There seems to be quite a fair amount of cultural tone-deafness and historical ignorance amidst the episcopacy of the various Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States. Abp. Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese of America epitomizes this in his 2023 Thanksgiving Encyclical. A mistake is made right in the opening line:
‘Our National Day of Thanksgiving arrives in a time when the world is in turmoil, and “wars and rumors of wars” (Matthew 24:6) cast a pall over the global community.’
The encyclical is clearly based on the ignorant assumption that all 50 American States, spread across more than an entire continent and belonging to unique regional cultures, are somehow ‘one’ and, thus, our ‘national day’ is one. Closely tied to that concept of ‘oneness’ is the concept of ‘indivisibility’. Anyone who has read more than the simplified comic book version of U.S. history (to use Dr. Clyde Wilson’s words) will understand that the United States are not now, and have never been, ‘one nation indivisible’.
Those words, and the erroneous concept they teach, are learned from the Pledge of Allegiance, written by a socialist, Francis Bellamy, in the 1890s:
What’s so conservative about the Pledge?
Very little, as it turns out. From its inception, in 1892, the Pledge has been a slavish ritual of devotion to the state, wholly inappropriate for a free people. It was written by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist pushed out of his post as a Baptist minister for delivering pulpit‐pounding sermons on such topics as “Jesus the Socialist.” Bellamy was devoted to the ideas of his more‐famous cousin Edward Bellamy, author of the 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward. Looking Backward describes the future United States as a regimented worker’s paradise where everyone has equal incomes, and men are drafted into the country’s “industrial army” at the age of 21, serving in the jobs assigned them by the state. Bellamy’s novel was extremely popular, selling more copies than other any 19th century American novel except Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Bellamy’s book inspired a movement of “Nationalist Clubs,” whose members campaigned for a government takeover of the economy. A few years before he wrote the Pledge of Allegiance, Francis Bellamy became a founding member of Boston’s first Nationalist Club.
After leaving the pulpit, Francis Bellamy decided to advance his authoritarian ideas through the public schools. Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance for Youth’s Companion, a popular children’s magazine. With the aid of the National Education Association, Bellamy and the editors of Youth’s Companion got the Pledge adopted as part of the National Public School Celebration on Columbus Day 1892.
Bellamy’s recommended ritual for honoring the flag had students all but goosestepping their way through the Pledge: “At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the Flag the military salute–right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it… At the words, ‘to my Flag,’ the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, towards the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.” After the rise of Nazism, this form of salute was thought to be in poor taste, to say the least, and replaced with today’s hand‐on‐heart gesture.
The Bellamy Salute, in use for the Pledge of Allegiance until 1942. Heartwarming, isn’t it?
Furthermore, the traditional view of the nature of the union of the States was that of a voluntary union. Each State was equivalent to a nation of Europe or any other continent, able to come and go as she wished from the United States. The historian Dr J. A. C. Chandler wrote a long piece on the U.S. constitution of 1787, explaining that view (we part ways with him on the purported ‘sovereignty of the people,’ however):
As an introduction to the subject, let us examine the Southern view of the nature of the constitution. To Southerners, the Union was a compact, entered into by separate and distinct political bodies. Such was the Union of the states under the Articles of Confederation, and such the South believed was the Union under the present constitution. According to this compact theory, the government of the United States was created by the states and all the powers of the Federal government are held in trust for the states themselves. Sovereignty, therefore, does not belong to the government of the United States or to any state government, but to the people who made the government of the United States and the states, that is, to the people of the several states taken individually and not to the people of the United States as one mass. These are the views expressed by Alexander H. Stephens, and, in general, were the views held at the time of the adoption of the constitution of the United States. Such were the views of Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson, and even of Mr. Hamilton himself, with reference to the question of sovereignty, though Mr. Hamilton differed from Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson as to the limitations placed upon the Federal government.
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This view is verified in actual history by the fact that North Carolina existed outside the U.S. for a time, as did Texas and Vermont, before they decided to join the union. And the Treaty of Paris of 1783 that formally ended the colonies’ war for independence with Great Britain names, in its first article, each former colony as a sovereign, independent country:
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.
Now, who was it that brought a violent end to this understanding of the union? None other than Pres. Abraham Lincoln, whom Abp. Elpidophoros quotes sympathetically in his encyclical:
President Abraham Lincoln, in one of his precursor “Thanksgiving” proclamations (July 15, 1863), just days after the bloody victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, said: “It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the Almighty Father, and the power of His hand, equally in these triumphs and in these sorrows.” In the midst of the brutal Civil War, Lincoln acknowledged the “presence” of God. And this is what giving thanks in all things really means.
Besides being a non-Christian who dabbled in the occult, he also waged total war against the South, violating the rules of civilized warfare that one is not to target civilians/non-combatants, which his generals would then continue against the Native Americans, and from there, sadly, his method has been used against many other countries in the world by the U.S. armed forces and their proxies – from the Philippines, to Germany, Japan, North Korea, and Vietnam, to Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, the Ukraine, and now into Gaza (this is not a complete list). But speaking of Lincoln’s War of Northern Aggression in particular, here are some words from Valerie Protopapas that might interest the Archbishop and any other Orthodox bishops who think they ought to snuggle up to Pres. Lincoln around Thanksgiving time or any other time:
Interestingly enough, in this litany of atrocities committed against non-combatants and helpless prisoners, one of the groups to suffer most both during and after the war were the very people for whom, if one believes today’s rhetoric, the war was fought—the slaves. Sherman exhibited a virulent hatred of blacks. He believed them “obstacles to the upward sweep of history, wealth and White destiny—and he felt the same way about the Indian, a situation that eventually led to “incidents” such as Wounded Knee. Lincoln’s opinion of blacks is, of course, well known. When Lincoln met with Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens just before the end of the war, Stephens asked Lincoln what would happen to the former slaves—some three million—cast adrift in a desolated South and not permitted to migrate north. To this Lincoln smiled and repeated an old minstrel show line that they would have to “…root, hog or die.” What Lincoln meant by this was that it would be a matter of the survival of the fittest. Sadly, a great many former slaves—especially the very young and the very old—found freedom to be fatal.
The atrocities committed against the People of the South, military and civilian, men and women, white and black, slave and free, young and old, well and ill, sound and wounded are on such a vast scale that they cannot be comprehended, much less revealed in a small article. There are books on the subject such as Dr. Brian Cisco’s War Crimes Against Southern Civilians, but there are also writings suggesting that, in effect, the South had it coming. Given that the people of the South wished only to leave the Union without violence, and that the institution of slavery in those states was not unique to the region, neither was the South involved in the slave trade—that was a Yankee enterprise—it would seem that such horrific treatment of a people whom Lincoln declared to be Americans, citizens of his sacred Union, is inexplicable.
But holy wars are vicious. The enemy is not a man or a woman or a child or a neighbor or a brother— but an apostate, a blasphemer, an infidel—and as such, is worthy of no less than death—and even annihilation! That is why Lincoln, his government and his military waged bloody jihad from April of 1861 to April of 1865. Had the war gone on longer, the people of the South might well have been reduced to the conditions of the Cheyenne, the Apache and the Lakota Sioux. Certainly, Generals Sherman and Sheridan and their leader Abraham Lincoln would have shed no tears for their plight.
Apologists for the war on civilians in Gaza use prior US wars as justifications for Israeli murder of women and children
It is profoundly unthoughtful and indecent to quote Pres. Lincoln approvingly in an encyclical that is to be read in any Orthodox parish in the Southern States. Have these bishops ever looked at the destruction that Lincoln and his generals visited upon Dixie during the War? We invite them to do so if they have not.
We wonder: How would Abp. Elpidophoros respond if someone quoted with satisfaction from a Turk who approved of the genocide of the Asia Minor Greeks in some document that he wanted the Archbishop to distribute throughout his diocese? We do not think he would be too receptive. We ask that he show Southerners, who continue to be shown genocidal rage by their ‘Yankee betters,’ the same consideration he would want for himself.
Finally, all of this talk by the Orthodox bishops about the ‘one nation of America’ makes little sense in the light of past efforts of the Orthodox Church at evangelism. Those efforts were usually aimed at converting an actual ethnos, a people-group, a kin-group, a tribe, whatever name one wants to give it – that is to say, a group of closely related people who shared the same folkways and territory for a very long time. That is not the approach of the Orthodox in the United States. They are lumping the several different regional cultures all together, approaching them in the same ham-fisted way, as belonging to a single American culture, one that simply does not exist except in a mostly negative, nihilistic sense. That is never going to work. They must instead follow the approach of the successful Orthodox missionaries of the past – St. Nino of Georgia, St. Remigius of Rheims, St. Augustine of Canterbury, Sts. Cyril and Methodius among the Slavs, St. Stephen of Perm, St. Nicholas of Japan, St. Innocent of Alaska, St. John Maximovitch, etc. What was their method? They studied deeply the various cultures to which they were going as missionaries so that they would be able to present the Orthodox Faith to them in as understandable and desirable a way as possible. We do not see that approach being used very often here in the United States. The bishops act as though someone from Connecticut is no different from someone from Mississippi or Arizona, that New England is just the same culturally as Dixie, the Spanish Southwest, Hawai’i, and so on.
One of many maps trying to depict the regional, cultural diversity of the United States
That has got to stop. Orthodox clergy must spend much more time learning the folkways and history of each cultural region and State (and the subcultures within them, like the Cajuns), and adapt Orthodoxy to them (just it has been adapted and assimilated beautifully over the centuries by the Greeks, Bulgarians, the Old English, Ireland, etc., etc.) if they want the Orthodox Church to flourish amongst the various peoples that comprise the United States.
The current union is on its way to breaking apart. The cultural, economic, and political stresses are simply too great at this point to stop that process, it appears. But unfortunately, the Orthodox jurisdictions in the U.S. are not prepared to minister well in the aftermath of that reorganization, blinded as they are with the notion of ‘one nation.’ But they can prepare themselves, both for the present and for the future, by learning about the real cultures within the United States and ministering to them as such, while de-emphasizing the dubious notion of ‘one people with one culture and one destiny’ that was forced upon the States by a violent group of socialists in Washington, D. C., led conspicuously by ol’ Abe Lincoln himself.
–Walt Garlington is an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland. His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.
[…] it is historically inaccurate to refer to the United States as one country; there are actually many countries within its boundaries, which would probably be better off on their own, but we use the language of the ‘official […]
Great piece, as always!!
I would argue that the Orthodox Church in America at least somewhat does what you are suggesting, probably moreso than any other Orthodox jurisdiction in the United States, precisely because it has been dedicated for some time to being the “local indigenous Orthodox Church in North America,” with all the baggage that such a responsibility brings.
I grew up Orthodox in PA, the son of Orthodox Christians whose job it to “survive and thrive.” Orthodox missionary work was not something even on the radar – in fact, it was considered distasteful to imply to the Methodists, Episcopalians, or Roman Catholics down the road that their faith may not be as full as ours. The unstated understanding was that this is their country, we are guests, and guests don’t behave like that. If a rare Presbyterian converted to Orthodox Christianity, that’s wonderful, but our job was not to make it easy for them.
These days, things are way different. Back then, the social perspective of Orthodox Christians was pretty much the same as the Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, etc – the goal for most people was married life which means one man and one woman; pornography and sexual immorality is bad; same-sex sexual activity is not intended by or blessed by God; self-control is virtuous; loving your neighbor is the ideal, etc. Everyone believed these things, except for the fringe lunatics. Now, it’s no exaggeration to say that only Orthodox Christians still believe these things – the cultural landscape has changed dramatically. Back then, nearly everyone went to some sort of church on Sunday. These days, most Americans don’t go to any church on Sunday.
Archbishop E is among those Orthodox Christian hierarchs who I’ve always referred to as WASP-wannabes…. basically they are foreign-born Orthodox hierarchs who perceive the pinnacle of American civilization as the white people who dominate CNN and the American Ivy League schools. Whatever they say and do is aspirational…. i.e., being like them is the goal.
I think this perception is a holdover from back in the day when we all culturally emulated traditional Episcopalians and other WASPs as the aspiration of what it meant to be an “ideal American.” Even Orthodox Christians did this. Problem is, traditional WASPs don’t exist anymore. But Archbishop E and other foreign born Orthodox hierarchs do not understand how the American cultural landscape has changed, I don’t think. Or they don’t care and just want to garner American riches to send back to the old country.
The Orthodox Church in America (and ROCOR and the Antiochians to some extent) seem to be the best jurisdictions at understanding the realities of what it means to be an American Orthodox Christian, at grasping how our history is so complex and has vast regional variations. The American people are not a people “to be used for our money, which are then sent back to the old country.” God does not bless “using” people as such, I’m pretty sure of it.
Archbishop Dmitri of blessed memory knew very well the unique history of the United States and of the American South. He grew the OCA Diocese of the South from a small missionary district of about 7 parishes (mostly in Florida and one in Dallas) to more than the 80 or so parishes it has today. A former Southern Baptist and native Texan, Archbishop Dmitri understood America way more than Orthodox hierarchs like Archbishop E do.
Fascinatingly, the OCA laity wanted Archbishop Dmitri to be the OCA First Hierarch/Metropolitan in 1977 after Metropolitan Ireney reposed. Archbishop Dmitri had the most votes by far at the All-American Council in 1977 – but the OCA Holy Synod seemed to think it was too soon for our small Orthodox Church in America (which was still very much dominated by American Slavs at that time) to have a non-Slavic First Hierarch, thus Metropolitan Theodosius (who came from a Slavic Orthodox family in western PA) became the new OCA Metropolitan and served as such for 25 years. Archbishop Dmitri then given the episcopal leadership of the newly-created “Diocese of the South.”
As they say, “he could have gone to Syosset to be Metropolitan, or to Dallas to become a Saint.” I for one, am thankful that the latter happened!!
This is a fantastic testimony. Thank you so much for sharing. Do you mind if we publish this as a stand alone article? It would be wonderful for it to get more attention.
Haha…. er… um… sure. Please keep it anonymous, however. Like many Orthodox Christians, I like to blend into the background.
Of course!
With the current situation with our federal government being totally controlled by the globalist cabal, for the first time in my life time, these basic concepts sound reasonable. In reality, I really do think the US should be divided up into smaller independent nations. The whole concept in Canada from their beginning was for a very weak central government. This is why for some the language is French, not English. There are some in other Christian venues who have predicted the break up the the union as we know it. Now that I have moved away from a major metropolitan area, I am comfortable with that. Our cities are going to hell. Rural is better.
Hope all is well with you, John Lee.
The neo-confederate perspective on American history is deserving of much more scholarly respect and work. But as a practical matter it’s a dead issue. The Federals won decisively. It took 100 years for the South just to begin to recover economically, and that only with the introduction of air conditioning which brought migration from the North and commercialism. There are some secessionist movements brewing out West. We shall see how they develop. I would not expect any genuine cultural understanding on the part of our Archbishop in New York. After all, he defines his job as ministering to the Greek Diaspora.
We had an interesting case here in Atlanta, where a local, large Methodist Church outside the city visited our cathedral, and the church’s pastoral assistant gave them a tour of the church. They tried to hire him as their education minister because of his erudition, and offered him $150,000. I told him he should have taken the job, and in 7 years they would have voted to go Orthodox.
Great article! You reinvigorate the notion of the local Church and rightly emphasize the dignity of the human person.
So you’re saying that we’re not fragmented enough, but that each jurisdiction should be further compartmentalized? We should have, for example, not just Serbian Orthodox, but Dixie-focused US Serbian Orthodox, Midwest-focused Serbian Orthodox, California-focused Serbian Orthodox, Rocky Mountain-focused Serbian Orthodox, Manhattan-focused Serbian Orthodox, and so on with the Greeks, Bulgarians, ROCOR, OCA, etc.? I wonder if all the focus on the vicissitudes of American cultures wouldn’t detract from the spiritual teachings of Orthodoxy? That seems to be the complaint many American Orthodox have against the “ethnic” churches.