Orthodox mission in Russia

[Τιμόθεος]

Hello, my name is Timofey. I live in Russia and am engaged in a mission among my people.

I'm just learning English, so I apologize for any mistakes.

I am very interested in how the Orthodox Mission is going in the USA, Canada, Europe and other countries. If you are interested in the mission, or even engaged, then please share the information in this post, or in creating a new one.

Here, you can watch a video from my channel about the mission in Russia.

 

[The Liturgist]

Hello, my name is Timofey. I live in Russia and am engaged in a mission among my people.

I'm just learning English, so I apologize for any mistakes.

I am very interested in how the Orthodox Mission is going in the USA, Canada, Europe and other countries. If you are interested in the mission, or even engaged, then please share the information in this post, or in creating a new one.

Here, you can watch a video from my channel about the mission in Russia.

We’re getting record numbers of converts in North America. I’m glad I got in about 11-12 years ago before the rush.

 

[ArmyMatt]

We’re getting record numbers of converts in North America. I’m glad I got in about 11-12 years ago before the rush.

indeed, the numbers have been crazy and aren’t slowing down

 

[Τιμόθεος]

We’re getting record numbers of converts in North America. I’m glad I got in about 11-12 years ago before the rush.

Are most of them former Protestants? Or others?

 

[The Liturgist]

Are most of them former Protestants? Or others?

Both former Protestants and Catholics and also former atheists and members of various non-Christian religions.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Both former Protestants and Catholics and also former atheists and members of various non-Christian religions.

I actually have been getting a lot of former LDS

 

[E.C.]

The Orthodox mission in the USA would be more effective if the Russian Church just transferred its parishes to the Orthodox Church in America.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Hello, my name is Timofey. I live in Russia and am engaged in a mission among my people.

I'm just learning English, so I apologize for any mistakes.

I am very interested in how the Orthodox Mission is going in the USA, Canada, Europe and other countries. If you are interested in the mission, or even engaged, then please share the information in this post, or in creating a new one.

Here, you can watch a video from my channel about the mission in Russia.

Welcome, Timofey!!! So glad to have you here! I am an ordained Reader at our Serbian Orthodox parish in California. We are experiencing a massive wave of converts! People of all races. It’s exciting. Mostly teenagers to folks in their 30’s, but we’re seeing some families and even elderly folks as well!

I watched your YouTube videos. Outstanding!!!

May God bless your efforts! 70 years of communism deeply damaged the faith life of millions of Russians, but God is good and He is reviving the faith! Stay safe and this war. Hopefully our President Trump will help end it!!!

God’s blessings in ICXC
Reader Joseph

 

[The Liturgist]

The Orthodox mission in the USA would be more effective if the Russian Church just transferred its parishes to the Orthodox Church in America.

But there are only around 25 Patriarchal parishes, mainly on the East Coast, and since they opted to remain under the MP rather than join the Metropolia or ROCOR in the 1930s, I doubt they would want to be transferred.

 

[E.C.]

But there are only around 25 Patriarchal parishes, mainly on the East Coast, and since they opted to remain under the MP rather than join the Metropolia or ROCOR in the 1930s, I doubt they would want to be transferred.

I'm also referring to ROCOR as well. It is frankly a waste of resources to have multiple parishes and priests of these three jurisdictions in one locale when one of those priests would be better suited elsewhere that needs a priest. Contrary to ROCOR propaganda, the OCA does allow Old Calendar usage and has no issues with it; unlike ROCOR which still crusades against the New Calendar and those who use it as if they were back in their pre-unification days when ROCOR used to consecrate bishops for the Old Calendarist schismatic groups.

For example, Baltimore has an OCA, an MP and a ROCOR parish. All three are within blocks of each other. The ROCOR parish has its own priest and is tiny, like maybe 15 people and in a very tiny space. They don't need to be there. The main difference between this OCA and this MP parish is which Calendar they use and the fact that the MP parish has more newer Russian speakers; the OCA parish has quite a few itself. Both parishes, OCA and MP, are served by American priests; one of whom actually speaks some Russian, while the other just knows how to do Slavonic from time to time. The ROCOR priest and parish is not only newer (I believe established after its reunification with Moscow) but also redundant and, in my opinion, it would be far more useful to transfer that priest elswhere that does not have one. There's plenty of room in either parish for those 15 people to go to. This sort of overlapping redundancy is stupid.

 

[The Liturgist]

The solution in the long term is of course to reunite the jurisdictions engendered by the collapse of the Soviet Union and other events in the 1920s, but such a reunification should be organic and ideally preserve the different groups of churches as deaneries or vicarates, since even when the Russian Orthodox Church was united, the Antiochians had Arabic-speaking parishes which were led by St. Tikhon’s deputy St. Raphael of Brooklyn. That was a very happy era for the church but the communists had to ruin it and kill millions of people. But there are canonical ways of preserving linguistic and liturgical variations, another example being the case of the Edinovertsy, while achieving a unified hierarchy. But merging ROCOR and the MP into the OCA without addressing the rest of the disunity would be of no benefit.

Contrary to ROCOR propaganda, the OCA does allow Old Calendar usage and has no issues with it

I’m a member of the OCA and frequently visit ROCOR and no one in ROCOR has ever told me the OCA lacks Old Calendar services.

I myself really like ROCOR, two of my three favorite choirs in North America that stream their services online are in ROCOR parishes (Holy Virgin Cathedral in San Francisco and the Synodal Cathedral of the Sign in New York). The no. 3 position is an OCA parish that mainly uses Slavonic, but my favorite English speaking parish is also OCA.

There is only one canonical jurisdiction present in the US which occasionally frustrates me but I’m not about to propose doing away them. Indeed I won’t even name the jurisdiction in question.

 

[E.C.]

The solution in the long term is of course to reunite the jurisdictions engendered by the collapse of the Soviet Union and other events in the 1920s, but such a reunification should be organic and ideally preserve the different groups of churches as deaneries or vicarates, since even when the Russian Orthodox Church was united, the Antiochians had Arabic-speaking parishes which were led by St. Tikhon’s deputy St. Raphael of Brooklyn. That was a very happy era for the church but the communists had to ruin it and kill millions of people. But there are canonical ways of preserving linguistic and liturgical variations, another example being the case of the Edinovertsy, while achieving a unified hierarchy. But merging ROCOR and the MP into the OCA without addressing the rest of the disunity would be of no benefit.

I'm also a member of the OCA

Merging ROCOR and the MP into the OCA would be an excellent place to start since it was with the demise of Russian unity that first brought about the jurisdictionalism, therefore its reunification (at least in North America) should be the start. It is a talking point of the Greeks against our autocephaly, "why should Constantinople recognize the OCA's autcephaly when Moscow does and still has parishes in her territory? Therefore Moscow doesn't truly recognize OCA autocephaly."

Besides, there is nothing that says anything at the parish level needs to change if/when this occurs. It should happen in such a way that the only noticeable differences at the parish level would be participation in the All-American Council and a different bishop to commemorate.

I’m a member of the OCA and frequently visit ROCOR and no one in ROCOR has ever told me the OCA lacks Old Calendar services.

I myself really like ROCOR, two of my three favorite choirs in North America that stream their services online are in ROCOR parishes (Holy Virgin Cathedral in San Francisco and the Synodal Cathedral of the Sign in New York). The no. 3 position is an OCA parish that mainly uses Slavonic, but my favorite English speaking parish is also OCA.

There is only one canonical jurisdiction present in the US which occasionally frustrates me but I’m not about to propose doing away them. Indeed I won’t even name the jurisdiction in question.

Consider yourself blessed. Here on the East Coast, that is definitely not the case and certainly not the case with their seminarians; source: a visit to St John's ROCOR Cathedral in DC and talking with their seminarians and seminary's choir director earlier this year.

I don't mind ROCOR per say, I have many friends whom I regularly visit there, I just don't see the point of their ongoing hostility and malice towards other jurisdictions (especially the OCA). Nor do I see the canonical grounds on which they can continue existing in North America.

 

[The Liturgist]

Please let us love our fellow Orthodox Christians.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

I actually have been getting a lot of former LDS

I always think back to Star trek IV where Kirk tells the whale doctor, “He (Spock) was part of the free speech movement at Berkley in the 60’s. He did a little too much LDS.”

 

[ArmyMatt]

I always think back to Star trek IV where Kirk tells the whale doctor, “He (Spock) was part of the free speech movement at Berkley in the 60’s. He did a little too much LDS.”

haha, nice. doesn’t surprise me that’s what you think back to.

 

[The Liturgist]

I always think back to Star trek IV where Kirk tells the whale doctor, “He (Spock) was part of the free speech movement at Berkley in the 60’s. He did a little too much LDS.”

That scene itself managed to be “a more colorful metaphor” on on the Mormon religion as a whole.