hyde, Lankenau and other bishops in what has come to be called "apostolic succession".

WHO WE ARE

Among a number of Villate's spiritual successors is our church and its tradition. We are men and women from many walks and ways of life. Some of us came to OCCA by way of other branches of the Church, finding here a home in a way not experienced elsewhere. Some heard the Gospel first in our worship, touched by the healing and confounding that marks the ministry of Jesus in his Body. We are Christians aware of the importance of an Orthodox faith enfleshed in our culture. We are believers aware that great gifts sometimes come in small packages! Ours is a practical, pastoral style with few frills or fads, few buildings and small budgets.

WE ARE ONE

In OCCA we seek to honor church unity and diversity. Perhaps one reason for the splintering in Christendom has been a failure on the one hand to foster diversity while on the other hand a failure to heal divisions. Our prayer is for the Lord's Vine to uphold many branches, giving much fruit. Unity in charity with great diversity.

WE ARE HOLY

All Christians are at once sinners and saints. It is our lot in this world to have a confused holiness, mirroring the confusion of all creation, which still groans as the redemption won for us in Christ makes its way through the universe. What is most holy in us is the lifeblood of the Lord that links us to the inner life of the Holy Trinity. What is sinner in us still puts kinks in those unbreakable links!

WE ARE CATHOLIC

This title signifies something universal as well as something whole and complete. In either sense the word demonstrates that what Jesus intends for his Church is fully here for all. No single branch of the Church can claim exclusive rights to this name. Yet all authentic branches partake of its meaning and its challenge.

WE ARE APOSTOLIC

To be "of the apostles" means that we share in and hand on both by word and deed the faith of the apostles and their first churches. The tradition of laying on of hands and prayer over those called to be bishops is one particularly important sign, but a sterile one if we do not labor together tirelessly in faith, hope and love.

WE ARE A CHURCH WITHIN THE CHURCH

Because we share in the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic nature of the Church, we are a church within the Church. Indeed, our Orthodox understanding is that the Church is truly herself when she is a communion of many self-governing churches.

UNDERSTANDING TRADITION

Taking on this subject is like walking in a theological field full of land mines! Please bear with us as we examine a subject that is the source of much confusion.

One Unfolding Tradition

The Christ who walked this earth as true God and true human is the living source of the Church's tradition. He is the visible expression of the unseen Father's loving care for us. The Holy Spirit enfolds and enlightens us, using human words in a divine way, divine words in a human way. The Scriptures are written memories which, when spoken and heard heartfully by believers and beyond, become the voice of the Beloved, constantly calling us all into the life of the Triune God.

The Church Holds the Scriptures

The Word of God was at first spoken in the stories and lessons handed on from one Jewish or Christian generation to the next. In time what was spoken became written. Both the speaking and writing were guided by God's Spirit whether or not anyone at the time had a clue. What is necessary for our salvation is here even though much more is given to us. Because the Scriptures witness to and flow from the life of the Church, we have a church-based bible.

The Scriptures Hold the Church

The Scripture that the Church holds in turn holds up the Church. This first tradition constantly calls us to our foundational faith, continually renewing us in the Spirit by the Word faithfully spoken in the midst of God's People. The Word is proclaimed heart to heart-thus the Word still takes flesh and dwells among us. Because the Word is what it says, it is sacramental-and the sacrament of Holy Scripture always calls us to our beginnings, our roots. In this sense we are a bible-based church.

Tradition births Traditions

The Holy Spirit who enflamed the newborn Church still warms us. This Spirit upholds us in our gathering for prayer, in our labors for the sake of God's Reign and in our discerning God's will for the Church. In this sense we do not have tradition; rather, we do tradition-the handing on of the faith that comes to us from the apostles. The living faith of the dead, not the dead faith of the living! Tradition is how we live in the tension between what our faith ancestors experienced and handed on and what we now experience and must hand on, guided by the Holy Spirit.

THE SPIRIT AND HOLY MYSTERIES

The Holy Spirit is always breathing God's life into us. Because we are of this earth we live by touch, taste, sight, sound and smell - experiences which have the power to lead us beyond our senses. The Word has taken flesh and dwells among us. To live alert to the Mystery of God's gracious love continuing to surge within us and within our universe is to live in a sacramental way, from what is seen to what is unseen. To live in a sacramental way is not to become something more than human. Rather it is to be fully human in a way that blesses us as icons and members of God, fit for doing the work so clearly described in Matthew, Chapter 25.

The Holy Spirit ensures that our celebrating, our prayerful receiving and handing on, is faithful and will not be corrupted even though we are sinners still. This Holy Spirit guides us not as isolated individuals seeking salvation just for ourselves on separate paths, but as fellow members joined into one Body who is Christ.

HARD TO DESCRIBE, IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFINE

We can barely describe the wonder of God's life in us. Jesus speaks to us in parables, images and analogies, all of which tend to drive the western mind to distraction. Still the Holy Spirit abides, leading us into the silence of the Mystery of God, giving us the gift of desire for the divine.

Orthodox spirituality embodies this desiring very personally. Please do not mistake this very personal calling for something private. The Spirit gives gifts for the commonweal and the building up of God's Reign. We're all in this together.

THE HOLY MYSTERIES

The holy mysteries (called sacraments in many Christian traditions) are any part or member of God's creation that opens us up to God in Christ Jesus, that graces us into the life of Christ. From the earliest Church we have found that certain moments and gestures hold special intensity in revealing God in Christ. Some churches name two and others more sacraments. OCCA honors many sacraments, recognizing the special place of the holy mysteries described now.

Baptism - Chrismation - Holy Eucharist

These holy mysteries serve as a sort of symphony in three movements. As initiation moments into the Body of Christ, they hold a primacy among the sacraments. In a sense, all the other mysteries flow from these and return to these. No matter a person's age or capacity for reasoning, we welcome her or him as full members of Christ's Body, the Church. Thus we make the journey into the Triune God who is our beginning and fullness. Following ancient custom, infants are fully initiated because salvation is first and foremost Christ's embrace and desire for us to enter into God as members of his Body. In the seasons of life, we who have been marked as disciples are called and cajoled to grow up and give up for the sake of God's Reign. Following the Christ who has first embraced us is a lifetime gift and responsibility.

The Holy Eucharist (Divine Liturgy) is the initiation that is always repeatable, for each time "we eat this Bread and drink this Cup we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes." Truly we partake of who we are. Orthodoxy does little to attempt to explain this Mystery, satisfied to bask in the Mystery knowing that in the calling down of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is our food and drink, broken and poured out until He comes in glory. A sacred banquet that foretastes Eternity. A lifelong revival.

Confession/Reconciliation

In fact, every believer is empowered to be a reconciler, a forgiver for the Lord. The ministry of a priest or bishop in witnessing a penitent's conversion of heart spoken before a holy icon with hand placed on the Holy Scriptures is an intense way in which the lifeblood of the Redeemer still washes us clean, renews our baptismal purity. The minister both listens and speaks as one called by the Church to present God's saving and healing Word and the touch of the Good Shepherd.

Anointing/Consecration in Illness

This holy mystery, celebrated in the earliest Church when elders were called to the sick, seeks to conform those suffering to the suffering Christ. And so sealed, joined with Him who suffered and died for us, our sickness is consecrated and our hope for healing hidden in the Mystery of Christ's resurrection. In a culture always hell-bent to escape pain and illness, this may seem quite foreign to consecrate pain. But it is the road to transformation and healing at whatever level the Spirit wills.

Marriage/Holy Union

Believers have in the giving of Christ's very self to his beloved a pattern and power for giving and forgiving one another so that in the everyday struggles of life together the Mystery of God's Triune community is enfleshed. Spouses indeed say "This is my body given for you, my blood poured out for you again and again."

This jurisdiction recognizes that no marriage is made in heaven even if all of them are called to journey there. Sin divides and saps the marital energy. Sometimes there is nothing left and people find themselves moving on in life apart. When that happens, in keeping with the ancient Orthodox custom, another marriage may be celebrated and the couple not barred from Holy Communion.

We also celebrate Holy Union between persons committed to one another in the love of God poured out in their hearts. This love is a gift from God given for the building up of God's Reign in this world and for living into God forever. To acknowledge holy union as a sacrament is to move beyond where many of our fellow Christians feel they can go. The gospel as we in OCCA grasp it calls us to solidarity with people where they are in their lives, in their lives together, and in their lives in the faith household.

Holy Orders in the Church

The Spirit calls forth in the Church men and women who are sealed in the gift of presenting the Holy Mysteries to their sisters and brothers. This tri-fold ministry of deacon-presbyter-bishop is one of service, fostering the life of God in the Church, giving witness to the continuing faith, encouraging both the unity and diversity present in the Body of Christ.

Single clergy are a blessing to the Church. Likewise clergy who are married or in a holy union. Some among our clergy live according to monastic vows, a venerable tradition in the Church. OCCA encourages her clergy to live the life to which they believe themselves called so that the ordained ministry is enlivened and enriched. In this sense, we practice the virtue of chastity because that is living the truth of one's self in the gift of love according to one's commitment.

OCCA welcomes women into Holy Orders because we are convinced that "in Christ there is neither male nor female," convinced that if one is called to baptism, one can also be called to nurture that baptism. We are also convinced that when consensus occurs in the Church, it most often happens after a long period during which some churches are more willing than others to take risks, to go where we had not gone before because we are urged to do so in faith, hope and love.

Our convictions in this matter put as at odds with official teachings of the Roman, Eastern Orthodox and some Reformation traditions. We pray that the present tension in this regard will, after perhaps a long period, bear fruit for the sake of God's reign.

Authority in the Church

We hold to the ancient understanding that the ultimate and final authority in the Church is a true Ecumenical Council. We honor the patriarchs of both East and West. OCCA recognizes that these patriarchs are "first among equals" and have an important role in nurturing both unity and diversity in the Church. The patriarch of the West, the bishop of Rome, could be recognized by OCCA in the ancient role given to that office: mediating disputes and facilitating communication between the churches within the Church, remembering that the head of the Church is Jesus.

OCCA church authority rests in the Synod of Bishops whose chief executive is the metropolitan archbishop of the Archdiocese of North America. This Archdiocese is divided presently into constituent dioceses, each headed by a bishop who is a synod member.

The Synod of Bishops is charged with encouraging and heartening the People of God and especially our brothers and sisters in the ordained ministry of deacon and presbyter. All the clergy gather in a National Synod every four years for the purpose of fellowship and discerning God's will for OCCA. Our clergy are in the tradition of Apostle Paul the Tentmaker, not depending on the church for financial support. This is a difficult tradition, an important one if we are to be close to people's experience yet a frustrating one if we long to spend larger blocks of time doing church work.

Thank You!

The members of the Synod of Bishops, wish to thank you for taking the time and energy to reflect with us about our church and its place within western Orthodoxy and the Church Catholic. May the gospel continue to settle the unsettled and unsettle the settled. May Christ's peace reign!

-- The Synod of Bishops