About Spotlight Articles In coordination with the celebration of our community's 100th Anniversary, a "Spotlight Article" will be posted on a monthly basis, that will put the spotlight on an important person or event in our community's history!
Lack of Churches Did Not Preclude
Participation in Religious Activities
The
early Greek immigrants who landed in Cleveland at the beginning of the
twentieth century missed their families and the friends they had left
behind.They also yearned for the
comfort and familiarity of a church that was just a short walk from their homes
and villages.
The hierarchy of the Greek Orthodox
Church in Greece was too preoccupied with many other pressing issues.Establishing a formal Greek Orthodox Church
in America had to wait.The country’s
priorities were to boost the economy and to regain all of the lands Greece felt
were rightfully hers.
Although most immigrants did not
expect to remain long in America, they still felt the need to participate in
religious activities, particularly the celebrations of the feast days, the
liturgies, and the sacraments.
So they improvised.
They practiced their religion and
observed the Holy Days using the tools they brought with them—icons, prayer
books, and the faith they carried in their hearts.
The
Itinerant Priest and the Coffee House Liturgies
Between 1894 and 1910, Greek
immigrants in Cleveland were able to participate in the Liturgy only when the
Patriarchate or the Church of Greece would send a priest.At times, an itinerant priest passed through
the city and conducted services on a makeshift basis, with icons and a holy
table (altar) set up either in a communal tenement apartment or a coffee house,
usually on Bolivar Road.Often,
competing services were held, one by a priest sent by the Patriarchate and the
other by a priest representing the Church of Greece.Each followed the calendar of their respective
authority—the Julian calendar or the Gregorian calendar.
Since the priests were sent from
Greece, they did not speak English.The
language problem must have contributed to the desire to establish only ethnic “Greek”
parishes in America, despite the legal actions taken by the Russian Synod to
prevent this move.(See the next
section)
Many immigrant priests in America,
who served the Greeks of Cleveland, had been trained only superficially in
Greece.It is possible that some learned
the Liturgy entirely by rote and never attended a theological school.Possibly, some may not even have been
ordained.They were often only loosely
connected with either the Greek Orthodox Synod of Athens or the Patriarchate of
Constantinople.Very few of the priests
made much of an effort to become proficient in the English language since there
was no great need for it.To use English
in the Greek Orthodox Liturgy was anathema, until the post-WWII years, when the
youth gained a voice in the community.
Priests from neighboring Greek
Orthodox Communities, which had been founded earlier (i.e. Pittsburgh and
Akron) were often invited to celebrate the Liturgy in Cleveland on special
church feast days and later, as family units formed, for marriages, baptisms,
and funerals.
As the Greek American community of
Cleveland grew, church liturgical services were established on a more regular
basis, often being held simultaneously in other nearby Orthodox churches.One immigrant interviewed for this history
recalled attending services at a Russian Orthodox Church on Prospect
Avenue.Another recalls having attended
services at a location near Erie Street (East 9th) and Woodland
Avenue.
This scenario was common to Greek
immigrant enclaves throughout the diaspora.But once these immigrants decided that they would settle in their new
world, the first step was to establish a formal community.
The Greek Orthodox Church in America: A
Brief Overview
The first Orthodox Church in the
continental United States was established in New Orleans by Greek cotton
merchants in 1864, during the Civil War.Founded as the “Eastern Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity,” it was
typical of the earliest Orthodox parishes in America.Its parishioners were multi-ethnic, composed
of Greeks, Slavs, and Arabs.Services
were also multi-lingual, and were conducted in Greek, Slavonic, and
English.By 1890, more than 600 of these
multi-ethnic parishes had been established.
This multi-ethnic arrangement
adhered to the decrees of the Council of Carthage (AD 419), which stated that
the responsibility for Orthodox communities in a new land must be given to the
Orthodox Church that initiated missionary work.In America, this missionary work was performed by the Holy Synod of the
Russian Orthodox Church in San Francisco.
In 1892, however, the Greek
immigrant “Society of Athena” of New York City broke away from this tradition
and established a specifically “Greek Orthodox” Church.This desire to build a strictly ethnic
church, and their success in doing so, set a precedent for later Greek
immigrant parishes in America.Between
1892 and 1920, more than 150 “Greek” parishes incorporated.
At first, the Greek Orthodox
parishes established in North America were under the jurisdiction of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which over the centuries had assumed
responsibility for all of the diaspora (i.e., the dispersion of any people from
their traditional homeland) communities and assigned to them their
priests.In 1908, however, this
jurisdiction was temporarily transferred to the Holy Synod of the Church of
Greece.This arrangement was maintained
until 1918, and during this period Greek American communities experienced fluid
and disparate conditions, without the necessary organization or authorized
religious leaders they so greatly needed.However, no formal organization was instituted until 1918, when the
Metropolitan of Athens established an American Archdiocese with the Cleveland
church relegated to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Chicago.
This authority remained in effect
until December 8, 1921, when a new patriarch, Meletios Metaxasis of
Constantinople (1871-1935), assumed the role as head of the church.He immediately proceeded to void the 1908
agreement with the Church of Greece and assumed jurisdiction of the Greek
Churches in America, a ruling that continues to today.
The two political parties in Greece—the
Royalist and the liberal democratic Venizelist—played a dominant role in the
development of the church in America.The Royalist Party opted for the churches in America to remain under the
Church of Greece and to follow the Julian calendar.The Venizelist Party supported the
Patriarchate as the ruling authority.The patriarch followed the Gregorian calendar.
The calendar wars continued to
dominate church affairs until February 24, 1931, when Archbishop Athenagoras
Spyrou of Corfu rose to head the Greek Church in America.Under his leadership, relative peace was achieved,
and by the time he was elevated to patriarch in 1940, the number of church
parishes in America had increased to 286.
The history of the Annunciation Church above is provided by Greek Americans of Cleveland, Immigration and Assimilation since 1870 (2008). For more information on how to purchase a copy of the new third edition of Greek Americans of Cleveland, please click the picture of the book above.
