GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA

GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA, an exarchate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (qq.v.). The founding of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese was through the unilateral initiative of Meletios Metaxakis, an exceptional and controversial Orthodox prelate. Having been elected Archbishop of Athens (1918), he was forced out of Greece (1920) and came to America after the overthrow of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, his uncle. While some of the parishes with Greek parishioners in the United States, especially in the west and south, were in the jurisdiction of the Russian Church’s Missionary Diocese, others had no affiliation. Clearly, the Greek parishes had no overall organization, though a Tomos of Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III directed them to obtain their clergy from the Church of Greece.

Within months Archbishop Meletios provided leadership for all these dispersed groups and incorporated a “Greek Archdiocese of North and South America” under the jurisdiction of the Synod of Athens, of which he considered himself the primate. Thus, this was the first Orthodox ecclesiastical body to be organized in the western hemisphere on purely ethnic grounds and independent from the canonically established territorial diocese of the Russian Church (q.v.).

On 25 November 1921 Archbishop Meletios was elected Patriarch of Constantinople, which meant that his newly formed diocese in the United States would no longer be under his jurisdiction. At his investiture on 24 January 1922 he spoke of the ecclesiastical situation in America by which he “understood the measure in which the name of Orthodoxy would be exalted . . . if the two million Orthodox Christians of America were organized into one united ecclesiastical organization, as an American Orthodox Church” (text in B. Zoustis, Hellenism in America, in Greek, New York, 1954, p. 147).

If unity in America was the Patriarch’s dream, he did not-or was not able to-facilitate that plan. Instead, he proceeded to transfer the newly formed Greek Archdiocese in America from the jurisdiction of Athens to dependence on the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In human terms this move was understandable, but unfortunately Metaxakis made no further attempts to unify all the Orthodox in America. As a result, the unilateral establishment of an ethnically “Greek” exarchate (q.v.) did more to divide the Orthodox in America than to unite them-because it became the paradigm for every patriarchate to establish an “ethnic” presence in America. Once a “cash flow” was established from an American “ethnic diocese” to a poor “mother church” (q.v.), the process flourished and became almost irreversible.

The original canonical structure of the Greek Archdiocese in America included three additional dioceses under the archbishop, and the bishops of these dioceses formed a synod and enjoyed an “autonomous” status. But the Archdiocese was soon confronted with a political rift between “Royalists” and “Venizelists,” the “Royalists” proclaiming autocephaly (q.v.). Archbishop Athenagoras Spyrou (q.v.), 1931–1948, reunited the factions, but in doing so also did away with the organization’s autonomy. There were no more separate dioceses and all bishops became vicars to the one archbishop, and membership was reserved to ethnic Greeks.

In spite of these limitations, Archbishop Athenagoras was also personally amenable to cooperation with other Orthodox. He established a theological seminary in Pomfret, Connecticut, which was later transferred to Brookline, Massachusetts, and became Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (q.v.). He developed community life in America and the Clergy-Laity Congress.

When Athenagoras became the patriarch of Constantinople, he appointed the Metropolitan of Corinth, Michael, as the new archbishop in America in 1950. Archbishop Michael continued the direction set by his predecessor and further established the Greek Orthodox Youth Organization (GOYO), uniform parish bylaws, and became the first Greek clergyman to speak at a presidential inauguration in 1957. He was succeeded by Archbishop Iakovos Coucouzis (q.v.), who both strengthened the administration of the Archdiocese and actively engaged in public relations. This brought an awareness of the Orthodox Church to America. With the arrival of tens of thousands of Greek immigrants a year, the Greek Archdiocese became the largest Orthodox group in America-though retaining a strong Greek character and remaining administratively dependent on Istanbul. With twelve auxiliary bishops, Archbishop Iakovos is responsible for almost 500 large parishes. He is widely recognized as a major spokesman for Orthodoxy in the United States.