Archbishop Iakovos, an exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in North and South America, made a statement on this day in 1970 about the foundation of the autocephalous church there. Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, the diocese in North America was the only diocese of the Russian Church outside of the Russian Empire. After the revolution, the North American Metropolita sought canonical independence from the Russian Church. The situation regularized when, in the 1960s, the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras told representatives of the Metropolia that they had to sort out their business with the Russian Church and not with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Defiantly, he did not mean the new autocephaly. As a result of the efforts of Fr. Alexander Schmeman on the one hand and Metropolitan Nikodim on the other, autocephaly was granted in 1970. There are no canons that define the granting of autocephaly. Last week at the Zoom meeting of the Canon Law Commission of the Inter-Council Assembly, I mentioned that we have two extremes: Constantinople makes people who were not properly consecrated Orthodox, and Moscow issues autocephaly without consulting the rest of Orthodox Christendom. Fr. Vladislav Tsyprin agreed with this but pointed out that since the OCA case, the Moscow Patriarchate has changed its approach and expects consultations with other churches. So, on May 26, 1970, Archbishop Iakovos wrote to the heads of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches with a proposal not to react to the Moscow Patriarchate’s granting of autocephaly to the American Metropolia, but to accept a special commission of the Standing Conference of Canonical Bishops of America, which would propose a plan for the creation of an autocephalous Church in America. Thus, Fr. Alexander Schmeman's hopes that all Orthodox would eventually recognize the autocephaly did not materialize. On the other hand, the Greek Archdiocese has not done anything to foster an autocephaly in America. It continues to see the OCA as the Russian Metropolia. | 
