The Challenges of the 1960s

This chapter examines Archbishop Iakovos's call for the Greek Orthodox to consider their church to be no longer an immigrant church but an American church. It talks about how Archbishop Iakovo tried to steer the transition of immigrant to an ethnic church and Americanize Greek Orthodoxy in the church's own terms. The chapter discusses how the Greek Orthodoxy was involved in confronting the challenges presented by the cultural upheavals of the 1960s. It recounts the participation of the Greek Orthodox Church on marching next to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma, Alabama, in 1965. It also describes Archbishop Iakovos's vision that entailed an ambitious agenda, such as the outreach directed toward the other Eastern Orthodox Churches that was initiated through the establishment of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the Americas (SCOBA) in 1960.

Americanization and the Immigrant Church in the 1920s

This chapter recounts the ways the archdiocese tried to overcome the political divide that affected Greek Orthodox life. It highlights how the archdiocese attempted to devise a strategy that would confront the pressures in order to assimilate and “Americanize” what the Greek immigrants faced in the 1920s. It also explores the prospect of a long-term presence in the United States that became a reality. This chapter addresses the question on how best to become part of American society and maintain ties with the homeland in order to preserve Greek ethnic and religious identity. It looks into several strategies that evolved within the Greek community, which ranges from the advocacy of so-called 100 percent Americanism to a more cautious stance that acknowledged the need for the Greeks to demonstrate loyalty and acquire US citizenship.

Struggles of Korean Second-Generation Leaders: Leaving the Immigrant Church

The Korean immigrant church has served as not only a religious institution but also a cultural base for the first generation of immigrants, who have a common interest in keeping their traditional values. Such an emphasis, however, has resulted in conflicts between the first and second generations. The purpose of this study is to explain the struggles of second-generation Korean American leaders that led them away from the first-generation immigrant church. Two main elements of the Asian culture emerged as the source of the intercultural identity struggle: (1) striving to maintain the honor balance and (2) struggling with due order.

Challenges of Korean Immigrant Leadership in the Church

The article suggests that the practices of leadership within Korean communal transformational leadership in Korean resistance movements provide a resource for women in the Korean immigrant church. The article addresses the challenges of Korean leadership in immigrant contexts, how immigrant leadership is performed and transformed, and how immigrants have developed and adapted their leadership from a Korean to US context during the immigrant identity transformation process.