The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas
Archive for July, 2011
Atlas Excerpt #3: The First Two Convert Priests
9 months ago
Recently, Holy Cross Orthodox Press published the Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches, edited by Alexei D. Krindatch. I contributed several pieces to the Atlas, including the article “Ten Interesting Facts About the History of Orthodox Christianity in the USA.” With Alexei’s permission, we’ll publish excerpts from that article over the next couple of months. To purchase your own copy of the Atlas(for $19.95), click here.
3. The first two American Orthodox convert priests went to Orthodox countries, were ordained very quickly, and ultimately left the Church.
James Chrystal and Nicholas Bjerring were exact contemporaries, both born in 1831. Chrystal lived in the New York area, and died in Jersey City. Bjerring was an immigrant from Denmark, but in 1870 he established the first Orthodox chapel in New York, and he lived there the rest of his life.
Both men became Orthodox for ideological reasons. Chrystal was an Episcopalian intellectual obsessed with the history of baptism, and he concluded that Orthodoxy alone had preserved the correct method of baptism. Bjerring was a Roman Catholic intellectual who was scandalized by Rome’s recent declaration of papal infallibility. He, too, came to believe that only the Orthodox Church had preserved the truth.
Both men came to Orthodoxy without having actually attended an Orthodox church, and both traveled to Orthodox countries to seek ordination. Chrystal went to Greece and impressed church leaders with his vast theological knowledge. Bjerring went to Russia and impressed church leaders with his zeal. Both were immediately received into the Church, quickly ordained priests, and sent back to America — specifically, to New York City.
Chrystal was the first to leave. As soon as he returned to America, he repudiated the Orthodoxy, declaring that he could not accept the veneration of icons. He started his own sect, and spent the rest of his life railing against “creature worship.” Bjerring lasted a good bit longer. He was priest of the New York chapel for 13 years, but he didn’t have sufficient training for the priesthood and made errors that any seminary student learns to avoid. Even worse, he didn’t speak Russian or Greek (the primary languages of his small congregation), and he reportedly spoke English with a thick Danish accent. He actively discouraged conversions, viewing himself not as a missionary but as a religious ambassador to America, promoting goodwill between Orthodoxy and Protestantism (especially the Episcopal Church).
Bjerring’s chapel community never grew; in fact, it stagnated. By 1883, the Russian authorities had seen enough, and they closed the chapel. Bjerring was offered a teaching position in Russia, but he wasn’t interested; instead, disgruntled, Bjerring abandoned Orthodoxy and became a Presbyterian minister. By the end of his life, he came full circle, rejoining the Roman Catholic Church as a layman.
This article was written by Matthew Namee.
Notes on an Ethiopian Orthodox court case
10 months ago
Right now, I’m fully immersed in work on my big paper on Orthodoxy and the civil courts. I just thought I’d offer some notes on a case I just read, Kidist Mariam Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church, Inc. v. Kidist Mariam Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church, Inc., a 1995 Georgia Court of Appeals case involving the split of an Ethiopian Orthodox parish. (And yes, the case is Kidist Mariam Church versus Kidist Mariam Church — both factions claimed to be the “true” church.)
The basic facts are as follows: In 1993, the Kidist Mariam board of directors, “after a vote by the congregation,” fired the parish priest. The priest told the archbishop, who responded by disbanding the board of directors. This led to a split in the parish — the “Atlanta Group” sided with the archbishop, while the “Decatur Group” was led by the old board of directors. Both groups elected new boards of trustees and claimed the right to control the parish funds. Hence this court case.
Rather than defer to the bishop’s definition of which group constituted the “true” parish, the court applied the neutral principles of law approach. The parish articles of incorporation stipulated that the parish was autonomous with respect to the ”internal affairs of the corporation.” The parish bylaws indicated acceptance of the archbishop’s authority only over religious, spiritual, and liturgical matters. Based on these facts, the court concluded that Kidist Mariam was a “hybrid” congregational/hierarchical church.
The court ruled that, “even assuming Archbishop Matthias was authorized in declaring the removal of the corporation’s Board of Directors because of their decision to remove Rev. Haregewoyn as priest of the Kidist Mariam Church, neither the Archbishop nor the Atlanta Group had authority to appoint the corporation’s Board of Directors.” So the Atlanta Group (i.e. the pro-archbishop group)’s new board elections didn’t conform to the parish articles of incorporation and bylaws; meanwhile, the Decatur Group’s board elections were consistent with those official documents. The result? A victory for the Decatur Group, and a loss for the archbishop’s faction.
I find the court’s reasoning curious — and not in a good way. The court has confused the legitimacy of the archbishop’s decision to disband the original board of directors with the legitimacy of the Atlanta Group’s new board. It is entirely possible (probable, even) that no board is legitimate — that the archbishop’s board failed to conform to the parish governing documents, but the Decatur Group’s board failed to qualify even as church members in the first place.
Membership status in a parish is an ecclesiastical (religious, spiritual, liturgical) matter. The archbishop had the authority to determine who was and wasn’t a parish member — and that means he had the authority to disband the board (because you can’t serve on the board if you’re not a parish member). If the archbishop declared the entire Decatur Group not to be parish members on the grounds that they rebelled against his ecclesiastical authority and purported to fire the priest… well, the archbishop had the right to do that, and it seems like he had a pretty good reason. I mean, you can’t have parish boards firing priests — not in the Orthodox Church, and while I know the Ethiopian Church isn’t in communion with the Eastern Orthodox Churches, I don’t think their ecclesiology on that point differs from ours.
The court’s reasoning demonstrates — as do so many other cases — that the neutral principles approach to Orthodox parish disputes is fatally flawed. It assumes that a real distinction exists between ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical issues, when in fact Orthodoxy permits no such dichotomy. Here, the issue of which was the “real” board hinged, in large part, on the issue of who were “real” parish members. That’s an ecclesiastical question, and the court overstepped its bounds when it ignored this fact.
This article was written by Matthew Namee.
Yet Another Priest is Taken to Court
10 months ago
In the middle of the twentieth century, Fr. Boris Burden (+1973) played important roles in American Orthodoxy. It was he and Fr. Michael Gelsinger who rallied behind the attempt in the late 20s and early 30s to unite Orthodoxy and they were the key players, together with George E. Phillies (a Greek attorney) in establishing the Federated Orthodox Greek Catholic Primary Jurisdictions in America, which I’ve discussed on here before. He and Fr. Michael also donated a large number of books to the university in Buffalo, starting their Byzantine collection.
Unfortunately, Fr. Boris also seemed to find his way into the courts. I haven’t had a chance to try to track down this case, but the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Saturday, April 9, 1932, lists Joseph McKoe v. Boris Burden as a case scheduled for the 8th District Court on April 11th. As I said, I don’t know what drove that case, but in another case, in 1924, Burden was taken to court for getting into a fist fight. Here’s the newspaper article from back then (Brooklyn Eagle, October 14, 1924). By the way, raising a fist against another, if you’re a priest, breaks canon law. Though I am aware of economia being extended when a priest was defending someone else, in this case, that is not the case. It is an old fashioned, immature fist fight. So, sometimes in American Orthodoxy, those who have worked the hardest have also had serious character flaws. I suppose that’s to be expected in a frontier, marginalized religion, but it is worth remembering nonetheless.
PRIEST HOLDS OWN
IN FISTIC BATTLE
Following a violent altercation last midnight between Hugh Yeo, 23 years old. a taxi drlver, living at 2155 65th st., and Boris Burden of 417 8th St., starters for the Yellow Taxi Cab Company,- at their stand at Ave. 1 and the Brighton line, Patrolman John Maxwell took both men to the Parkville station, where they were charged with disorderly conduct.
Yeo spent the night in the cells. Burden obtained bail. When he appeared before Magistrate Eilperln in the Flatbush Court this morning, the taxi starter of the night before, a tall, good-looking young man of 26. with blond, wavy hair. wore the black gown and round clerical collar of a priest. “Yon could have knocked me over with a feather,” said Yeo, when his fellow prisoner explained to the Court that during the day he was the Rev. Father Boris Burden of the Eastern Orthodox Greek Catholic Church. He said that he is attached to the general staff of the cathedral at 15 E. 97th St.. Manhattan, and added that he has been working on a sociological study of immigrants. Fred G. Ritta. counsel for the Yellow Taxi Cnb Company, defended the priest taxi starter against the disorderly conduct charge, to which he pleaded not guilty. The client, at the instigation of his employers, also preferred a charge of assault against Yeo. According to Yeo, the priest-starter gave as good as he took, both in blows and verbal insults.
Atlas Excerpt #2: Agapius Honcharenko
10 months ago
by Matthew Namee
in Firsts
Recently, Holy Cross Orthodox Press published the Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches, edited by Alexei D. Krindatch. I contributed several pieces to the Atlas, including the article “Ten Interesting Facts About the History of Orthodox Christianity in the USA.” With Alexei’s permission, we’ll publish excerpts from that article over the next couple of months. To purchase your own copy of the Atlas(for $19.95), click here.
2. The first Orthodox liturgies in New York and New Orleans were celebrated by a controversial Ukrainian who claimed to be hunted by Tsarist agents.
Born in what is now Ukraine in 1832, Agapius Honcharenko attended the Kiev Theological Academy and then became a monk at the renowned Kiev Caves Lavra. He was ordained a deacon at 24, and the following year, he was assigned to the Russian Embassy church in Athens, Greece. From the beginning, there was trouble. Honcharenko was insubordinate, and at one point a young boy accused him of making improper advances. Honcharenko also claimed to have secretly wrote articles in a famous socialist journal. At some point, he may have been ordained to the priesthood by a Greek bishop, although the circumstances surrounding this ordination aren’t clear and our only source for this information is Honcharenko’s own later testimony. In late 1864, Honcharenko set sail for America, where he would be subject to much less oversight. He arrived in New York, and in 1865, he celebrated the first Orthodox liturgy in the city’s history. A choir of Episcopalians sung Slavonic words which had been transliterated into English.
Soon, Honcharenko received word that there were Orthodox people in New Orleans. Arriving in the city just two days after the Civil War ended, Honcharenko celebrated the first Orthodox services in the American South, borrowing an Episcopal church that had, during the recent Union occupation, been used as a stable for horses. Honcharenko spent Holy Week and Pascha in New Orleans before returning to New York. But in his short time away from the city, things had changed. As news of his landmark New York liturgy spread around the world, reports of his more controversial activities began to surface. The Orthodox of New York informed the renegade priest that they no longer had any use for him.
Thus began Honcharenko’s life outside of the Orthodox Church. He traveled across the country – marrying an woman in Philadelphia along the way – and he eventually reached San Francisco. There, in 1867, Honcharenko attempted to set up a “Russo-Greek Methodist Episcopal Church.” San Francisco already had a lot of Orthodox residents, who, motivated by the embarrassing activities of Honcharenko, decided to unite and form an Orthodox parish. Led by the local Russian consul, they asked the Russian Bishop of Alaska to send them a priest. This marked the first-ever presence of a Russian parish in an American state.
Honcharenko purchased land just outside of Oakland, and over the coming decades, reporters would occasionally find their way to the Honcharenko ranch. They wrote articles about the “Apostle of Liberty,” and Honcharenko began to make increasingly outlandish claims – that he had been the Russian ambassador to Greece; that he was Leo Tolstoy’s confessor; that he was the first to discover gold in Alaska; and that he was hunted by Tsarist assassins. Honcharenko died on his ranch in 1916, at the age of 83.
This article was written by Matthew Namee.
SOCHA Newsletter, Issue #1 (July 15, 2011)
10 months ago
A few weeks ago, I tested a new OH.org feature, “Friday Links.” The response was generally positive, but the idea has evolved a bit since then. Instead of merely posting links on each (or every other) Friday, we’re going to begin offering a SOCHA newsletter.
At the outset, I’m planning to do this on a monthly basis, but depending on how things go, it may be more often than that. Also, once I can figure out the technical side of it, the plan is both to post the newsletter as a regular article at OH.org and to send it, by email, to anyone who wants a copy. The idea here is that we post quite a lot of material on our website, and not all of our readers check it every day (or even every week). By getting a regular email, readers who forget to check the site can catch up on the highlights of the past month. But as I said, I still need to figure out how to get that set up; for now, the newsletter will just be here on the website.
This is kind of new and inevitably will evolve (and hopefully improve) over time. As always, ideas/suggestions/etc. can be sent to me at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com.
WHAT’S NEW AT SOCHA?
- I’ve revived my American Orthodox History podcast at Ancient Faith Radio. Click here for details, and here to listen to the latest episode.
- Nicholas Chapman, who uncovered the lost story of Orthodoxy in colonial Virginia, has made yet another remarkable discovery: an Orthodox Christian fired the first shot in the Civil War!
- Our first-ever SOCHA symposium at Princeton is fast approaching. The dates are September 30-October 1 (Friday-Saturday). As you can imagine, we’re pretty excited about this, and I can say in all honesty that it’s shaping up to be a phenomenal event. One of the coolest aspects of the symposium is that it’s bringing together professional scholars and “amateurs,” and people from all over American Orthodoxy. Check out the list of short papers to get a feel for the kind of diversity I’m talking about. And lest anyone think I’m patting myself on the back, please know that I had nothing to do with planning the symposium — that was primarily the work of SOCHA executive director Fr. Oliver Herbel and Princeton’s Seraphim Danckaert. I hope as many readers as possible will attend!
IN THE NEWS:
- The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is trying to have a 15-block section of the city’s East Village declared a historic district. This area includes the OCA’s Holy Protection Cathedral, which was built in 1891 and acquired by the OCA in 1943. It housed the OCA administration until the jurisdiction acquired its present headquarters in Syosset, NY. The Holy Protection parish community is opposing the proposed designation, arguing that “the congregation could not afford to meet standards that landmark designation would impose on repairs and maintenance of the 110-year-old house of worship.” I’m very sympathetic to those concerns. Certainly, as a historian, I love the concept of preserving artifacts and buildings from our past. But preserving history and Historic Preservation aren’t one and the same. The latter involves government-imposed “historic preservation” designations, and while these may seem an attractive way to preserve a venerable building, the practical results can be unjust. Here, the Holy Protection community would be legally obligated to spend more money than it can afford in maintaining the building, not just as a working church, but as a historical landmark. And it would have to go through the government’s historic preservation bureaucracy to make changes to the building in the future. All things considered, Holy Protection is best off preserving its own history without having the government get involved.
- Another New York Orthodox parish has been having some issues with the government and its church building: St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which stood next to the Twin Towers and was destroyed on September 11, 2001, has been negotiating for years with New York’s Port Authority to obtain permission to rebuild. Recently, the Greek-American group AHEPA held a rally calling for the rebuilding of the church.
- William Kobasz of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in Perth Amboy, NJ recently published a history of the church’s bells. The bells are over 100 years old and originally cost $1,734 to cast (equivalent to over $40,000 today). Proceeds from Kobasz’s book will fund the upkeep of the bells.
- The examiner.com website published a history of St. Andrew Russian Orthodox Church (ROCOR) of St. Petersburg, FL. The parish was founded in 1948.
NOTABLE LINKS:
- The OCA has launched its redesigned website, which includes a nicer-looking section for its Department of History and Archives. I can’t actually tell if there’s new historical material, though. We can only hope that the OCA (and the other jurisdictions) will someday get around to digitizing their vast archives and sharing them with the rest of the world.
- On the other hand, if you want some good digital sources, check out the publications of AARDM Press that are now available online. In addition to loads of Russian sources that are begging to be translated (including documents on St. Alexander Hotovitzky), they’ve got tons of English-language collections of St. Alexis Toth’s writings, as well as Bishop Nestor Zakkis (or Zass, the Russian bishop of Alaska from 1879-82). AARDM is just a tiny little publishing house in Minnesota, and it’s nearly impossible to find these materials for sale, so having them available online is especially exciting.
Matthew Namee, Editor
