Orthodoxy: Greek Tragedy

The Greek Orthodox Church in the U.S. is steadily becoming less Greek than Orthodox. Probably a fourth of its estimated 1,800,000 members no longer speak the language of their ancestors, and the bishops have been under constant pressure from younger laymen and many parents and priests to allow the celebration of the Divine Liturgy in English. This year, in an effort to renew its links with Hellenic tradition, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America decided to hold its biennial congress of clergy and laity for the first time in Greece. The result was enough to transform even the most patriotic Hellenophile into a confirmed Hellenophobe.

The experiment ran into trouble from the very beginning. The long-bearded, black-robed prelates of the church in Greece were shocked that many of the American priests were clean shaven and wore suits. They also complained that the visitors were hell-bent on "de-Hellenizing" Orthodoxy. Archbishop Iakovos, head of the American church, took note of this hostility in his opening address at the 1,800-year-old Theater of Herodes Atticus near the Acropolis. "It sometimes seems to us," he said, "that you keep us at a distance, that you consider us strangers. Let it not be heard from your lips, that we have strayed from Hellenism."

Theological Boycott. Matters quickly deteriorated after that. When an American priest publicly complained about the refusal of the University of Athens to recognize degrees from Holy Cross Orthodox Theological School in Brookline, Mass., ten theologians from the university walked out of the assembly and boycotted the rest of the congress. After Iakovos went out of his way to praise Greece's past democratic political tradition, the country's military regime ordered newspapers to curtail their coverage of the congress. George Papadopoulos, the strongman of the ruling junta, pointedly failed to show up at the climactic banquet, pleading a sprained ankle. Archbishop Ieronymos, Primate of the Greek church, agreed to show up at the dinner only after it was made clear to him that he was the guest of honor.

At the end of the congress, even Archbishop Iakovos had to admit that the experiment had been a failure. "We offered cooperation, but there was no response," he said. "We found that what separates America and Greece is not just the ocean. It is the mentality." The return to the homeland did not help the cause of cultural Hellenization in American Orthodoxy. One resolution, approved overwhelmingly by the congress, called for more English in the church's worship.