“The Orthodox Church Does Not Build on Other People's Foundations”. 1
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Sede Amministrativa: Università degli Studi di Padova Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell'Antichità. SCUOLA DI DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN: STUCI STORICI, GEOGRAFICI, STORICO-RELIGIOSI. INDIRIZZO: STUDI STORICI E DI STORIA RELIGIOSA CICLO: XXVI “The Orthodox Church Does Not Build on Other People's Foundations”. The Orthodox Church in America during bishop Tikhon's years (1898-1907). Direttore della Scuola: Ch.mo Prof. Maria Cristina La Rocca Coordinatore d'indirizzo: Ch.mo Prof. Walter Panciera Supervisore: Ch.mo Prof. Antonio Rigo Dottorando: Monica Cognolato 1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................................5 Chapter 1: Celebrating a Hundred Years of Mission in America...................................................11 1.1 The Conquest...........................................................................................................................12 1.2 The Mission.............................................................................................................................17 1.3 Selling Alaska..........................................................................................................................26 1.4 The new San Francisco's See, adventures of settling...............................................................30 1.5 Bishop Nikolai (Ziorov)...........................................................................................................34 1.6 An Expanding Diocese? ..........................................................................................................39 1.7 A hundred years in America, seen by the Russian Orthodox Church......................................49 Chapter 2: A glance upon Tikhon's Diocese..................................................................................54 2.1 Tikhon's Era (a hidden legacy?)...............................................................................................55 2.1.2 A Short Biography................................................................................................................59 2.1.3 Landing.................................................................................................................................72 2.2 A difficult Staying: Tikhon's life in America...........................................................................74 2.3 Tikhon's Church.......................................................................................................................94 2.3.2 A Church among the others.................................................................................................101 2.4 Tikhon's Diocese....................................................................................................................129 Chapter 3: The first foundation. Clergy and structuration of the archbishopric..........................141 3.1. A clergy Soslovie rarity.........................................................................................................145 3.2 We need clergy!.....................................................................................................................149 3.3 We need educated clergy........................................................................................................156 3.4 We need pastors.....................................................................................................................159 3.5 The Seraphim case.................................................................................................................165 Chapter 4: The second foundation. Building Churches and acquiring Ecclesiastical Properties171 4.1 Meaning of the temple, furnishing the temple.......................................................................178 4.2 A project for the New York Cathedral....................................................................................183 4.3 St. Tikhon's Monastery..........................................................................................................187 4.4 From the shkolnoe delo to Minneapolis and Sitka's Seminaries...........................................191 Chapter 5: The third foundation. Lay people between participation and identity.......................201 5.1 Trying to live with Uniates-reunited......................................................................................203 5.2. Brotherhoods and Societies..................................................................................................208 5.3 Toward the 1907 council........................................................................................................214 5.4 An Orthodox Cultural production..........................................................................................218 Conclusions..................................................................................................................................228 Appendix 1.The Bishops of the Mission .....................................................................................................231 2. Immigration.............................................................................................................................231 3. Statistics...................................................................................................................................232 4. Parishes....................................................................................................................................235 Bibliography................................................................................................................................249 2 Note on the names In documents names of the clergy could be found transliterated in the documents in many different styles. Sometimes they are only anglicized, sometimes sounds are transformed to become understandable from English speaking population. In the thesis names will be standardized using scientific transliteration. Names of churches will be reported in English form. Note on the Calendar Difference between the Julian and Gregorian Calendar for the period considered is of 12 days before 1900 and thirteen days after. Usually Russian-American letters and documents reported both the systems of computation, while Russian documents used the Julian Calendar and American documents the Gregorian one. Nonetheless sometimes for Russian clergy living in America it is impossible to understand which one of the two is used by the writer in that specific letter. Abbreviations ARC Alaskan Russian Church, Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America. Diocese of Alaska. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington DC. Documents are referred to as folder number, Reel number, photograph number. RGIA Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv GARF Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiskii Federatsii Archival notation follows the standard practice of Russian archives: fond (f.), opis' (op.), delo (d.), list (l.), oborot (ob.). APV Amerikanskii Pravoslavnoi Vestnik1 Referred to through issue number, year of publication, pages. In case of English Supplements it is reported the month and year to which they refer to. (ARC APV indicates that that issue could be found in the ARC archive. In this case both references are given). 1 I would like Scott Kenworthy for sharing with me his APV copies, above his knowledge and support. 3 The Holy Orthodox Church The Holy Orthodox Church possesses a Priesthood of unbroken succession from Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Her Liturgy is that of St. James of Jerusalem abbreviated by SS. Basil and Chrysostom. Her Ceremoonial is that of the Ancient Church, though well adapted to modern times. She numbers about one hundred and twenty-five millions of Christians, who are under the four Ancient Patriarchates of the East and the Holy Synod of Russia. In the United States besides the Russian, Syria-Arabic and Servian Clergy, whose names may be found in the subjoined list, there are several Greek Priests, who are under the Metropolitan of Athens, but who, so far as Episcopal Ministrations are concerned, call upon the Orthodox Archibishop of North America. The Holy Orthodox Church recognizes but seven General Councils, and while holding inviolately the Catholic Faith as taught down to the close of the Seventh General, she is not in union with the fifth Patriarchate, namely, the Roman Catholic Church. She holds out a loving hand to all who believe the Ancient Faith, whether in the East or West, and practice it, and who accept the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God. Her continued prayer is for the unity of Christendom. From the American Orthodox Messenger, January 1906.2 2 ARC APV Supplements, January 1906, pp. 61-64, D454, Reel 289, ff. 253-255. 4 Introduction Притом я старался благовествовать не там, где уже было известно имя Христово, дабы не созидать начужом основании Рим. 15, 20 Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation Romans 15, 20 Studying a diocese means inquiring the mechanisms sustaining a complex structure. A diocese has an internal hierarchy. It is the organic part of a broader institution, the Church. It should refer in different grades to the Holy Bible, the ancient canons and tradition together with the other organs of the Church. A diocese not only permits the maintainability of devotion practices and tools for daily parishes functioning but also is a vehicle, on the