Overlapping Jurisdictions: The Canonical Anomaly in America

American Orthodoxy is organized along ethnic and patriarchal lines, so that a single city may contain Greek, Antiochian, Russian, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Albanian, Carpatho-Russian, and Georgian bishops at once. This file maps those jurisdictions, explains why the arrangement contradicts the ancient canon of “one bishop, one city,” and traces the unresolved dispute over whether American Orthodox are a “diaspora” or an indigenous Church.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (North American context)

The Anomaly: One City, Many Bishops

The territorial principle of Orthodox ecclesiology is ancient and explicit. Canon 8 of the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea I, 325), addressing the reception of Novatianists, insists that “there be not two bishops in the city” (Nicaea I, 325, Canon 8; The Rudder [Pedalion], trans. Cummings). The principle — one bishop for one place, all the faithful of a city gathered under a single hierarch — is foundational to the Orthodox understanding of the local Church as the eucharistic community gathered around its bishop.

American Orthodoxy violates this principle structurally and openly. In any major American city one finds parishes of half a dozen or more jurisdictions, each under its own bishop, each answering to a different mother Church overseas. This is the canonical anomaly of the so-called diaspora: not a heresy, not a schism among the bodies involved (they are in communion), but a standing irregularity that every party acknowledges and no party has resolved (Erickson, Orthodox Christians in America; FitzGerald, The Orthodox Church).

The Map of Jurisdictions

Beyond the three largest American jurisdictions — the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese (Constantinople), the Antiochian Archdiocese (Antioch), and the autocephalous Orthodox Church in America (OCA) — a cluster of national jurisdictions completes the picture. The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America, founded in 2010, catalogues them by mother Church (Assembly of Bishops, “Jurisdictions,” assemblyofbishops.org):

Serbian (three dioceses)

The Serbian Orthodox Church maintains three dioceses in the United States under the Patriarchate of Belgrade: the Diocese of Eastern America, the Diocese of Western America, and the Diocese of New Gračanica–Midwestern America. The threefold structure itself reflects an earlier intra-Serbian division (a mid-twentieth-century split between a Belgrade-loyal body and the “Free Serbian” New Gračanica Metropolitanate) that was reconciled in the 1990s–2000s, the dioceses then being retained as administrative units (Assembly of Bishops, “Jurisdictions,” assemblyofbishops.org).

Romanian (two jurisdictions)

The Romanian case is the clearest instance of two parallel jurisdictions for one ethnic community. The Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America is a self-governing ethnic diocese within the OCA; the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in the Americas (now the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas) is directly under the Patriarchate of Romania (Assembly of Bishops, “Jurisdictions,” assemblyofbishops.org; OCA, “Orthodoxy in America, Part Two”).

The split dates to 1950–1951. When the Patriarchate of Romania fell under Communist control, a body of parishes reorganized as the autonomous Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America (associated with Bishop Valerian and eventually the Metropolia/OCA), distrusting a Patriarchate seen as compromised by the state; meanwhile the Patriarchate in 1950 established its own Romanian Orthodox Missionary Episcopate (under Bishop Andrei Moldovan), elevated to an Archdiocese in 1974 (OCA, “Orthodoxy in America, Part Two”). After the fall of Communism the rationale for the division dissolved, and from 2008 onward the OCA’s Episcopate, the Patriarchate’s Archdiocese, and Bucharest entered formal dialogue toward reconciling the two Romanian bodies — a dialogue that has eased relations without merging the structures (OCA, “Discussions held at Romanian Episcopate Headquarters” and “OCA Chancery responds,” oca.org). (As of 2026: the two Romanian jurisdictions remain administratively distinct.)

Bulgarian (two)

The Bulgarian community is likewise split: a Bulgarian Diocese within the OCA and the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada, and Australia under the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, the division again rooted in Cold War-era distrust of a Communist-controlled mother Church (Assembly of Bishops, “Jurisdictions,” assemblyofbishops.org).

Ukrainian (Constantinople, since 1995)

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA (UOC-USA) was received into the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on March 12, 1995, when the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate accepted the appeal of Metropolitan Constantine (Buggan) and his fellow bishops; the older Constantinople-affiliated Ukrainian parishes were united into it (Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, history; “Constantine (Buggan),” OrthodoxWiki, used to locate the 1995 date).

Carpatho-Russian (ACROD, Constantinople, 1938)

The American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese (ACROD) was formed in 1938, when a body of Ruthenian Greek-Catholic (“Uniate”) parishes — protesting the Latinization of their tradition and the celibacy mandate of the 1929 papal decree Cum data fuerit — returned to Orthodoxy under Fr. (later Bishop) Orestes Chornock, received by Patriarch Benjamin I of Constantinople, who consecrated Chornock bishop in 1938. ACROD is centered in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where its Christ the Savior Seminary is located (American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, “History,” acrod.org).

Albanian (OCA archdiocese + a Constantinople diocese)

The Albanian community, too, is doubled. The Albanian Orthodox Archdiocese in America is a constituent ethnic body of the OCA, descended from the work of Fan (Theofan) Noli; a separate Albanian Orthodox Diocese of America under Constantinople was organized around 1949–1950 under Bishop Mark (Lipa) by Albanian-Americans seeking a canonical bishop apart from the Communist-controlled Church of Albania (Albanian Orthodox Archdiocese, OCA; “Albanian Orthodox Diocese of America,” OrthodoxWiki and CNEWA, used to locate the Constantinople affiliation).

Georgian parishes and Moscow’s Patriarchal Parishes

The Georgian Apostolic Orthodox Church maintains parishes in North America under the Patriarchate of Georgia, and the Patriarchate of Moscow maintains its own Moscow Patriarchal Parishes in the USA — a small network of parishes directly under Moscow, distinct from both ROCOR and the OCA, and a further layer of Russian-heritage overlap (Assembly of Bishops, “Jurisdictions,” assemblyofbishops.org).

How the Assembly of Bishops Catalogues These

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America (2010–) is itself a product of the Chambésy process described below. It gathers all the active canonical Orthodox bishops in the country, regardless of mother Church, into a single deliberative body, and its jurisdiction directory is the standard public catalogue of who is in communion and under whom (Assembly of Bishops, assemblyofbishops.org). The Assembly does not dissolve the overlapping structures; it coordinates them — committees on liturgy, military chaplaincy, monasticism, and the like — while leaving the jurisdictions intact under their respective patriarchates. It thus institutionalizes the anomaly even as it works to mitigate it.

Why the Anomaly Persists

The overlap is not an accident but the residue of distinct immigrant histories and Cold War politics. Each wave of Orthodox immigrants — Greek, Russian, Arab, Serbian, Romanian, Carpatho-Russian, Ukrainian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Georgian — arrived with its own clergy, language, and loyalty to a home Church, and during the twentieth century the captivity of several mother Churches under Communist regimes made some communities unwilling to remain under hierarchies they regarded as state-controlled (Erickson, Orthodox Christians in America; FitzGerald, The Orthodox Church; see Twentieth-Century Fragmentation). The result was a permanent multiplication of bishops. Resolving it would require the mother Churches to cede their American flocks to a single unified American Church — a step the Patriarchates have so far declined to take.

The “Diaspora” Framing Dispute

At the heart of the impasse is a contested word: diaspora. The argument is both theological and jurisdictional.

The “we are not a diaspora” position (Ligonier 1994). At the SCOBA bishops’ meeting at the Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Pennsylvania (November 30–December 2, 1994), the assembled hierarchs issued a statement declaring, “We are not a diaspora… We have become an indigenous Church” — asserting that American Orthodox are a native, settled Church entitled to organize toward administrative unity, not a scattered remnant of overseas Churches (Ligonier statement, 1994; Orthodox Christian Laity, “Documents from and about Ligonier 1994,” ocl.org). Metropolitan Philip (Saliba) of the Antiochian Archdiocese was among its leading champions and continued for years to insist “there is no diaspora” (Antiochian Orthodox Institute, aoiusa.org).
The Constantinopolitan / diaspora position. The Ecumenical Patriarchate immediately rejected the Ligonier statements, viewing the meeting as a step toward American autonomy that would abandon Constantinople’s claimed prerogative over the Orthodox “diaspora” (rooted in its reading of Canon 28 of Chalcedon), and required its bishops to repudiate the meeting (Ligonier Meeting, OrthodoxWiki and Wikipedia, used to locate Constantinople’s reaction; Public Orthodoxy, “The Golden Age of Ligonier and Other Myths”).
The Chambésy compromise (2009). In June 2009, representatives of the fourteen autocephalous Churches met at the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s center in Chambésy, Switzerland, and agreed to establish regional episcopal assemblies across twelve “diaspora” regions — including North America — as a transitional measure toward eventual canonical normalization. Chambésy retained the diaspora framing and patriarchal authority while creating the coordinating assemblies; the American Assembly of Bishops (2010) is its fruit (Chambésy Pre-Conciliar decisions, 2009; Assembly of Bishops, assemblyofbishops.org).

The dispute therefore remains live. One side holds that American Orthodoxy is an indigenous Church that ought already to be unified; the other holds that it is a diaspora under the mother Churches’ (and especially Constantinople’s) supervision, to be normalized only by conciliar process. The overlapping jurisdictions are the visible, unresolved precipitate of that disagreement. (As of 2026: the assemblies coordinate but have not unified the jurisdictions, and the diaspora question is unsettled.)

References

Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America. “Jurisdictions.” assemblyofbishops.org.
First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 325), Canon 8. In The Rudder (Pedalion), trans. D. Cummings. Chicago: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957.
Erickson, John H. Orthodox Christians in America: A Short History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
FitzGerald, Thomas E. The Orthodox Church. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998.
Stokoe, Mark, and Leonid Kishkovsky. Orthodox Christians in North America, 1794–1994. Orthodox Christian Publications Center, 1995.
Orthodox Church in America. “Orthodoxy in America, Part Two: Other Orthodox Jurisdictions,” The Orthodox Faith, Vol. III; “Discussions held at Romanian Episcopate Headquarters”; “OCA Chancery responds to questions regarding recent developments in the ROEA.” oca.org.
American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of North America. “Diocesan Mission and History.” acrod.org.
Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA. History (reception by Constantinople, 1995).
“Ligonier Meeting” and 1994 statements. Orthodox Christian Laity, “Documents from and about Ligonier 1994,” ocl.org; Public Orthodoxy, “The Golden Age of Ligonier and Other Myths of Orthodox Unity,” 2017.
Holy and Sacred Synod of the Orthodox Churches, Fourth Pre-Conciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference, Chambésy, Switzerland, June 2009 (decision on the Orthodox diaspora and episcopal assemblies).