In 1917 the Russian Revolution broke out. As a result communications between the North American Diocese and the Church in Russia were greatly hindered. In the early 1920s the Patriarch of Moscow, Saint Tikhon for ten years he had served as Bishop of the North American Diocese issued a decree calling on dioceses outside the borders of Russia [by then the Soviet Union] to organize themselves autonomously until such time as normal communications and relations with the Church in Russia could resume. Shortly thereafter, at a Council of all hierarchs and clergy and parish delegates, it was decided that the Church in North America could no longer maintain strict administrative ties with the Church in Russia, especially since Patriarch Tikhon had been arrested. [He subsequently died in 1925, and glorified as a Saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1989.]
Concurrently, various ethnic groups which had been an integral part of the single diocese organized separate dioceses, or jurisdictions, and placed themselves under their respective Mother Churches. This gave rise to the present situation of Orthodoxy in North America, namely the existence of multiple, overlapping jurisdictions based on ethnic background, rather than following the canonical principle of a single Church entity in a given territory.
In the early 1960s the OCA at that time it was known as the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America, or The Metropolia entered into dialogue with the Moscow Patriarchate in an attempt to regularize the Metropolias status. In 1970 the Metropolia once again entered into communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, which promptly granted it autocephaly, or administrative self-governance. At a Council of hierarchs, clergy and laity held at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery, South Canaan, Pennsylvania in the same year, it was decided that the Church should be renamed The Orthodox Church in America.
Originally Posted by Kirby
