The Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate (AWRV) is the Western ritevicariate of parishes, a monastery, and missions "that worship according to traditional Western Christian liturgical forms" within the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.[4] These parishes roughly number to around 10,000 communicants in about 40 parishes and missions, with the Right Reverend John Abdalah, Bishop of Worcester and New England, serving as the Vicar Bishop with full oversight of the vicariate.
The vicariate began when three schismatic Society of St. Basil parishes, under Bishop Alexander Tyler Turner, were canonically received into the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch by Metropolitan Anthony Bashir in 1961, after an eight-year probation period.[5]
Before the Vicariate
The first major approach was made in the late nineteenth century by a Roman Catholic priest, Julian Joseph Overbeck, who revised the Roman rite to conform to Orthodox standards, a fairly simple operation at that time. His proposal was accepted by the Russian Orthodox Holy Synod and he was encouraged and supported by interested missionary-minded Russians, but by the time of his death in the first decade of Twentieth Century, his movement had not succeeded and his converts were absorbed into Byzantine communities.[6]
At the turn of the century, the only Orthodox bishop in North America, the later Russian Patriarch Tikhon (Belavin) was approached by a group of Episcopalians, who asked to be allowed to continue the use of the American Book of Common Prayer rather than the Byzantine Rite. Bishop Tikhon petitioned the Holy Synod of Moscow and a commission of theologians was directed to provide a detailed examination and revision of the Prayer Book to be approved for the converts (the report was printed in the Journal of the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg, a summary in English was printed in The Russian American Messenger, a critical review by two Anglican scholars appeared as Tract XII of the Alcuin Club and a fuller version with notes appeared in The Orthodox Catholic Review, a publication of the Antiochian Archdiocese).
Metropolitan Gerassimos (Messerah) of Beirut received a Western Rite movement in England before World War I, and Metropolitan Germanos (Shehadi), while resident in the United States, engaged in negotiations to receive a Roman Catholic movement in Mexico in the 1920s. Neither of these projects resulted in a continuing community.[7][8]
Creation of the Vicariate
On May 31, 1958, Patriarch Alexander III (Tahan) of Antioch, in consultation with the heads of the other autocephalous Orthodox churches, authorized His Eminence Metropolitan Antony Bashir of New York to establish Western Orthodoxy in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. In August of that year, Metropolitan Antony issued his edict establishing the Western Rite Vicariate in the archdiocese.
The late Metropolitan Antony (Bashir) of the Syrian Antiochian Archdiocese, was approached by leaders and individuals of various bodies. He always made it his policy to thoroughly investigate such seekers of unity with the Church, and has had occasion to refuse several. At the same time, however, in desiring to extend and implement Orthodoxy’s mission in America, Metropolitan Antony realized that there were also those outside of communion with the Church who were sincerely seeking the truth, who were desirous of becoming engrafted to the vine of Christ. After considerable meditation of the problem and taking into consideration the action of the Church elsewhere in the world, namely France, he came to the conclusion that the use of a Western rite in America could be of importance in facilitating the return to the Church of separated Western Christians in America. He turned for guidance to the late Patriarch Alexander III of Antioch who, in May, 1958, after consultation with the other Autocephalous Churches, gave an affirmative reply. Forwarding to the Metropolitan an Arabic translation of the famous 1936 Ukase of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Patriarch of Antioch authorized Metropolitan Antony to "take the same action, leaving to your Orthodox zeal and good judgment the right to work out the details in the local situations."[9]
The first Vicar General of the Western Rite Vicariate was Fr. Alexander Turner, who had served as bishop to those parishes before reception into the Antiochian Archdiocese.
In 1967, Bishop Maurice Francis Parkin of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church and St. Luke's Priory, along with three of his clergy and the parish of St Anne in Mount Holly, New Jersey were received by chrismation into the Western Rite Vicariate.[10] The monks of St. Luke's Priory ran St. Luke's Priory Press, and after St Luke’s reception into the AWRV, the monks would provide all of the publications for the AWRV.
Current status
The vicariate consists of roughly forty parishes and missions in all of the dioceses throughout the United States. Bishop John (Abdalah) of Worcester and New England serves as Vicar General and oversees the vicariate. He is assisted by Archpriest John Fenton. Western Rite parishes are encouraged and expected to be active in the local diocese in which they are located, and episcopal functions are usually performed by the local diocesan bishop.[11]
Ladyminster Monastery Interior
Dom. Theodore and Mother Olga (now reposed)
Benedictine monasticism is mainted by the Viciariate through its monastery of Ladyminster in Colorado.[12] Dom. Theodore is the Abbot and the only Antiochian Orthodox Abbot in North America.
In 2025, Heiromonk James Cavendish and Heiromonk Augustine Parker, along with the Monastic Brotherhood of Butte Abbey and the parish of Our Lady & St. Ninian were received into Antiochian Archdiocese of the British Isles & Ireland. The monastery and parish were Western Rite and have requested permission to continue serving the Western Rite.[13]
Liturgical Worship
North American western-rite parishes in the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate generally follow one of two types of traditional Western liturgical traditions (and sometimes both). Around half of the Vicariate parishes and missions celebrate the Roman Rite, utilizing the Mass of St. Gregory the Great and Benedictine Offices of Lauds and Vespers. The other half of Viciarate parishes and missions celebrate the Anglican Usage of "the Liturgy of St. Tikhon," which is commonly accepted to be an adaptation of the Communion service from the 1928 Anglican Book of Common Prayer and The Anglican Missal in the American Edition. Until 1977, all western-rite Vicariate parishes celebrated only the Liturgy of St. Gregory the Great, which is a modified form of the Tridentine Mass (that is, the Mass as revised and authorized by the Roman Catholic Council of Trent).
Our Lady & St. Ninian Antiochian Church (Dumfries UK)
The development of the current use within the Western Rite Vicariate is of particular note:
Metropolitan Antony was well aware that the Western Rite was "a work for specialists." The new Western Rite usage of the Archdiocese was to be guided by "a Commission of Orthodox Theologians," an advisory committee of qualified clerics or laymen to advise the Metropolitan and determine "the mode of reception of groups desiring to employ the Western Rite, and the character of the rites to be used, as well as the authorization of official liturgical texts." The first WRV Commission, convened by Metropolitan Antony in 1958, was composed of Fathers Paul Schneirla, Stephen Upson, Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff. Schneirla, Schmemann, and Meyendorff in particular had seen the Western Rite up close in France, as it had been approved in the Russian Ukase of 1936. Schneirla recalls Schmemann's work in particular as being key, as he was familiar with the Liturgical Movement within the Roman Catholic and Anglican communions. Schmemann was particularly instrumental in joining together the separate Rites of Initiation of the Rituale Romanum – Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion – into one unified rite, according to the Orthodox understanding. In January of 1962, the official Western Rite Directory was issued, "establishing liturgical usages and customs and discipline," drawing on principles gleaned from the 1904 Moscow Synodal response to Saint Tikhon, the authorization of Western Rite offices by Metropolitan Gerassimos (Messarah) of Beirut, and the 1932 [sic] Russian Ukase of Metropolitan Sergius.[14]
↑Turner, J. (2010). Cum Illi Graeci Sint, Nos Latini: Western Rite Orthodoxy and the Eastern Orthodox Church [Doctoral dissertation, University of Wales]. Lampeter.
↑Andersen, Benjamin Joseph, B.Phil, M.Div.. A Short History of the Western Rite VicariateThe Orthodox West.The Orthodox West.(2003).Accessed July 30, 2025.
Overbeck, Julian Joseph (1871). Liturgia Missæ Orthodoxo-Catholicæ Occidentalis[The Liturgy of the Western Orthodox-Catholic Mass] (in Latin and English). London: Taylor & Co.
Thomann, Günther (1995). The Western Rite in Orthodoxy: Union and Reunion Schemes of Western and Eastern Churches with Eastern Orthodoxy: a Brief Historical Outline (3rded.). Claremont, California: Anglican Theological Seminary in California. OCLC499959152.
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