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What is clear from the reports and documents of the conference, however, is that there was no agenda to force a submission of some American Orthodox to others. The senior hierarchs all had something to lose from unification, whether it was property, prestige, revenue, seminaries, orphanages, and so on. The focus was not on "pecking order," as ''The American Orthodox Church'' puts it, but on "the canonical irregularities that plagued American Orthodoxy" (ibid., 182).
In any event, if any of the "big three" hierarchs—Iakovos ([[Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America|GOA]]), [[Theodosius (Lazor) of Washington|Theodosius]] ([[OCA]]) or Philip ([[Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America|AOA]])—had been elected as the American Orthodox primate, the reign would have been a short one. All three were old men (two have since retired). None of these three men could have been an "empire builder," but rather only a "transitional figure" (ibid., 182). There was no attempt to make such a move, however.
''The American Orthodox Church'' characterizes the move for unity at Ligonier to have ended up a failure:
