Orthodox Church in America

The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is an autocephalous church, led by Metropolitan HERMAN (Swaiko). It began with the missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution brought communication between the churches in North America and Russia to an almost complete halt. In the early 1920s, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow directed all Russian Orthodox churches outside of Russia to govern themselves autonomously until regular communication and travel could be resumed. (He died in 1925, and was glorified as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1989). At that time, parishes which had been part of a single North American diocese organized separate dioceses and placed themselves under various other mother churches, giving rise to the current situation of multiple overlapping jurisdictions in North America.

In the early 1960s, the Orthodox Church in America resumed communication with the Patriarch of Moscow, and in 1970 full communion was restored. At that time, the Patriarch of Moscow officially granted the OCA autocephaly, or self-governing administrative status. The OCA's autocephaly is not currently recognized by all other autocephalous Orthodox Churches, including the Church of Constantinople.

Within the past twenty years, the OCA has established over 220 new parishes. It is a member of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in America (SCOBA), together with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, and the other member jurisdictions.