Fr Thomas Mueller

In receiving its autocephaly thirty-two years ago, the Orthodox Church in America committed herself to a mission to Americans, regardless of ethnicity. The Church saw this mission as the legacy of Saints Innocent and Tikhon, Apostles to America. During that same era of the Church’s new self-identification, immigration from the native lands of the Church’s pioneers had dwindled severely. And at the same time, a different sort of exodus was taking place on a massive scale in America: a movement of white, middle-class Americans into the burgeoning suburbs, and away from cities – away from minority peoples of color and from those struggling economically, including new immigrants. The Orthodox Church in America followed this migration of its people into solid middle-class and upper middle-class suburbia, as churches throughout the United States generally did. For the Orthodox Church in America, this movement (which involved "following" and not "leading") became the prime focus of mission – to provide churches and worship for white, English-speaking, middle-class Americans. These included Americanized Orthodox and those who found their way to our churches through marriage or their own personal search, like disaffected Protestants and Catholics, almost invariably of European ancestry as well. It should be clear that this focus of mission has been a narrow one, in danger of becoming even more limited and limiting in today’s America, where "minority" peoples of color are on track to become the majority, as is already the case in our most populous state, and where the immigrant population has ballooned in the last ten years.

Without a serious, intentional mission to a far broader American society, and without the kind of serious commitment of resources which other churches make to this very effort, we may well fail to be a Church in the image of Pentecost - that is, a Church in which all peoples and races find unity in the preaching of the Gospel and in the Spirit. We need to reach out, as a Church and in an intentional way, to all Americans – both those who are well off and those who are not, both those of European ancestry as well as those of African, Asian, or Latin American heritage. Otherwise, we will certainly and tragically fall short of the mandate of the Lord to preach the Gospel to all; we will betray the missionary vision of Saints Innocent and Tikhon for this Church; and we will sentence ourselves to an ever more restricted and less relevant place in a demographically changing American society.

A strong case for a new and wider sense of mission needs to be made and can be made. Examples and stories of how some of our parishes are reaching out in their urban (and sometimes suburban) neighborhoods to people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds are numerous. We need to learn how other faith groups have dealt for decades with neighborhood change and white-flight, and not only kept their urban churches open but growing and flourishing. We need to develop our own church-wide strategy in regard to this renewal of mission. Likewise, we need to become advocates for generosity, equity, and justice for immigrants, for minorities, and for the poor, thus manifesting the love of Christ as His very Body in this land – not only proclaiming the Good News in worship and word, but also showing it in our actions toward those who are struggling to survive in this rich country.

Many will not be naturally disposed to find their way into our churches and our worship. And indeed they may sense that we have alienated ourselves from them. Consequently, we should be prepared to bring the Gospel of divine compassion to them by our sharing of their concerns and burdens, as a sign of the presence of God’s Kingdom (Luke 4:18-19). This is not only the teaching of the Gospel, but it is the legacy of the American saints.