(Q280b. How is Orthodoxy organized in lands of recent immigration?)
The expression ‘diaspora’ is sometimes used of regions where a stable, unified canonical structure has not yet been established, though the term is best avoided, since it may suggest that the Orthodox people of these lands intend to return to the countries of their ancestors, whereas they are at home, and the Church is called to take root wherever her children live.
Because these regions (the Americas, Western Europe, Australia) received most of their Orthodox population through successive waves of immigration, the so-called ‘Mother Churches’ cared for their scattered flocks by sending pastors and establishing dioceses of their own. In North America, the first canonical presence was the Russian mission to Alaska (1794), and St Tikhon, while archbishop in America (1898–1907), envisioned a single Church embracing the faithful of every national origin, with bishops for the various communities, as when St Raphael of Brooklyn was consecrated for the Arab Orthodox faithful (1904); after the Russian Revolution, this unity could not be maintained. The unintended result has been the presence of several overlapping jurisdictions, and therefore several bishops, in the same cities: an anomaly, acknowledged by all, that departs from the ancient rule of one bishop in each city (Nicaea I, canon 8; see Q070, Q071).
Steps toward canonical normalcy have been taken: the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in America (1970) established a local Church for that land; and the Fourth Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference (Chambésy, 2009), confirmed by the Holy and Great Council of Crete (2016), instituted Episcopal Assemblies, gatherings of all the canonical Orthodox bishops of each region, presided over by the first among them, to manifest the unity of the Church, foster common witness and action, and prepare the way for a properly unified local structure in each land. Orthodox Christians should pray and labor for the day when, in every city of these lands as everywhere, there will again be one bishop, one Eucharist, one church, within the one common union of the Churches of God.
