People sometimes talk about how Eastern Catholic Churches have counter-parts in Eastern Orthodoxy - the OCA is really the counterpart to the BCC like how the Gk. Orthodox Church of Antioch is the counterpart to the Melkites.
I’m a huge fan of Fr Schmemann so I have a positive view towards them “theoretically” for lack of better word, I think they’re a good attempt to bring about native Eastern Christianity to America, but am disappointed with their recent history, especially with the resignation of Met. Jonah.
Perhaps I would be a little bitter if I lived 100 years ago, but the OCA today is rather different than back then, a good chunk (not necessarily the majority) of OCA members are not even Slavs but converts… look at the OCA episcopacy and most of them , including the current metropolitan and the previous one, are former Anglicans.
No, unfortunately I don’t think corporate reunion is possible due to different theology mostly regarding role of bishop of Rome. However, it’s intellectual and not out of bad blood since there is no living memory of the schism unless, maybe if one was born in the in the early half 20th century and heard their grandparents talk about it - but some people both clergy and laity have a bad opinion of Eastern Catholicism and Catholicism in general and you’ll find the opposite with certain people in Catholicism.
Other groups, like the ACROD there still may be some “bad blood” since it’s relatively more recent and still in living memory.
About 1/8 to 1/2 of the actual practicing OCA are likely in Alaska - there are at least 50K practicing Russian Orthodox in Alaska, many in villages, and many surveys indicate the total active OCA numbers may be as low as 115K practicing members. Going by the more generous claims, there are about 130K OCA in Alaska, and about 1M in the US. Further, in many villages, the retention rate is over 90%… as in, 90% of those baptized in the parish are practicing members during their adult life, and 130K is less than the reported 19.5% OCA for Alaska’s 730K population (which would be about 150K people. 24% are catholic, for comparison, and about 300 are ECs, with about 100 actively participating in the one EC parish. Different surveys have come up with different results ranging from 12.5% OCA to 19.5% OCA in Alaska; current census data is 730K total in Alaska, which is 90K Orthodox at 12.5%…
And most of those, while not Ethnic Russians, are not converts. Outside of Alaska, most of the OCA may be converts, but in Alaska, most are in fact Alaska Natives born into the Orthodox Faith. Those who stay in the village tend to also stay in the Orthodox Church; often, it still is the only church in the village. (Catholic villages likewise have, normally, no competition in the village, either. Protestant villages tend to have one or two parishes; if two, of different sects; the Quaker villages tend to be purely quaker.)
The Old Believers have about a 50% retention rate, according to an interview on local TV last year. As in, 50% of the children baptized in the parish return to practice in the parish, and this has dropped a lot since the rise of the internet. This has a lot to do with the lack of jobs outside fishing for RO-OB types, and the cultural isolationism. They have not and will not assimilate - many only see Televisions and Computers at school.
npatrol:
