Comments on: Agapius Honcharenko in defense of himself

By: OrthodoxHistory.org » Blog Archive » Agapius Honcharenko: answers to some questions

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 20:47:20 +0000

[...] not at all certain that he was ordained by a bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In his 1865 letter defending himself, Honcharenko does claim to have received ordination and an antimens from the “Great [...]

By: Matthew Namee

Matthew Namee — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:33:51 +0000

I’ll try to get something together as soon as I have an opportunity. Thanks.

By: Reg

Reg — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:32:27 +0000

This is getting confusing. Matthew since you wrote the original story on Honcharenko, could I ask you to post a timeline on Honcharenko:
Date & place of birth
Education
Date & place of tonsure as a monk
Date & place of ordination as deacon
Date of assignment to Russian Embassy Church in Greece
Date of change of name
Date of ordination as a priest by EP
Date of arrival in America
Date of ministry in NY
Date of connection with New Orleans Church
Date of marriage & I assume leaving the EP jurisdiction
Date of arrival in CA
Date of death.
This would be a great help to all of us.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:45:57 +0000

Since there are a number of other documents in Folder 11 of the Wasyl Halich Papers, I think it is safe to conclude that the Memoirs of Agapius Honcharenko are not very long.
Matthew, have you consulted the Memoirs? Would you be able to post the parts dealing with Honcharenko’s time with the parish in New Orleans and in New York on the web?

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 03:07:30 +0000

Isa, you mention “the mission in America and St. Innocent’s running of it … were well known in Russia when Honcharenko was a child in Kiev, one of the Church’s main centers.”
Honcharenko whose real name was Andrii Humnytsky was born August 31, 1832, in Kryvyn, Skvyra county, Kyiv gubernia. It is highly unlikely that as a village child, he heard about missions in Alaska. It is unlikely that most people in Ukraine knew about St. Innocent, when Honcharenko was a child.

A anyone checked the “Memoirs” of Honcarenko in File 11 of the Wasyl Halich Papers at the University of Minisota?
http://special.lib.umn.edu/findaid/html/IHRC/ihrc16.htm

Wasyl Halich Papers, ca. 1921-1971
Immigration History Research Center
University of Minnesota

Honcharenko, Reverend Agapius
Folders 2, 11, 13, 23

Folder 11: “Spomynky Agapia Honcharenka”
Folder 13: Picture of Reverend Agapius Honcharenko.

By: Matthew Namee

Matthew Namee — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 01:11:56 +0000

Isa, keep in mind that Honcharenko is quite possibly the least reliable figure in the history of American Orthodoxy. I don’t doubt that there are some accurate statements in his letter, but I’m even more certain that there must be numerous errors and false statements as well. His letter is an important historical document, but we have to keep in mind who authored it.

By: Isa Almisry

Isa Almisry — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:00:38 +0000

Some things are not adding up.

‘having received the ordination to the priesthood, the holy antimens and the holy myrrh with a letter from the Great Church,” he nonetheless “As… a citizen of Greece, during [his] services [he] commemorate[d] the Greek King and Synod,” something that contradicted the Tomos of Autocephaly Constantinople granted Athens, and a heated bone of contention between the two at the time, which had just flared up over the Ionian Islands a few months before Honcharenko left Ottoman Smyrna.

It seems rather odd that he didn’t know that the very ship that informed Athens about the Orthodox in America had a priest on board who celebrated Divine Liturgy in NYC and was remembered by New Yorkers even a decade later when he returned as Bishop Nestor of Alaska and the Aleutians. It is also odd the Constantinople would not have known about the Russian Diocese, when they and Athens were in direct correspondance with PECUSA, whose CA diocese in 1851 conisdered getting orders from the Russian Bishop of Sitka, St. Innocent, who had been in CA, and who was already well known in Russia and outside of it. PECUSA had, in fact, formed its standing epsicopal committee to correspond with Constantinople and St. Petersburg because of the presence of the Russian Church in CA and the impeding setting up of a diocese there.

“I have always regretted and wondered why in the new world there is no Catholic Orthodox faith .” If Honcharenko knew anything about the goings on in the Russian Church that he professes loyalty to, the mission in America and St. Innocent’s running of it, including his care for Fort Ross, CA, were well known in Russia when Honcharenko was a child in Kiev, one of the Church’s main centers.

It is also odd that if he had an antimens from Constantinople, when he would be in SF demanding one from the Russian Orthodox Authorities there a few years later.

By: orrologion

orrologion — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:24:57 +0000

I think it is interesting that he – and presumably those of the Great Church who ordained and sent him – believed that no other Orthodox Church had been active in the New World “since Columbus”.

Of course, evangelism isn’t a game of continent-wide ‘plant the flag’, i.e., serving a Liturgy in either Alaska or New York doesn’t grant that church jurisdiction over all North America or the Americas.