3 comments so far
The “certain Father Nestor” was none other than the later Bishop Nestor of the Aleutians and Alaska. As the London Journal reported:
“The Holy Synod of the Russian Church has appointed to the Episcopal See of the Aleutian Islands the Archimandrite Nestor. Father Nestor was in early life known as Baron Zass; he was an officer in the navy, and besides his theological attainments he is well versed in secular learning, and understands fully the English language, in which he expresses himself fluently. He is distinguished for his lofty character, his Christian convictions, and his thorough devotion to duty. Father Nestor will be quite in his proper place in America, for at the time of Admiral Lesoffsky’s visit to New York, in 1863, he made himself highly esteemed by the Americans. It is to be hoped that the Episcopate of Father Nestor may be a source of close and intimate relations between the Orthodox Russian Church and the Church of North America. A letter which came to the Holy Synod, not long since, from the American bishops gives reason to hope thus. God grant that through the cooperation of the future Bishop of the Aleutian Islands brotherly relations may be established [between] these two great Churches”
http://www.holy-trinity.org/history/1898/04.01-27_RAPV-SF-History.htm
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Nestor_%28Zakkis%29_of_the_Aleutians
“on the right side of which sat the Rt. Reverend Bishop Southgate, in the ceremonial Chair of the Episcopate”
I’m assuming that this was the Rt. Rev. Horatio Southgate, who PECUSA had ordained missionary bishop “on the right side of which sat the Rt. Reverend Bishop Southgate, in the ceremonial Chair of the Episcopate.” The Episcopalians in SF, after organizing “the Church in California” with “no reference to the Church at the East (i.e. PECUSA)” and toying with the idea of receiving orders from St. Innocent in Sitka, instead approached Bp. Southgate, freshly consecrated and arrived from Constantinople, who declined. Bp. Southgate served at Zion Church in NYC 1858–1872, and died in Astoira, NYC in 1894. So he lived to see the arrival of Honcharenko, the return of Bp. Nestor, the founding of Bjerring’s Chapel and then the permanent setttling of the Orthodox in NYC.
Is there an edit button?
I meant to mention, Bp. Southgate had been ordained by PECUSA as missionary bishop of Constantinople ” “for the dominions and dependencies of the Sultan” i.e. what is now the jurisdiction of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, part of Greece, and Albania, areas which he traveled and wrote of extensively.
http://books.google.com/books?id=0EMbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA103&dq=Horatio+Southgate&hl=en&ei=F4VcTb-UKsnpgAea6P3kDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CE0Q6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=Horatio%20Southgate&f=false
[...] Agapius Honcharenko served the first Orthodox liturgy in New York. In 1863, two Russian priests visited the city when their naval vessels docked in New York’s harbor. Until recently, I thought that this was [...]