Who are the Orthodox?
The Orthodox Church is the Church which existed continuously in the Middle East and Greece from the time of the Apostles, and is the Faith of the majority of the Christians in Greece, Russian, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia. With the exception of Rome, the local churches mentioned in the New Testament, which existed continuously until today (i.e. Corinth, Thessaloniki, Antioch, etc.), are Orthodox churches. The Orthodox Church in America, or OCA, is the successor of the first mission to North America begun by St. Herman and other Russian monks in Alaska in 1794. The Church has been in America since that time and was granted autocephalous (self-governing) status by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1970. At the time we took the name Orthodox Church in America, because our mission is to be a Church for all peoples in America, and not to any particular ethnic group. We are in full communion with the Greek Orthodox Church and the other Orthodox Churches throughout the whole world. St. Symeon Or
