The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is an Eastern Orthodox Christian church based in North America. The OCA consists of more than 700 parishes, missions, communities, monasteries and institutions in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In 2011, it had an estimated 84,900 members in the United States.
Patriarchate is an ecclesiological term in Christianity, designating the office and jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical patriarch. According to Christian tradition three patriarchates were established by the apostles as apostolic sees in the 1st century: Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria. Constantinople was added in the 4th century and Jerusalem in the 5th century. Eventually, together, these five were recognised as the pentarchy by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, and in the teachings of the Church Fathers which undergirds the theology of those communions, economy or oeconomy has several meanings. The basic meaning of the word is "handling" or "disposition" or "management" of a thing, or more literally "housekeeping", usually assuming or implying good or prudent handling of the matter at hand. In short, economia is a discretionary deviation from the letter of the law in order to adhere to the spirit of the law and charity. This is in contrast to legalism, or akribia, which is strict adherence to the letter of the law of the church.
Papal primacy, also known as the primacy of the bishop of Rome, is an ecclesiological doctrine in the Catholic Church concerning the respect and authority that is due to the pope from other bishops and their episcopal sees. While the doctrine is accepted at a fundamental level by both the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church, the two disagree on the nature of primacy.
Alexander Dmitrievich Schmemann was an influential Orthodox priest, theologian, and author who spent most of his career in the United States.
St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) is an Eastern Orthodox seminary in Yonkers, New York. It is chartered under the State University of New York and accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. It is a pan-Eastern Orthodox institution associated with the Orthodox Church in America (OCA).
Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream Eastern Orthodox Church is organised into autocephalous churches independent from each other. In the 21st century, the number of mainstream autocephalous churches is seventeen; there also exist autocephalous churches unrecognized by those mainstream ones. Autocephalous churches choose their own primate. Autocephalous churches can have jurisdiction (authority) over other churches, some of which have the status of "autonomous" which means they have more autonomy than simple eparchies.
Pentarchy was a model of Church organization formulated in the laws of Emperor Justinian I of the Roman Empire. In this model, the Christian Church is governed by the heads (patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
John Meyendorff was a leading theologian of the Orthodox Church of America as well as a writer and teacher. He served as the dean of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in the United States until June 30, 1992.
Saint Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary is an Orthodox Christian seminary located in South Canaan Township, Wayne County, Pennsylvania. It is one of three seminaries operated by the Orthodox Church in America, the others being St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, Yonkers, New York, and St. Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kodiak, Alaska. It is named after Tikhon of Zadonsk.
Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky was a Russian Eastern Orthodox theologian exiled in Paris. He emphasized theosis as the main principle of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Kallistos Ware was an English bishop and theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church. From 1982, he held the titular bishopric of Diokleia in Phrygia, later made a titular metropolitan bishopric in 2007, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. He was one of the best-known modern Eastern Orthodox hierarchs and theologians. From 1966 to 2001, he was Spalding Lecturer of Eastern Orthodox Studies at the University of Oxford.
Frederica Mathewes-Green is an American author and speaker, chiefly on topics related to Eastern Orthodox belief and practice.
Metropolitan Herman was the primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). As the head of the OCA, he was the Archbishop of Washington and New York, and Metropolitan of All America and Canada. He was elected Metropolitan on 22 July 2002, replacing Metropolitan Theodosius (Lazor), who retired due to health problems related to a series of strokes.
The Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate (AWRV) is a Western rite vicariate of parishes and missions "that worship according to traditional Western Christian liturgical forms" within the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.
Western Rite Orthodoxy, also called Western Orthodoxy or the Orthodox Western Rite, are congregations within the Eastern Orthodox tradition which perform their liturgy in Western forms.
Metropolitan Philip (Saliba) (Arabic: فيليب صليبا) (born Abdullah Saliba; 10 June 1931 Abou Mizan, Lebanon – 19 March 2014 Fort Lauderdale, Florida) was the Archbishop of New York, Metropolitan of All North America, and primate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. He held the position from 1966 until his death in March 2014. His tenure as an Orthodox bishop was the longest serving in American history.
Aftimios Ofiesh, born Abdullah Ofiesh, was an early 20th-century Eastern Orthodox bishop in the United States, serving as the immediate successor to St. Raphael of Brooklyn under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church. He held the title Bishop of Brooklyn from 1917 to April 1933, founded and led the American Orthodox Catholic Church for six years, and is, perhaps, best known as being the source of various lines of succession of episcopi vagantes.
The Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies (MASI) is an autonomous unit of the Faculty of Theology at the University of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto, Canada. It specializes in Eastern Christian studies in all its breadth. Special emphasis is placed on the tradition of the Church of Kyiv, although courses, seminars, and conferences also deal with aspects of the theology, spirituality, history, and ecclesial polity of all the Eastern Christian churches — the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental non-Chalcedonian, Assyrian, and Eastern Catholic Churches.
In Eastern Orthodoxy, autonomy designates a type of limited self-government of a church (group) toward its mother church. An autonomous church is self-governing in some aspects, which differentiates it from a non-autonomous church. The aspects on which the autonomous church is self-governing depends on the decision of the mother church. A church that is autonomous has its highest-ranking bishop, such as an archbishop or metropolitan, approved by the primate of the mother church.
