Holy Orthodox Church in North America
The Holy Orthodox Church in North America or HOCNA, whose ruling Archbishop was Archbisop Auxentios of Greece, now falls under the spiritual guidance of His Eminence's Metroplitan Makarios of Toronto, Metroplitan Ephraim of Boston and Metroplian Moses of Seattle. After breaking from the Greek Archdiocese and being received into the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (aka ROCOR), it broke from the latter in 1986 after HOCNA felt ROCOR was following the "Ecumenical Movement". Today, HOCNA consists of many monastic communities, missions and parishes throughout the United States, Canada, Greece, Russia, Georgia, Africa and South America. HOCNA regards itself as being the last true remnant and defender of the True Orthodox Church.
History
Within the Greek Archdiocese
Archimandrite Panteleimon (Metropoulos), the Elder of the monastic communities within HOCNA, had grown up in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. During his time in the Greek Archdiocese, through his Christian example and love for God was able to attract many to the monastic life, founding Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Brookline, Massachusetts)|Holy Transfiguration Monastery along with Holy Nativity Convent, and a number of parishes formed under his spiritual guidance. He had been tonsured as a monastic on Mount Athos where he was advised, because of the allegedly increasing modernism and ecumenism of Archbishop Iakovos (Coucouzis) of America, the primate of the Greek Archdiocese, to break from that jurisdiction and join himself and his followers to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. And so in the mid-1960s, Elder Panteleimon seeing the increasing separation from the true teachings of the Orthodox Church by Archbishop Iakovos, decided to join the ROCOR.
Break with ROCOR
The break with ROCOR was primarily due to change in spiritual direction of ROCOR after His Eminence Metropolitan Philaret reposed. As a result, members of HOCNA decided to leave ROCOR and search for true defenders of the Orthodox Church.
