On this day in 1923, the Council of the Serbian Church appointed Archimandrite St. Mardarije (Uskoković) as the first bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church in North America. Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, all Orthodox Christians in North America, except for the Greeks, were under the jurisdiction of the Russian Church. The plan of Bishop St. Tikhon (Bellavin) for America was that all Orthodox Christians would have their nations represented by “ethnic” bishops organized into a “commonwealth of Orthodox churches” under the omophorion of the Russian Church. With this in mind, in 1904, Archimandrite St. Raphael (Hawaweeny) was consecrated for the Arabic-speaking flock. This Orthodox project in North America was “bankrolled” from St. Petersburg, and the collapse of the Russian Empire set in motion the process of its disintegration. For example “the Syro-Arabs” obtained permission to organize their own archdiocese in the US from the ROCOR’s headquarter in Serbia in 1923. Fr. Nikolaj Kostur, a historian of the relationship between the ROCOR and the North American Metropolia, describes the situation as follows: “It should be mentioned that the opening of a Serbian diocese in America was already being planned in 1917 when the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church sent Hieromonk Mardarije (Uskoković) to America to head a Serbian mission. By 1919, at the Second All-American Sobor, Fr. Mardarije was nominated to be made Bishop of Chicago in agreement with the Serbian clergy in North America. However, the Serbian clergy did not want the Russian Sobor to nominate its own bishop. Due to the turmoil in the Russian Orthodox Church following the Revolution, the SOC sent Bishop St. Nikolaj (Velimirović) to North America in January of 1921 to inspect the situation there. Following the report of Bishop Nikolaj, the SOC decided that it should have its own diocese, and therefore acted through the HCA [Higher Church Authority, =ROCOR], which was considered the central authority of the Russian Orthodox Church outside the borders of Russia and functioned from Serbia” The Relationship between The Russian Orthodox Church in North America and The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad from 1920-1950 Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad). As a result of his visit, Bishop St. Nikolaj (Velimirovič) of Žiča nominated Archimandrite Mardarije to become a bishop for the Serbian people in America. His episcopal consecration occurred in 1926; he arrived in America the following year. In 1935, St. Mardarije passed away. His glorification by the Serbian Orthodox Church took place in 2015, and two years later, the translation of his incorrupt relics took place. St. Mardrije was born in 1889 in Montenegro. In 1905 he was tonsured a monk in the monastery Studenica. Afterward, St. Mardarije studied in Russia and lived in St. Petersburg, where he graduated from the Theological Academy. His memoirs depict the atmosphere in the capital and the Empire’s collapse and were recently published in English. Source: Monk Benjamin (Gomarterli), Letopis’ tserkovnykh sobytii Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi nachinaia s 1917 goda. [Timeline of Church Events Beginning with 1917] Part I. 1917-1927. Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad. Dmitry P. Anashkin, Zakonodatel’stvo Russkoi Zarubezhnoi Tserkviм 1920-2007 [Laws of the Russian Church Abroad: 1920-2007] (Moscow, 2013) |
