April 6, 2012
Buffalo, NY: "The best way to foster growth is to be faithful to our Church Tradition" – An Interview with Priest Peter Jackson

In the below interview, Priest Peter Jackson (rector of Sts. Theodore Church in Buffalo, NY), talks about how his parish family came to be, why the number of parishioners isn’t a parish’s most important characteristic, and many other interesting things.

As we approach the fifth anniversary of the Reconciliation, His Holiness, Patriarch Kyrill, has asked us to analyze the last five years as one unified Church. In your opinion, what are some of the positives and negatives, and how has this impacted you at the local level?

The net impact has been very positive. Sadly, we did have one family leave over the reconciliation. But I think we have had a lot more families come here in the last five years than would have before, because many folks coming from Russia and other countries now see us as legitimate. We have welcomed new families from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Romania, as well as more Americans. Our parish was founded in 1964 to be an English-language parish. However, our mission has had to adapt; I am using a bit more Slavonic in services, and sometimes even Romanian. It is wonderful to have such a mix of people.

Before the Reconciliation, there was a lot of talk among ROCOR converts of concerns that unity with the Church in Russia would result in "russifying" convert parishes, but in our parish the result has been to open up our parish to being truly trans-ethnic! We are not an American parish or a Russian parish, but a trans-national Orthodox parish. Reconciliation has been good for us converts, because it gives a stronger sense of oneness with our brethren back in Russia and other lands. It has been good for the new immigrants, because they feel they are able to become part of our parish family, whereas five years ago they might have gone elsewhere or even nowhere. Some new parishioners have told me that their spiritual father back home expressly told them to come to our parish. Now by coming here they can see that the Church is about more than ethnicity.

As the secretary of the Council of Orthodox Churches on the Niagara Frontier (COCNF), could you explain what it is and the state of pan-Orthodox affairs in the region?

The Buffalo area has had a strong pan-Orthodox association for many years, I believe since the 1950s or 1960s. Even before the Reconciliation, then-Archbishop Laurus of blessed memory blessed me to participate, though not to serve. I would sing in the pan-Orthodox choir but have been co-serving since the Reconciliation, and have gradually gotten more of our parishioners to attend our inter-Orthodox services and events.

It is important for our people to understand that, despite our differences, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. I remember one lady at our parish balking at the idea of going to a pan-Orthodox service, saying that she did not believe in attending ecumenical services! I had to explain that it is not ecumenical if everyone is Orthodox! This is how extreme some people’s mentality had gotten after so many years of self-imposed isolation. Now our parish often has more representation at pan-Orthodox events than other parishes, even though we are smaller.

Every year, the Council organizes a Lenten Vespers and lecture on the Sundays of Great Lent. Last year was the first year our parish hosted one of these evenings, and it was a great success. Many of our brothers and sisters from other jurisdictions that we had known for years had never visited our parish before and were delighted (and we got to see how our sisters from other parishes looked in head coverings!).

Our Council also organizes an annual Walk for Missions, and most years the proceeds have gone toward supporting short-term missionaries from our area. We are now talking seriously about starting up an Orthodox parochial school. These are the kinds of activities that we have to do in cooperation with all jurisdictions.

As ROCOR is considered one of the more conservative Orthodox jurisdictions in America, do you feel that although you are the only ROCOR parish represented at COCNF, your involvement has had a lasting impact?

 When I joined COCNF, our Pan-Orthodox Choir was full of Episcopalians for some reason, and their ranks were growing. Along with a priest of another jurisdiction we were able to get the Council to agree to limit the choir to Orthodox believers.

We also got them to stop seating non-Orthodox clergy at the head table with the Orthodox clergy at pan-Orthodox events. This had been causing such confusion among the faithful, that some were going up taking blessings from heterodox clergy! There are still some parishes that serve non-lenten food at Lenten events, but now at least they are doing a better job of labelling which dishes are which.

There have also been times when people have wanted to include non-Chalcedonians in events as if they were Orthodox, and I have found myself in the position of having to educate them about the Fourth Ecumenical Council. One priest reproached me for making myself the arbiter of who is Orthodox; I told him he would have to take that up with the Fathers of the Fourth Council!

One pan-Orthodox organization in Buffalo is the local chapter of the Orthodox Christian Fellowship. What is the OCF, what role do you play in it, and why is it important?

Our local Orthodox university group is small but active, and actually larger than it has been in years. I was the main Orthodox chaplain at the University at Buffalo for some years, but this year I passed the baton to another local priest, though I am still involved. College ministry is vitally important because statistics tell us that most Orthodox who fall away from the Faith do so when they go off to college. Also, a lot of people who come to Orthodoxy discover it while in college. This is the age when people usually begin to question the faith they were raised in and either lose it or change it or reaffirm it. So we have to help our youth make the True Faith "their own," and attract other students to it. Our parish has had a steady stream of converts from college students in recent years. We usually baptize one or two a year!

What are some initiatives you have undertaken that you found to be successful to foster parish growth?

I used to obsess about numbers. Then a wise man told me to be more concerned with quality than quantity. When people come to our parish, they know what they are getting: they know that we expect them to live a full liturgical life, to fast, and to make regular confession. If people do not want this, they are free to go elsewhere; but when people stay, it is because they want what we have to offer. So in my experience, the best way to foster growth is to just be faithful to our Church Tradition, not cut corners, and to hold ourselves to a high standard.

Our parish is open and welcoming. We have a coffee hour every Sunday after Divine Liturgy, which is really a potluck in the true sense. We always encourage visitors to stay for the meal and ask them to go through the line first. They can see that we care about them and that we are a parish family that pulls together and knows the importance of sharing mealtimes. We never charge for these meals, and our parish also has the tradition of not passing a collection plate around during services. I think visitors appreciate this.

Sts. Theodore also has a lot of activities. It seems like there is always something going on. Sometimes we will have a pizza and movie night, or a family will host a moleben and meal for their family "Slava". Our sisterhood holds a Russian Bazaar twice a year as a fundraiser, but aside from the financial benefit, it is an important social activity in the parish. Some folks who come to our bazaars often comment on the affection they see among our parishioners. These events are all at parishioners’ initiative.

We also have Sunday school, a Sunday Bible Study, and a Wednesday night akathist. All of these activities promote a strong sense of community in our parish family, and Lord willing, contribute to their spiritual growth. It is still a mystery to me how to get people to come in the door: advertising in local papers does nothing, though having a website has borne some fruit. But far and away, most of our growth has come from people just showing up out of the blue, whether they are already Orthodox or just seekers.

Interview conducted by Diocesan Media Office correspondent Michael Kazmierczak

Media Office of the Eastern American Diocese