Originally under the patronage of the North American diocese of the Russian patriarchate, in 1892 the community was received by the Antiochene patriarchate's Western Rite archbishopric in Ceylon and established as the Metropolitan Archdiocese of America. Autonomous since 1910, the OCCA is one of the oldest Orthodox Western Rite entities in North America.
Because liturgy is always pre-eminently the work of God’s people, it is no less alive than those whose work it is. Over time, however, certain conventions and habits of language and syntax become routinized . . . the modern author Annie Dillard metaphorically suggests that these customary ways of praying amount to “certain words that people have successfully addressed to God without getting killed,” and it is perhaps for this reason among many others (as, for example, love for the words and love for tradition) that liturgical change and evolution can often be seen as revolutionary, counter-cultural, and subversive.
Yet within the traditions, liturgical diversity remains normative. In the Christian East, it is customary to refer to the liturgies of Saints John Chrysostom, Basil, and James as if they alone were the proper fields within which we might address the living God. The traditions associated with the many cultures to which Christianity has migrated, as for example the Armenian, Assyrian, Melkite, Coptic, Malankara, and Maronite, demonstrate eloquently how the one unchanged faith is expressed according to varying cultural norms. Enlivened by the same spirit of accommodation and missionary zeal, in our time, and particularly in North America, several jurisdictions have taken the bold step of conducting worship in English rather than in the language of their ancestors.
In the Christian West, the analogous diversity exists in the ancient rites of such religious orders as the Carthusians, Dominicans, and Cistercians, as well as the local usages of the various dioceses, of which that of Salisbury is perhaps one of the most well-known. In the West also we find the Mozarabic, Celtic and Gallican rites growing out of the devotion and faith of specific cultures and peoples. Though the actions of the Roman council of Trent made for the suppression of many of these local and regional rites, the texts remain to show the deep faith of these people.
Since the 1880’s, the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America has supported the recovery and loving restoration of some of these liturgical “museum pieces,” as well as the reconstruction and re-interpretation of old rites for use in the mission field of North America. Moreover, recognizing the dynamic tension between accommodation of culture and preservation of tradition, the OCCA has carefully re-translated and revised rite and ceremonial to enable meaningful, intentional, conscious worship of the one Triune God.
As we move confidently into the third millennium of Christianity, we certainly will not turn our backs on the work of our spiritual ancestors; rather, we will build on their work to bring a fresh vision. In light of the Orthodox genius for the accommodation to new cultures and the welcoming of enquirers and converts, we would see the venerable traditions anew and bring it to God’s people again; we would worship God according to our “new world” North American cultural world-view; we would show by our words and works that our God lives and that our God -- the ubiquitous One in Whom we live and move and have our being -- is here in this time, in this place, in this culture, for everyone.