American Orthodox Catholic Church

The American Orthodox Catholic Church (AOCC, The Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church in North America) is an Orthodox Church that operates in the United States of America.

Aftimios Ofiesh officially founded the Church in 1927. The Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church (ROGCC) originally supported the founding of the North American Church. The purpose of the Church was to establish a new tradition in America that was separate from any other particular ethnic or cultural traditions. The movement to establish a new American tradition gained popularity. Within four years, the Church had consecrated four bishops with a charter granted from the ROGCC. After the consecration of the four bishops, the formal members developed a constitution for the Church.

Aftimios Ofiesh lived in relative obscurity with his wife Mariam Namey Ofiesh. Their son, Paul, eventually became a Presbyterian elder in Mountaintop, Pennsylvania. After living in Wilkes-Barre, and New Castle, Pennsylvania, the Ofiesh family finally settled in Kingston, Pennsylvania. In 1937, the parishioners asked Aftimios to return to active leadership in the Orthodox Church. Upon their request, Aftimios made an unsuccessful effort. Members of his wife's family in Wilkes-Barre record that he continued to dress as a bishop and that the other bishops called him "Uncle Sayedna." He died in Kingston on July 24, 1966, and left instructions that he should be buried quietly without any clergy.

The establishment of the church inspired a reactionary movement against it, especially from the Karlovsty Synod. Although the Metropolia severed ties with ROCOR in 1926, the ROCOR still viewed itself as the Metropolia's rightful canonical authority. Aftimios replied forcefully, denouncing the Karlovsty Synod for their actions and forbade his clergy and faithful from having anything to do with them.

Like his estranged former associates in ROCOR, Metr. Platon almost turned his back on his ecclesiastical daughter due to her lack of loyalty. However, people began to doubt Platon's support of the new Church mainly because of publications in the Orthodox Catholic Review (edited by Hieromonk Boris and Priest Michael) that were aimed at the Episcopal Church. In a letter to Aftimios, Platon wrote:

"'I must attest before Your Eminence that without their (American Episcopalian) entirely disinterested and truly brotherly assistance our Church in America could not exist' and concluded his letter by asking Abp Aftimios to order Father Boris to cease his 'steppings out' against the Protestant Episcopalians."

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