Talk:Orthodox Church in America

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[edit] Official name

I just checked on the OCA website, and I can't find anything regarding an official change of name. What's the source for this? --Preost 13:13, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

Bishop Tikhon addresses this in a recent online post to be found here. JHCC 19:54, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think there may be some possibility that Bp. Tikhon is speaking only for himself in this matter. I discussed it with sources at St. Tikhon's Seminary who were at the synod meeting, and they essentially confirmed that possibility. Perhaps doing all the "TOCA" renaming throughout Wikipedia is premature, especially since, of the various lengthy official reports to come out of the synod meeting, none of them mention "TOCA." --Preost 12:22, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
I would say that changing all instances of "OCA" to "TOCA" is not only premature but somewhat pedantic. Looking at the OCA website (certainly a reasonable source for how the OCA labels itself!), there are dozens of uses of "OCA", not a single "TOCA" that I have found, and all instances of the full name written out have "the Orthodox Church in America" with the "t" in lowercase unless at the beginning of a sentence. The Tomos of Autocephaly may name the church "The Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America", but
(A) I don't see anyone suggesting redoing the acronym to "TAOCA",
(B) the fourth paragraph from the bottom of the Tomos gives the MP's blessing to the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America "to call herself The Holy Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America"—is anyone suggesting "THAOCA"?,
(C) the Statute of the Orthodox Church in America does not include the "Autocephalous" anywhere as part of the Church's official name, and
(D) the Statute also does not use a captial "T" for a "the" in the middle of a sentence (e.g., Article IV, section 1 [1]).
Also of interest is Article VIII of the agreement between the Moscow Patriarchate & the Metropolia:
The Metropolia hereby states that it intends subsequent to the effective date of this agreement to effect the legal change of its present name to “Orthodox Church in America,” or some similar name which may be decided upon by its All American Sobor, and the Patriarchate acknowledges this statement of intention by the Metropolia. [2]
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing documentation that the Synod has decided, in his Grace's words, "that the definite article should be restored in all official documents of The Orthodox Church in America" [3] (assuming that this was a formal decision and not just the bishops informally saying "Oh yeah, that would be good."). I don't see any issues with having the definite article in the title of the Wikipedia article, but until or unless the OCA itself changes its acronym to "TOCA", I can't see "TOCA" taking hold. "OCA" is too well established a usage, and we in WP should continue to use it. JHCC 13:46, 24 May 2005 (UTC)


I very much agree. Bp. Tikhon is fairly well-known for going out on his own, so to speak, on a number of issues in which His Grace's synod has not confirmed his opinions. One would imagine, for instance, that this sort of thing would be announced at the OCA's seminaries, and here at the one in the very heart of the OCA where the Metropolitan lives (St. Tikhon's), no such news has been promulgated.
I'd recommend reverting the various articles that link to this one to use "OCA" and not "TOCA." --Preost 21:15, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
I note that the the link to the Indiana List does not support the claim that Bp. Tikhon thinks the acronym should be "TOCA". He responds to someone who is reporting that some unnamed person said the acronym should be "TOCA" but I don't see where he expresses any opinion on the matter of the acronym. In my opinion all references to "TOCA" should be deleted. --Mrhsj October 23, 2006
He uses "TOCA" on his diocesan website (on the menu at left): http://www.ocadow.org/. 71.241.118.51 01:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Article I Declaration of Autocephaly

As the result of the agreement, hereinafter set forth, between the Patriarchate and the Metropolia, the Metropolia, as a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church (in 1793 – Orthodox Mission, in 1858 – Vicariate on the Sitka Island, in 1870 – the Aleutian and American Diocese, in 1900 – the Aleutian and North American Diocese, in 1907 – “Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America in the hierarchical jurisdiction of the Russian Church”) shall be declared an Autocephalous Church and shall have as its name “The Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America.” --Jstamos 04:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC) http://oca.org/DOCautocephaly.asp?SID=12&ID=63

[edit] Lists: Notability?

The recent list additions as separate articles really ought to be incorporated into this article. This OCA is of relatively recent origin and quite small compared to most of the Orthodox churches, even compared with other jurisdictions in the US. 71.241.105.203 18:39, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree that some of the basic content of the new lists should be incorporated, but to incorporate the entire content of those articles would make this one rather unwieldy. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 01:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
It's not a question of where to include all this information, but rather whether to do so. IMO, these lists are not notable enough to be included as encyclopedia articles on Wikipedia. 71.241.103.135 02:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section on financial status

A section on financial issues was recently added by an unregistered user. It contained negative information about a living person (specifically speculation about why the person left his job), which had to be deleted immediately per WP:V and WP:LIVING. I did that. But there are other problems: it cites no reliable sources, and it includes an external link which doesn't belong (meets none of the "What to include" criteria from Wikipedia:External_links and meets #11 and possibly #3 from "normally to be avoided"). Also the material is rather vague (unspecified "accusations" and "allegations"). I think this section would need major rewrite to be appropriate and should be deleted if that is not done soon. Added cleanup tag. Mrhsj 20:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Here are some sources I found after a quick search - [4], [5], [6], and [7]. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 22:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Okay. The first, second and fourth link are all exactly the same article so they add up to one source. But that article and the third link probably do support most of the content in the section. With a little rewrite and explicit sourcing it's probably okay. I might do it myself if I get a chance. Mrhsj 22:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Fixed. Tried to stick exactly to what is unambiguously verifiable in the cited sources. Mrhsj 05:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

I'm going to attempt to work on expanding this article over the next few weeks or so. I think there's enough material out there that we could make this article much more informative. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, however, so if I make a mistake please let me know. --cholmes75 (chit chat) 22:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Passed GA

A very nice article, comprehensive and well-cited. Good work. MLilburne 20:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)