ACNA ARCHBISHOP AND THE RUSSIAN
CHURCH
“I
have desired to see a restoration of Christian fellowship between the separated
portions of Apostolic Christianity. It would be a great benefit to Christ and
the extension of Christ's Kingdom if the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the
Western ones, the Latin and the Anglican, could cease their warfare and work
harmoniously together. Nor should we of the Anglican Communion withhold our
sympathy from those sectarian bodies that have gone out from us, but pray that the
breaches may be healed.”
Charles
Chapman Grafton, the second bishop of the (ECUSA now TEC) Diocese of Fond du Lac
(Wisconsin), made this statement in 1903.
The Most Reverend Foley Beach, the
senior bishop or primate of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), has
become a world traveler since his election to that office in 2014. His Christian
witness no doubt is his strategic driver but building relationships undergirds his
tactics. One of those relationships under construction is his highly visible engagement
with the Russian Orthodox Church. Does this budding relationship matter in the
grand scheme of things?
Adherents of biblical orthodoxy
whether Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican or Protestant, should want
to work together to be seen by the world (secular and religious) in a shared Christian witness. In this regard relationship talks with the Russian Orthodox
Church are not a waste of time, though perhaps ecclesial relationship
discussions run secondary to initial or primary and personal witness to Christ.
Leaders of the Church Militant should never shy from efforts at church unity. Talks
with the Russian Church, however, are not new.
Before there was an ACNA, Bishop
Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh (who would become the first Archbishop of the ACNA
province) wrote to the Moscow-based Russian Church Metropolitan Kirill in 2006
in response to an initiative by the Metropolitan. At that time other leaders
within Episcopal Church dioceses sought alternative provincial oversight (APO)
outside the Episcopal Church. In retrospect some will say that this was the beginning
of the Anglican Realignment.
The 2003 consecration of the bishop
of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church, an avowed and active homosexual man,
created problems for orthodox Episcopalians. That 2003 event prompted APO discussions
not only with the Russian Church but with Anglican provinces in South America,
Southeast Asia, and Africa. The point noted here is that historically Russian
Church leaders have always been willing to talk substantively with orthodox
American Anglicans.
In 1867 the Russian government sold
Alaska to the United States of America. As a result most residents of
Alaska returned to Russia. Those who remained were approximately 12,000 Russian
Orthodox Christians in nine parishes. As a missionary diocese of the Russian Church,
its headquarters or episcopal seat eventually was moved from Alaska to San
Francisco.
In 1898 a young, 33 year old bishop
named Tikhon Bellavin, arrived from Moscow. Tikhon had the vision to expand the
Russian missionary diocese into an American Church and he formed new dioceses not only of
Russian ethnicity, but Arab, Serbian, Greek and Romanian. Shortly after Tikhon’s
arrival in America be was befriended by Charles Chapman Grafton, the Episcopal
Church bishop of Fond du Lac.
When the Diocese of Fond du Lac
elected its bishop coadjutor in 1900, Grafton invited not only the Russian bishop of
Alaska and America, but a bishop of the Polish National Catholic Church to
participate in the service of consecration. After the service a picture
was taken of all the bishops attending the consecration. The gathering depicts American
Episcopal bishops donning copes and mitres, a high church or Anglo-Catholic
image highly irregular to most low-church Episcopalians. The picture so appalled
evangelical Episcopalians it was subsequently referred to as the “Fond du Lac
Circus.” The reaction to the picture is interesting, but not the point.
The point is that Episcopal Bishop
Grafton and Russian Orthodox Bishop Tikhon were engaged in and worked together on visible Christian unity. Dialogues between the two churches took hold over the next
century but came to a sudden halt in 2003 when the Russian Orthodox Church
withdrew from their official dialogue with the Episcopal Church.
Given the long-term willingness of the
Russian Orthodox Church to remain in dialogue with Anglicans in North America –
orthodox Anglicans in particular – it is evident that Archbishop Foley Beach will
continue with a Russian-North American dialogue.
