WHO WE ARE
Find out what it means to be Western Rite Orthodox.
The Holy Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church (Archdiocese of New York) is a constituent part of Holy Orthodoxy in America.
We are awaiting, provisionally, the time when the Orthodox Western Rite will be fully and properly accepted within Orthodoxy as a legitimate and equal expression of Orthodox Faith and Mission. Our Church was established with the Original Orthodox Mission in America by St. Tikhon of Moscow, continued through St. Raphael of Brooklyn, received consecration from St. John Maximovitch, and was granted official status by Patriarch Nicholas VI of Alexandria.
The Archdiocese endeavors to produce holy and faithful priests who will spread Holy Orthodoxy by both word and example using the ancient Orthodox Western Rite. It is our mission to do all that we can to support efforts for unity within Holy Orthodoxy. In order to accomplish this mission, we are doing a number of things: 1) pressing for a better educated clergy, 2) contacting other jurisdictions to create a forum for traditional non-Assembly Churches to spiritually unite and work together for the common good, and 3) working to make quality liturgical materials available to all people.
From the perspective of Rome and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Archdiocese is incontrovertibly valid and has much clearer claims to unbroken Apostolicity. On this ground, it is a strong basis for ecumenical dialogues with other Churches.
The Orthodox Archdiocese of America (New York), is synodally administered under the omophorion of Archbishop Anthony of New York. We are rooted in western rite missionary episcopacies established by Orthodox Churches over the last 150 years for the restoration of the Western Church from the errors of Papalism and a general abandonment of Holy Tradition in the West. Our communion consists of Western Rite and Eastern Rite local congregations that share this common history and vision for the restoration of Western Christianity through the continuation of the mandate imparted by St. Tikhon of Moscow, St. Raphael of Brooklyn, and St. John Maximovich of Shanghai and San Francisco. We restrict membership to the Synod through a process of invitation, canonical discernment, background checks, and by rigorous application of the Seven Ecumenical Councils and their canons. Excommunicated, immoral or irregular men who claim episcopal lineage (even if holding "Orthodox orders") will not be accepted as valid bishops. We do not consider groups with uncanonical apostolic succession and insist upon canonical orders recognizable to either the Eastern Church or, by statement of faith and vesting, to the Roman Catholic Church. Validity of orders, purity of life, pastoral work and actual ministry are all prerequisites for consideration.
It is our goal to see Western Orthodoxy fully restored in the English speaking world. We wish for its full restoration of the Anglo-Catholic Patrimony, not as an appendage to Byzantine Churches, suspect of heresy and dampened by suspicious, unsympathetic Eastern bishops, but received as a fully functional, autonomous, and valid form of Orthodox Christianity, fully claimant to the first on a thousand years of the undivided Christian Tradition. We believe that only through insisting on this continued mission can we be faithful to our saintly Eastern fathers, who helped to reestablish an Orthodox Western Tradition in the contemporary world.
We are, therefore, a growing Orthodox Jurisdiction which embraces the past and future of Orthodoxy – the “past,” because we continue in the Apostles’ Teaching, Fellowship, the Breaking of Bread and the Prayers, and the “future,” because we believe that the timeless message of the Orthodox Gospel, faith, and morals is the only way to remain faithful and to assure a place in the kingdom of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.
I do not know a Greek Christ, a Russian Christ, an English Christ, an Arab Christ. Christ for me is everything, the super cosmic being. If we confess in the creed, Christ is very God, the Saviour of the Universe, the Creator of the World, by whom all things are made, how can we bring our understanding of Him down to a question of nationality, place or epoch?
Archimandrite Sophrony (Disciple of Saint Silouan)
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