Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

The Good Samaritan took the wounded man to an inn, and left him there to the tender mercies of a strange landlord. He had done as well as he could, but the man may have died at that lonely inn for want of understanding sympathy and proper treatment. If the Priest and the Levite had stopped to care for their brother Jew, they would have known fully what to do. They would have given him not amateur first aid but expert treatment. And they would have taken him to Jerusalem itself among his own people, where he would have obtained full treatment and a sure home for the rest of his life.

Yet we, ordained of God for this very purpose, though it is our own baptized brother who lies near us, stripped of his early Faith by the robbers of a misunderstood freedom and the examples of surrounding American irreligion we pass him by on the other side.

Bishop Burch in a report on "Work among Foreign Peoples," read in Albany before the Synod of the Province of New York and New Jersey, says:

"Released from the restraints of autocratic governments, from various restrictions and exactions which they regard as oppression, they come to us as to a land of complete freedom, in which all restraint, political, social, or religious, may be cast aside, all subjection to constituted authority. Too often they become, at the outset, at least unconsciously anarchistic, impatient of, if not disobedient to all governance. They readily abandon the faiths of their earlier years and unless met at the very beginning of their life here by impelling, or at least, inviting religious influences, all too quickly drift into utter unfaith, becoming openly and unblushingly irreligious.

66

The seriousness of the problem becomes apparent the moment one gives it consideration; the danger of inaction is increasingly emphasized as one proceeds thoroughly and whole-heartedly toward the heart of the issue. Out-and-out infidelity, neglect of all religious restraint and exercises, famine in the realm of the spiritual life, without God and hope in the world these evils and lacks and losses are to be the portion of the larger number of our adopted sons and daughters from over-seas if the present policy of the Christian Church continues.

"It is not a question of pressing a campaign of proselytizing-it is the bald responsibility for the saving of vast numbers of souls from irreligion and immorality which is the burden of the Church's duty today."

We are at War. Have we the time or the money to take up such work adequately now? I hold that the time is now; that this is one of our foremost present duties as patriotic citizens

for our beloved Country: to establish, before it be too late, these our brethren in the only sure foundation of true democracy, the religion of Jesus Christ. War has awakened our nation to the fact of unpreparedness. Let the Church learn the lesson also. Here is a crying need for energetic preparedness. Let us not fail to do our bit in this matter for our Country. This will be an essential part of the reconstruction after the war. We must work quickly, understandingly, definitely and together.

Now there are four great classes of immigrants who are our particular wards, who naturally turn to our Church when they understand what she really is, who are indeed our fellowchurchmen that are wandering astray for lack of shepherding. These four classes are: the Eastern Orthodox; the members of the Separated Churches of the East; the Scandinavian Episcopalians; and the lapsed Roman Catholics. The first two we can help to save by thoroughly cooperating with their own clergy, ministering the Sacraments only when their own clergy cannot be had; the last two we must take wholly to ourselves and provide for them pastoral care.

I. The Eastern Orthodox, whose lives we can help to save from growing neglect of God are the Russian, Serb, Greek, Syrian, Rumanian, Bulgarian, and Albanian. Also we can lend a hand to the Polish National Catholic Church in our midst, which is practically recognized as Orthodox by the Eastern Orthodox. These have come to learn that we are honest in our desire to help, that we do not wish to proselytize, but to assist their regular clergy to reach their people. The War has turned our thoughts to the near East, unseated our foolish prejudices and warmed our hearts toward our new sister Christian Republic, Russia. It is time we realized the fundamental fact that Russia's very soul and motive power is the real religion of her great Church. Everyone of our church people ought to try to learn something of this great section of Christendom. Such knowledge will make us understand our own Communion better. The Russian Church has a well manned mission in America with its object to keep to the Faith the seven millions

of Slavs in our land. She has in America an Archbishop, with four Bishops under him, for Alaska, Canada, the Little Russians in the United States, and the Syrians. There are 619 parishes, a Theological Seminary which is turning out splendid American-born priests, immigrant homes, orphan asylums, etc. Hundreds of thousands of Uniats in America, Little Russians from Austrian Galicia, have recently left the Roman obedience and placed themselves under the Russian Archbishop. The Uniats are those in the near East who submitted to the Pope of Rome, but were allowed to retain their own Eastern Liturgy and rites and married priesthood. The Unia dates from 1595, and was at the time the masterpiece of Jesuit influence. Practically all the Uniats of Russia proper long since returned to Orthology. Almost the only Uniats now remaining are so-called "Ruthenians," the Little Russians of Galicia, for years victims of gross Austrian oppression, and the Rumanians of Transylvania. It was last autumn that Archbishop Evdokim, Russian Archbishop of North America and the Aleutian Islands, after our Bishop of Honolulu had personally told him of the need, sent a young Russian priest, accompanied by his bride, to the Hawaian Islands, with a letter of historic import, which placed this Russian priest under the jurisdiction of our American Bishop. There have been many instances of our cordial cooperation, the lending or renting (which they prefer) of our Churches and the finding of Russians and bringing about the establishment of new missions. But we could and should do much more. It is our privilege as well as duty to make a point of treating the clergy of the Russian Mission and its dependencies with the utmost cordiality and to help them to find and minister to their scattered flock. Moreover we can give them most practical financial assistance to help them to build their churches and guild halls, and support their institutions. The advent of the Russian Revolution has entirely stopped the subsidy that came from the home government. This greatly embarrasses for a time the work of the Russian Church in America, especially their non-parochial organizations like the orphanage in Springfield, Vermont, and

the general activities of the central organization at the Cathedral in New York City.

We should cooperate cordially also with the Orthodox Greeks, though this is more difficult because of their lack of ecclesiastical organization.

In God's own time it looks as though it might be very soon - the mighty Orthodox and Catholic Church of the East and our own Church will come together again, after 1000 years, into one communion and fellowship.

II. The "Separated Churches of the East," Armenian, West Syrian, East Syrian, and Egyptian, are those since the early centuries out of communion with the Orthodox East because of supposed heretical tendencies. These Churches have a full and valid ministry, ancient liturgies, and full sacramental teaching. Whatever subtle heresies they favored long ago have probably been scourged out of them by centuries of Mohammedan oppression.

The Church of the Advent, Boston, has been regularly used on Sundays after our Liturgy was over, by a congregation of Armenians nearly a thousand strong, with an Armenian Archbishop as celebrant. Our churches have been lent to the Armenians in many places. One of their Bishops, formerly of the province to which the Tarsus of St. Paul belongs, graduated last year from our Cambridge Theological School. Last winter the Province of New England issued a letter, printed in Armenian and English and sanctioned by our Bishops and by the Armenian Prelate for America and an Archbishop, expressing sympathy and brotherhood, explaining our Church, offering aid, and ending with these words,

"In case of emergency, such as sudden sickness or accident, priests of the Episcopal Church, when requested to do so, will be glad to administer the Sacraments to Armenians who cannot secure the services of their own clergy."

This is surely a step toward helping this race of supermartyrs, many of whom dwell among us.

There are colonies in America also of the remnants of those other separated Churches of the East. The discovery of such

colonies and friendly intercourse with their people open our eyes to little known and romantic vistas of history.

There are several colonies of Old Syrians, erroneously called Jacobites, in New England and New Jersey. These are of the West Syrian Church in distinction from the East Syrian or Chaldean, so-called "Nestorian." They have but one priest in America, of a priestly family of many generations, and he is a high type of spirituality. Some of his scattered people he has placed under the care of our own clergy with occasional visits by him. These people are a remarkably intelligent and religious race. They proudly claim for their ancestors the mighty people of old Nineveh and Babylon. Their ancient and beautiful Catholic Liturgy is the only one which has not yet been translated into English. It is interesting to note that in every colony there are several Deacons, and in some, Archdeacons.

III. Of the third class, obviously our wards and for whom we must provide complete shepherding, are more than one million of the Swedes in the United States not yet affiliated with any Christian body whatsoever. To take a particular section, in New England of the 150,000 Swedes there resident, 24,000 are enrolled as baptized members of the non-episcopal Lutheran Augustana Synod, 17,000 in other religious bodies, and the remaining 113,000 are entirely without a church home. Brought up in the Episcopal Church of Sweden, familiar from childhood with the Collects, Epistles and Gospels of the Prayer Book, accustomed to an orderly and liturgical form of worship with an Altar like our own against the east wall, ornamented with Cross or Crucifix and Lights, these churchless men, women and children have a peculiar claim upon us. And here we find that efforts have succeeded. From our few Swedish parishes, with Swedish priests and services, have come many loyal churchmen to many of our parishes. We have a Swedish general missioner, the Rev. Dr. Hammarsköld. His work is, I think, the only regular immigrant work under our Board of Missions. Good progress has also been made in missions manned by Swedes under Bishop Edsall in Minnesota. There are some few isolated Swedish parishes like the two in New England. But what are these among so many? Sections

« AnteriorContinuar »