Chapter 2
by John Gavin Nolan
Father Calavassy visited Graymoor three times, and each meeting with Father Paul was a happy encounter of East and West. “I have been sent by the Holy Father,” Father Calavassy told Father Paul, “as a missionary of Reunion,” and soon thereafter the convert from Anglicanism would be telling his readers, “Father Calavassy’s appeal to The Lamp to espouse this cause with special zeal, because of our devotion to Church Unity and Missions, imposes upon us the force of a sacred obligation.”29
Although Father Calavassy returned to Constantinople two years later, he maintained correspondence with Father Paul. What each could do to help the other was very plain indeed. For Father Calavassy, The Lamp was a source of support for his work in Constantinople, including his reunion efforts with the Orthodox. For Father Paul, Father Calavassy’s influence with Bishop Papadopoulos, especially after the latter became the assessor of the Oriental Congregation, could help the fledgling Society of the Atonement and its many praiseworthy works. On 17 June 1918, for example, Father Calavassy assured Father Paul that it would not be difficult to obtain the pope’s blessing for the U.N.B.L.
When Father Calavassy succeeded Isaiah Papadopoulos as exarch in Constantinople (15 July 1920), Father Paul expressed in The Lamp hope that the new bishop would “not forget the Greek-Oriental Branch of the U.N.B.L., nor its official organ — The Lamp — now that he has been elevated to the Episcopate.”30 The words had a special meaning: Father Paul’s fundraising was in jeopardy.
At their meeting in Washington the previous September, the bishops had established, with Archbishop Henry Moeller of Cincinnati as its chairman, the American Board of Catholic Missions (A.B.C.M.), so that “at every level, national, diocesan, and parochial, all our American missionary aid activity ... be coordinated and unified ... directed and controlled ... by the American Hierarchy.”31 Up to that time, religious communities like the Society for the Atonement had had almost total liberty in appealing for funds. Now, however, Father Paul’s position was threatened. If the A.B.C.M. regulated all mission-aid appeals, Father Paul’s efforts could conceivably be smothered.
Even worse, The Lamp itself would be hindered if the bishops adopted two of the recommendations in the report their “Special Advisory Committee” had submitted. These read as follows: