When first
immigrating to the United States, Eastern Christians usually intended to return
to their homelands and thus considered themselves
as in diaspora. Despite new circumstances, the mother Churches often continue operating
from this conception. Though continuing as minorities, Eastern Churches in this country now have generations of history, American cultural characteristics, and numbers
enough to regard them as a particular Church. Really, it doesn't makes sense for one location to have five or more Eastern bishops representing various jurisdictions. This redundancy weakens the ability of the Eastern Churches to evangelize, to catechize, and to do all that the Church must do in the world.
This jurisdictional unity could only happen if the Churches would seek it and would self-identify first as Eastern
Christians rather than as this or that ethnic group. Until Eastern Christians in the United
States stop referring to themselves primarily
as Russians or Ukrainians or Rusyns or Greeks or Arabs or this or that ethnicity rather than primarily as Christians, they will poorly reflect the one Church they truly are.
