Diverse Adherents Await Bartholomew I

When the spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians arrives in Southern California on Friday, His All Holiness Bartholomew I will find a vibrant and sometime rebellious local community of old-country descendants and new American converts.

The Orthodox community here includes Greek, Romanian, Russian, Bulgarian, Lebanese, Serbian and Ukrainian Christians who all pay homage to Bartholomew, the ecumenical patriarch.

The community’s changing faces are evident even in its leadership. Indeed, a priest at Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles used to be a Protestant evangelical--and his bishop used to be a Lutheran. The lay president of St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles is a former Methodist.

The patriarch’s monthlong visit to the United States symbolizes a new vibrancy worldwide in Orthodox Christianity--a church largely freed from the fetters of religious persecution since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

The church’s new prominence was clear when Bartholomew landed Oct. 19 in Washington. He was hosted by President Clinton, had dinner with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, visited with the mayor of New York and was invited to speak at Georgetown University in Washington and Tufts University in Boston.

“We realize, and I think Americans realize, that this individual is not some small-town ethnic leader,” said the Very Rev. John Bakas, dean of St. Sophia. “In reality he brings with him the Gospel message established by St. Andrew from 36 AD to the present. There’s a great deal of emotion because the patriarchate has been an ember of light in an environment that has not always been religiously hospitable.”

Bartholomew’s three-day Southland tour includes an address Friday to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, a walk through the Pico-Union district from Berendo Middle School to St. Sophia and an ecumenical service with other Christian leaders.

Church officials expect about 8,000 people Sunday for a Divine Liturgy at the Los Angeles Convention Center, followed by a youth rally.

Bartholomew, 57, who is sometimes called the “green patriarch,” will join Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt on Saturday for a Santa Barbara symposium on religion’s obligation to the environment.

Perhaps nowhere more than in Southern California will Bartholomew come face to face with both the impact of his church on the New World--and the New World’s impact on the church.

St. Sophia Cathedral sits in a largely Latino and Roman Catholic neighborhood with a smattering of Greek-owned businesses.

When the black-robed and bearded Bartholomew, wearing the distinctive black kalimafi, or headdress, of an Orthodox prelate, walks the streets from Berendo to the cathedral, he will be greeted by Spanish-speaking youngsters and a Mexican mariachi band.

“He’s probably never heard a mariachi band in his life!” Bakas said.

The patriarch will visit the middle school, for which the neighboring Greek Orthodox cathedral purchased student uniforms.

“Everywhere he goes he loves to see youth, because in Constantinople [Istanbul, Turkey] there aren’t any, as far as Christians,” Bakas said. “He craves the company of youth and always responds to the needs of youth, especially the underprivileged.

“Really, he wants to meet young people whose background is immigrant and exiled. After all, all of us are immigrants in one way or the other.”

Church leaders say they have no exact figures on Orthodox Christians in Southern California.

Bakas said there are about 18,000 Greek Orthodox in the Los Angeles area, with about 800 families on the rolls at St. Sophia, and others attending Greek Orthodox churches in Pasadena, Long Beach and Redondo Beach.

Other Orthodox Christians worship at separate churches, such as the more than 550 Antiochian Orthodox families who belong to St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral and about 200 families at Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Cathedral, both in Los Angeles.

For Orthodox believers, Bartholomew’s visit is a rare opportunity to get in touch with their religious heritage.

“I know I am excited and I want my kids to meet him,” said Constantine Boukidis, 37, a Glendale attorney. “There’s definitely an air of anticipation.”

Bartholomew is one of nine patriarchs in Orthodoxy, each with his own autonomous church, such as the Russian Orthodox Church. Other patriarchs sit in Jerusalem, Moscow and elsewhere.

Bartholomew has direct authority over the 1.5-million member Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, along with Greek Orthodox churches in Canada, South America and Turkey. He also has jurisdiction over Australia, Southeast Asia and some Greek Orthodox monastic communities in Greece. (The Orthodox church in Greece is independent of his authority.)

Most Orthodox patriarchs--along with their followers--also pay homage to Bartholomew as the “first among equals.”

He is the 270th successor to the ancient throne of St. Andrew the Apostle, the first-called disciple of Jesus. Among Orthodox Christians and Catholics, Bartholomew’s See, headquartered in Istanbul, is second only to the Vatican in Rome.

What distinguishes Orthodox Christianity from other churches is its claim that the Christian faith “abides unchanged and unaltered” in the Orthodox church.

The faith holds closely to the oldest liturgies and rejects more historically recent innovations, such as the Roman Catholic Church’s idea of a supreme pontiff.

Bartholomew’s church in Southern California is not the church of generations past. Eastern Orthodox’s tradition of deep spirituality, its rich liturgy and its roots in Christianity are attracting converts from other denominations and faiths, as well as seekers who have been unaffiliated with organized religion.

In the past five years, the Saturday religious education and Russian language school run by Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Cathedral has grown from 18 to 90 students. Father Vincent Peterson, a former Protestant evangelical, said half of the congregation are converts.

The Very Rev. Nichel Najim also has seen changing faces at St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral at Alvarado and 3rd streets. “It’s not an immigrant church. It is on the way to becoming an American church,” he said. One reason, he added, is that many converts have come to the church by marrying Orthodox Christians.

At St. Sophia Cathedral, 85% of marriages involve a non-Orthodox partner, Bakas said. Intermarriage and the increasing use of English in the liturgy have served to change Orthodox congregations. Along with the new believers, increased financial support and cultural diversity, the church’s move into the American mainstream has created tensions with the Old World church hierarchy.

A week before Bartholomew’s arrival, 120 Greek Orthodox met at the prestigious Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles to protest what they view as the autocratic actions of Bartholomew’s handpicked U.S. leader, Archbishop Spyridon of New York. There was talk of withholding contributions and freeing the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America from Bartholomew’s jurisdiction to become a self-governing church.

There have been similar gatherings of Orthodox Christians in Chicago, Cleveland and Dallas.

While the dissidents hew closely to the church’s style of worship and theology, they are seeking a more active voice for the laity in one of the most hierarchical churches in Christendom.

As they see it, their voice as members of the laity is being usurped by Spyridon, such as in the recent firing of three priests at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology at Hellenic College in Brookline, Mass., who were commissioned to investigate allegations of sexual abuse.

When the priest committee recommended dismissal of another priest accused by a seminarian of molestation, committee members and the college president were reassigned to parishes.

The episode became a rallying point for members of the laity already alarmed by other actions, including steps they saw as intended to block the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America from becoming a self-governing church no longer under the control of Istanbul.

But even those who met at the Jonathan Club are eager not to play spoiler during Bartholomew’s trip. They agreed to put aside their differences during the visit, which is the first time Bartholomew has been to Southern California.

Many Orthodox Christians see his trip as a time to renew pride in their religious heritage.

“We feel his visit here will invigorate the Greek Christians and all the Orthodox people,” said Harry Siafaris, 64, a Beverly Hills restaurateur from Greece.