I’ve been asked to speak about Orthodoxy in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course, this was the Ellis Island era, the time when hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the United States from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. It’s when many of your ancestors came here; it’s also when my own ancestors came here, from what was then the Ottoman Empire and what is today Lebanon. Of course, besides the Greeks and the Syrians and Lebanese, there were also lots of Serbs, Romanians, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Bulgarians. These were largely Orthodox people, coming to the United States from all over the Orthodox world, and bringing with them their ancestral faith. And while these people spoke different languages and had different local traditions, they all shared that Orthodox faith. Because they came here and preserved their faith – because of that, we have Orthodoxy in America today. My goal here today is to give you a sense of what it was like back then – what it was like to be an Orthodox Christian in late 19th/early 20th century America.

In 1890, only two Orthodox parishes existed in the entire United States of America: a Russian cathedral in San Francisco and a semi-independent Greek church in New Orleans. Of course, there was a significant Russian Orthodox presence in Alaska, but at that time Alaska was just a territory, not a state, and it was both geographically and culturally disconnected from the US mainland.

Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in New Orleans, early 20th century

The church in New Orleans was founded in 1865 by a group of Orthodox people led by a Greek cotton merchant named Nicolas Benachi. This was a multi-ethnic parish, and besides Greeks, it included Antiochians and Slavs among its members. The U.S. Census of 1890 describes it as a part of the Church of Greece, “in connection with the consulate of Greece in New Orleans.” The first priest to visit New Orleans – he wasn’t the parish priest, but he visited and served the first liturgy there – he was a strange character named Fr. Agapius Honcharenko. This man was an itinerant Ukrainian of questionable credentials who was visiting New York in 1865 when he was contacted by the New Orleans parish. He certainly was not connected to the Russian Church; he actually claimed that the Tsarist government had put a price on his head for his involvement in revolutionary activities. Honcharenko had some sort of connection with the Church of Greece, but not long after his visit to New Orleans, he left Orthodoxy altogether and tried to start his own Protestant sect in California.

The New Orleans parish itself was a really interesting community. Before they had actually organized themselves as a parish, they raised their own Orthodox militia regiment to fight on the Confederate side of the Civil War. Later on, from 1881 to 1901, the community had a priest from Bulgaria. Until 1906, most of the church records were kept in English. It was only later that Greek became the dominant language.

After I finished preparing this talk, I learned of some very exciting developments happening with the New Orleans parish. After Hurricane Katrina, the parishioners were cleaning out the church, and someone stumbled onto bunch of old documents, tucked away in some long-forgotten cupboard or closet. As it turns out, these were the sacramental records kept by the parish priests in New Orleans, dating back to the earliest years of the parish. The papers were soaking wet, and right now, the parish is having them restored. They show that the parish had members of all different ethnic groups, and in particular, a lot of Antiochians. And these people weren’t just concentrated in the city of New Orleans – they were in small towns all over Louisiana, and probably beyond. We’re just now beginning to get a glimpse of what life was like in the first Orthodox parish in the contiguous United States. There are plans to digitize the documents, and there’s even talk of building an Orthodox museum in New Orleans, to house the hundreds of documents and artifacts the community has accumulated over the past century and a half. Anyone interested in Orthodox history or Greek history will want to keep an eye on what’s going on in New Orleans.

The Russian cathedral in San Francisco, after renovations following an 1889 fire.

The other really old parish, the San Francisco cathedral, was founded in 1868 under Russian authority. Just like New Orleans, San Francisco had a multi-ethnic Orthodox community. That community largely consisted of Greeks and Serbs, and in 1867, they formally requested that the Russian bishop in Alaska send them a priest. Soon after this, the Russian bishop moved his own residence down to San Francisco.

The San Francisco parish seemed almost cursed with turmoil. In 1879, the dean of the cathedral was apparently murdered, and one of the prime suspects was his assistant priest. A few years later, the Russian bishop drowned at sea; this appears to have been a suicide brought on by a physical ailment. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, the cathedral community was rocked by scandal. The new bishop, Vladimir, was accused of all kinds of horrific crimes. The cathedral itself burned to the ground, and many people suspected arson. Eventually, Bishop Vladimir was recalled to Russia, and by the end of the decade – by the end of the 1890s – the bishop in San Francisco was an outstanding man, Tikhon Bellavin, who was respected by all the different ethnic groups in the community. Bishop Tikhon went on to become Patriarch of Moscow. He suffered under the Communists, and in 1988, he was canonized a saint.

Now, as I mentioned, the New Orleans and San Francisco parishes were the only churches in the United States in 1890. They were outposts, really; there wasn’t much in the way of established Orthodoxy in America, outside of the Russians and Orthodox natives in Alaska. But after 1890, things began to change really rapidly. On the one hand, as I said before, thousands of Orthodox immigrants were arriving in the United States. And at the same time, entire parishes of Eastern Rite Catholics were converting, en masse, to Orthodoxy.

St. Alexis Toth

These Eastern Catholics were from the Austro-Hungarian Empires, and their ancestors had been Orthodox, but in the preceding centuries, they had left the Orthodox Church and joined the Roman Catholics. When they came to the United States, they were not very well-received by the Roman Catholic hierarchy in America. The big moment came in 1889. An Eastern Catholic priest named Alexis Toth had just arrived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to take over pastoral care of the Eastern Catholics in the area. And as was the standard procedure, when he got to Minneapolis, he presented himself to the local Roman Catholic archbishop, a man named John Ireland.

Archbishop Ireland was absolutely livid that Toth had come to Minneapolis. Ireland shouted at Toth, “I have already written to Rome protesting against this kind of priest being sent to me.” Toth said, “What kind of priest do you mean?” And Ireland said, “Your kind.” And then he continued, “I do not consider either you or this bishop of yours Catholic. […] I shall grant you no permission to work there.” Later on, Toth said, “The Archbishop lost his temper, I lost mine just as much.”

Unwelcomed by the Roman Catholics, Toth began to look into other options. At this point – and here, we’re talking right around 1890 – there wasn’t much in the way of Orthodoxy in America, as we’ve seen. Toth eventually contacted the Russian bishop in San Francisco, and his entire Eastern Catholic parish in Minneapolis converted to Orthodoxy. Toth himself became a leading proponent of Eastern Catholic conversions to Orthodoxy. Tens of thousands of Eastern Catholics joined the Russian Orthodox Church in America over the next several decades. The core of the growing Russian Archdiocese – and the core of what we know today as the OCA – consisted of these former Eastern Catholic parishes. The significance of the Eastern Catholic conversions cannot be overstated – this was a major, major development.

Of course, at the same time that this was happening – literally, at exactly the same time – thousands of people who were already Orthodox were coming to the United States from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. And these people were also starting their own Orthodox churches.

One of the most interesting of these early communities was in Chicago. In the 1880s – so, even before the big immigration started – Chicago had a growing Orthodox population. By 1888, there were about a thousand Orthodox in the city. Most of them were Greeks and Serbs, and despite the fact that they weren’t Russian, they petitioned the nearest bishop – who was Russian – to send them a priest. In 1888, the Russian bishop responded to their petition by asking them to hold a meeting, to figure out if there was enough interest to support a church. The main speakers at the meeting were a Greek, a Montenegrin, and a Serb. The Greek man was George Brown, who had come to America as a young man, and had fought in the American Civil War. George Brown gave a short speech, and it’s short enough that I’ll read most of it to you now, exactly as the Chicago Tribune reported it the next day:

“Gentlemans,” he said, “Union is the strength. Let everybody make his mind and have no jealousy. I have no jealousy. I am married to a Catholic woman but I hold my own. Let us stick like brothers. If our language is two, our religion is one. The priest he make the performance in both language. We have our flags built. It is the first Greek flags raised in Chicago. We will surprise the Americans. Let us stick like brothers.”

Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky was the Russian bishop in America from 1888 to 1891.

The meeting ended with everybody wanting to start an Orthodox church, and they agreed that the services could be done in both Greek and Slavonic. The Russian Bishop Vladimir traveled east from San Francisco for a visit later that year, but unfortunately, this was the same Bishop Vladimir who became embroiled in a series of horrible scandals. One of Vladimir’s strongest opponents in San Francisco was a Montenegrin who happened to be the brother of one of the leaders of the Chicago community. So the Chicago Orthodox were hearing all these horrible things about Bishop Vladimir, and they decided they wanted nothing more to do with the man. They put out feelers to numerous other Orthodox churches – the Serbian Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Church of Greece.

Eventually, the Church of Greece sent a priest named Fr. Panagiotis Phiambolis, and in 1892 Phiambolis established the first Orthodox parish of any kind in Chicago. But this was not a multi-ethnic parish, like San Francisco and New Orleans. This parish was specifically for Greek people. The Chicago Tribune reported that the new Greek church “wants no one but those of Hellenic blood among its members” Almost exactly one month after the Greek church began in Chicago, the Russians established their own church. By now, I should note, Bishop Vladimir had been recalled to Russia, and was replaced by Bishop Nicholas.

So now in 1892, there were two Orthodox parishes in the city of Chicago – one Greek, one Russian. This was the first time in our history that two Orthodox churches, answering to different ecclesiastical authorities, coexisted in the same US city. But there’s a flip side to all of this. Despite the fact that they had separated based on language and ethnicity, they still got along with each other. In 1894, the Chicago Greek and Russian priests concelebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Russian church to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the Russian mission to Alaska. When the Russian Tsar Alexander III died the following month, a memorial was served by both the Greek and Russian priests at the Greek church, which was simultaneously dedicating its new building. When the new Russian bishop, Nicholas, visited Chicago in later that year, the local Greek priest, Phiambolis, participated in the hierarchical Liturgy at the Russian church. Later on, in 1902, the church bell was stolen from the Russian parish, and the Greek priest invited his Russian counterpart to come to the Greek church and ask the Greek parishioners for help. The two churches, Greek and Russian, then held a joint meeting of both parishes, to organize an effort to find the bell.

On the Pacific Coast, Orthodox communities began to organize themselves in places like Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. In both Portland and Seattle, there was a lot of diversity among the Orthodox, with Greeks, Serbs, Antiochians, and Russians all in the same community. And in both Portland and Seattle, these diverse Orthodox populations affiliated themselves with the Russian Church. Seattle is a really interesting story, because, while it was under the Russian Church, the parish itself was named after St. Spyridon, who of course is a Greek saint. How did that happen? Well, the land for the church was donated by a Greek family, and because of that, they got to choose the name. Church services were in Greek, Slavonic, and English, and one of the prerequisites for being the pastor in Seattle was an ability to work in multiple languages.

Seattle’s multi-ethnic community didn’t last forever. By 1917, there were over two thousand Greeks in Seattle, and they decided they needed their own Greek church. But there weren’t any hard feelings. People said that they were just happy that there were enough Orthodox in Seattle for two churches.

Fr. Michael Andreades

Fr. Michael Andreades was of the early priests of that original multi-ethnic Seattle parish. Andreades was Greek, but he had been educated in Russia, and he was under the Russian bishop in San Francisco. He was one of several ethnic Greek priests who served under the Russian diocese. This was certainly not the norm for Greek clergy in America, but it definitely was not unheard of.

Another of these Greek priests was Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides. His father was an Athenian who fought in the Greek War for Independence, and then afterwards moved to the Peloponnese. That’s where Triantafilides himself was born. As a young man, Triantafilides went to Mount Athos and was tonsured a monk. He became affiliated with the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon, on Mount Athos, and from there, he went to Russia itself, where he studied at the Moscow Theological Academy. This is where things get really interesting. Triantafilides was asked by King George I of Greece to come to Greece and tutor the king’s young son, Prince George. Then the Russian Tsar, Alexander III, asked Triantafilides to return to Russia and tutor his children, including the future Tsar Nicholas II. Triantafilides was actually one of the priests who served at the wedding of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra.

So how did Triantafilides go from the royal courts of Greece and Russia to the United States? Well, in Galveston, Texas – which was a major seaport in the 19^th century – there was another one of those multi-ethnic Orthodox communities. The Greeks and Serbs of Galveston got together and petitioned the Russian Church to send them a priest. Tsar Nicholas II himself answered their petition by sending them his old tutor, Triantafilides, who by this time was in his early sixties.

Archimandrite Theoclitos Triantafilides

Triantafilides was the priest in Galveston for over 20 years, until his death in 1916. But he didn’t just take care of the Galveston parish. He took responsibility for the Orthodox people living throughout the Gulf Coast, traveling thousands of miles by horse and by train. His parish, which was named Ss. Constantine and Helen, eventually came to be predominantly Serbian, and many years after his death, the church switched from the Russian to the Serbian jurisdiction. But to this day, they continue to venerate their original Greek priest, sent by the Russian Tsar.

But Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides was not the first prominent Greek priest in America. That title belongs to Fr. Kallinikos Kanellas, who arrived in San Francisco in the early 1890s. Kanellas came to the US from India, where he had been the priest of the Greek Orthodox church in Calcutta. He initially came to America just for a visit, but he was a sickly man, and he became ill, which forced him to stay for awhile. He became affiliated with the multiethnic Russian cathedral in San Francisco. Of course, with so many Greeks there, having a Greek priest would have been particularly helpful. Like so many of his fellow priests, Kanellas traveled all over the country. He actually seems to have been the first Orthodox priest to visit this state – Georgia – when he baptized a Greek child in Savannah in 1891.

In 1892, a new Russian bishop took over in San Francisco, and he released Kanellas, who then traveled to the eastern part of the United States. Around 1902 or 1903, Kanellas was asked to become the priest of the Greek church in Birmingham, Alabama, which was under the Church of Greece. He spent the next eight years there. The Greek-American Guide described him as “a very sympathetic and reverend old man.” He was one of the only Orthodox priests in the entire American South, so like Triantafilides, he traveled quite a bit. One of the places he visited was Atlanta. Kanellas eventually became the first priest of the Greek church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he remained there until his death in 1921.

Priests like Andreades, Triantafilides, and Kanellas were not Russian, but they all spent time serving in the Russian diocese. The reverse didn’t happen – Russian priests didn’t serve under the Church of Greece. But there is a fascinating story that I must tell you – because not all of the Greek priests were, in fact, Greek.

Fr. Raphael Morgan

Just after the turn of the twentieth century, a man named Robert Morgan began to attend the Greek church in Philadelphia. The curious thing about Robert Morgan is that he was a black Episcopalian deacon from Jamaica. In 1907, he traveled to Constantinople, and was ordained an Orthodox priest. He was sent back to Philadelphia, and I’ll quote directly here, “to carry the light of the Orthodox faith among his racial brothers.” Morgan took the name “Fr. Raphael,” but unfortunately, he wasn’t very successful in his missionary work. Aside from his own family, there’s no clear evidence that he converted anyone else to Orthodoxy. But the startling fact remains that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ecumenical Patriarchate initiated a mission to convert black Americans to Orthodoxy.

Now, as I said, Fr. Raphael Morgan was attached to the Greek church in Philadelphia. When he went to the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be ordained, he had two letters in his possession. One was from the Greek community of Philadelphia, which supported Morgan’s ordination, and said that if he failed to establish a black Orthodox church, he was welcome to be the assistant priest at their parish. The other letter was from the parish priest in Philadelphia, a remarkable man named Fr. Demetrios Petrides.

Fr. Demetrios Petrides

Petrides was born on Samos in the mid-1860s. He was a married priest, with children, but his wife died before he came to America. Back in Greece, Petrides’ daughter fell in love with a young man, John Janoulis, and they wanted to get married. Petrides approved, but the Janoulis’ father wanted his son to get an education, rather than get married. So Janoulis was disowned by his father, and Petrides took the couple under his wing. The young Janoulis left for America to earn money, which of course was common practice at the time, and then Fr. Demetrios was asked by the Church of Greece to become the new priest in Philadelphia. He arrived in 1907, and brought along his daughter, reuniting her with her husband. Just a couple of months after he arrived in America, Petrides wrote his letter, recommending that Robert Morgan be ordained a priest. For a while, Morgan actually lived in the Petrides family home.

Like so many of his fellow priests, Petrides traveled throughout his region of the country, ministering to the Orthodox people he found who didn’t have a priest. One time, he went to Ithaca, New York, to do a baptism. After the service, unbeknownst to Petrides, a 16-year-old Greek girl had advertised that she would go into a “spirit trance.” Greeks had traveled from all over to witness the spectacle. Petrides caught wind of what was going on, and he burst into the room, stopped the girl’s trance, and told the people that spiritualism is against the teachings of the Orthodox Church. This was the sort of man he was – completely unafraid to stand up for what was right, no matter what.

It was this gumption that got Petrides run out of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia church was dominated by a rich layman, Constantine Stephano, who was a millionaire cigarette manufacturer. Stephano and Petrides did not get along. Things came to a head in 1912, when Stephano sent the following message to Petrides – this is almost unbelievable. It said,

“Constantine Stephano commands you to appear at his office every evening at sunset and salaam low upon entering his presence. Then you are to stand erect, with folded arms, with your eyes cast downward, awaiting a word from Stephano before sitting down or otherwise changing your position. If you are not asked to be seated you are to remain in this position until Stephano leaves his office, and when he passes through the door you are to salaam low again and depart with bowed head.”

Stephano was obviously trying to humiliate Petrides, and Petrides would have none of it. He responded, “I will not thus humiliate myself before this maker of cigarettes.” Now, in the early twentieth century, Greek parishes in America had only a loose connection to the church authorities in Athens or Constantinople. As a practical matter, the parishes were run by lay boards of trustees, which would hire and fire priests at will. Constantine Stephano arranged for Petrides to be ousted from the Philadelphia church, by the slim margin of seven votes.

But, characteristically, Petrides left with his head held high. In September of 1912, newspapers in Georgia began reporting that a daring Greek priest was coming to Atlanta. One newspaper called Petrides “the stormy petrel of the cloth.” Another paper said that he was famous for his “lambasting of the rich Greeks who loved money for the sake of power.” He was warmly welcomed by the Greeks in Atlanta, who seemed to have a good idea of the sort of priest they were getting.

But Petrides was not simply focused on his fellow Greeks. At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a very active dialogue taking place between the Orthodox and the Episcopalians. This led to the creation of a group called the “Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches Union.” The Orthodox members of the group included clergy from various ethnic backgrounds, including Antiochians, Russians, and Greeks. For several years in the teens, Fr. Demetrios Petrides was the organization’s Greek representative. He thus was engaged in this national inter-Christian dialogue, and he was also cooperating with his fellow Orthodox of different ethnicities.

As the teens wore on, Petrides developed diabetes, and in the days before insulin, that was a death sentence. He died in September of 1917. Annunciation Cathedral here in Atlanta should be very proud to claim Fr. Demetrios Petrides as one of its first priests. He was a significant historical figure, and an outstanding pastor.

We’re nearly at the end of this talk, and I’ve basically just told you a series of stories. So what’s the point – are there any common threads, or lessons to be learned, from this admittedly limited look at early Greek Orthodox history in America? I think there are, and I’ll just touch on them very briefly here at the end.

First and foremost, it should be clear that Greek Orthodoxy in America did not develop in a vacuum, somehow separated from the rest of Orthodoxy in America. Most of the earliest communities of Orthodox Christians here were multi-ethnic. This was largely a matter of practicality: there simply weren’t enough people in each individual group to start forming separate ethnic parishes. In many places – San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Seattle, Galveston – there was a clear sense that, for Orthodox Christians to survive in America, they needed each other. They needed – we still need – to work together to build up Orthodoxy in our local communities. No matter what we’d like to think, we’re simply too small, too weak, to thrive on our own, without each other. And just as in those early parishes, cooperation and a unified effort does not imply the abolishment of our individual identities. I will always be Lebanese, just as so many of you will always be Greek. Working together, on a practical level, does not have to mean a compromise of our heritage. It didn’t a hundred years ago, and it does not now.

I’d like to close with the words of that Greek veteran of the Civil War, George Brown, the early leader of Chicago’s Orthodox community: “Union is the strength. Let everybody make his mind and have no jealousy. Our religion is one. We will surprise the Americans. Let us stick like brothers.” Thank you.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

The Historical Reality of Greek Orthodoxy in America is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Archimandrite Dorotheo (sketch from the Atlanta Constitution, 6/26/1900)

In June of 1900, an Archimandrite Dorotheo — I don’t know his last name — came to Birmingham, Alabama. He had traveled there from Chicago, although I’m not sure which Chicago parish he was affiliated with. Borrowing a local Episcopal church — the Church of the Advent — he performed the first known Orthodox sacraments in Alabama, baptizing two Greek children. Besides the 50-60 Greeks who attended the ceremony, about a score of Protestants turned out to witness what was, for them, a remarkable spectacle.

A couple of days later, on June 23, Archimandrite Kallinikos Kanellas came to Birmingham. I don’t know if he intentionally coincided his visit with that of Fr. Dorotheo, but the next day was a Sunday, and the two Greek priests concelebrated the Divine Liturgy — the first ever in the state of Alabama. As was typical in those days, the male-to-female ratio of the congregation was 50 to 1 — literally, 50 men and a single woman, Mrs. Chronaki, whose child had been baptized a few days earlier. The clergy commemorated both the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Archbishop of Athens, and offered prayers for numerous government leaders, from the King of Greece and the US President all the way down to the Mayor of Birmingham.

Leaving Birmingham, the two priests moved on to Georgia — Fr. Dorotheo to Atlanta, Fr. Kallinikos to Savannah. In Atlanta, Fr. Dorotheo performed more baptisms, including one of a three-year-old girl named Antigonie Constantine. The Atlanta Constitution (6/26/1900) reported, “But one of the children offered the slightest protest when it was placed in the water. This was Antigonie, and to her protestation Father Dorotheo smilingly spoke words of such soothing power that the little one was laughing when lifted from the water and dried by her happy parents and several of their neighbors.”

We’ve discussed the life of Fr. Kallinikos Kanellas in several articles already, and this story helps fill in part of a decade-long gap in his career (between his 1892 departure from the Russian cathedral in San Francisco and his 1902/1903 arrival in Birmingham as the first parish priest). Fr. Dorotheo is a bit of a mystery; the most biographical information I’ve found on him is from the Atlanta Constitution, quoted earlier. Here’s what they said about Fr. Dorotheo:

Father Dorotheo is a native of Samos, an independent principality in the Turkish dominion of Asia Minor, and was sent to take charge of the orthodox Greek church in this country by the patriarch at Constantinople. During his residence in the United States he has built up the orthodox church in Chicago until it now numbers among its congregation hundreds of the best known Greek citizens of that city. [...] Father Dorotheo, though a man of some years, is as erect as an athlete and possesses a strong and intelligent face, lit up by twinkling eyes that denote a genial character. He is a graduate of one of the great colleges of learning in his native land and speaks Russian, German and Arabic almost as easily as he speaks his native tongue.

Savannah, Atlanta, and Birmingham had sizeable and growing Greek Orthodox populations, numbering in the hundreds, and all three communities established Orthodox parishes within a few years of Fr. Dorotheo’s and Fr. Kallinikos’ visits to their cities. The Savannah church was begun first, in 1900. The Birmingham Greeks brought back Fr. Kallinikos Kanellas to be their first pastor in about 1902, and the Atlanta church was founded in 1905. Thus, the 1900 pastoral visits of Frs. Dorotheo and Kallinikos were pivotal in the establishment of Orthodoxy in the southern United States.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Early Orthodoxy in Alabama and Georgia is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

The latest episode of my American Orthodox History podcast is up over at Ancient Faith Radio. In it, I discuss the feast of Theophany, focusing on several historical celebrations of the feast, including the famous annual celebration at the Greek cathedral in Tarpon Springs, Florida. In the podcast, I read from a number of old newspaper articles. Here’s something that I didn’t get a chance to read — a brief notice about an occasion when the cross was lost in the water. From the St. Petersburg (FL) Evening Independent (1/6/1930):

Tarpon Springs, Jan. 6. — (Special to The Independent) — Ietroheos Aehanaffion, swarthy Greek diver of this city, for the third successive time today recovered the cross thrown into the water in observance of Epiphany. It was the fifth time that this diver has recovered the cross in the last several years.

Though the cross was recovered, it was lost again when the ceremony was repeated for the benefit of the Pathe news cameramen, and had not been found at a late hour today.

A crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 25,000 greeted the 27th observance of Epiphany here.

For more on Theophany, be sure to read the article on the 1910 Serbian celebration in Kansas City, posted here a couple of days ago. To listen to the podcast, just click here.

Theophany in American Orthodox history is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Archimandrite Theoclitos Triantafilides

This picture of the Right Reverend, Most Venerable Archimandrite, Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides is the only one I am aware of. He was the first Orthodox Priest in Texas. The picture did hang with Honor in the Church Congregation Hall of Saints Constantine and Helen Church in Galveston, Texas. It has been saved from “Hurricane IKE’s Destruction” (September 12, 2008), and will hang there again when the new hall is constructed soon. I live in Galveston, and I have been a part of the Church congregation since Baptism. My Mother was baptized by Arch. Fr. Theoclitos and was very proud to tell people of that fact until her death in 2001. I have studied everything I can find on this wonderful Priest over the years, including his Last Will, the Galveston Daily News archives, Immigration Records, the Rosenberg Public Library of Galveston, the Church records (Slavonic, long-hand written in Cyrillic), the Internet and greatly on the local “folklore” stories told of him.   

IT’S HAS BEEN SAID….   

His father was an Athenian Greek. When the first outbreaks of Greek Independence from the Ottoman Empire started on the Peloponnese Peninsula, his father, a fisherman crossed onto the peninsula to join the forces of famed Greek General Theodoros Kolokotronis, also an Athenian. Eight years later, when Independence was achieved (with great help from the Allied Russian, English and French Forces); he settled in Egio (one of the oldest cities in the Balkans), Peloponnese Peninsula, Greece.   

Born in November of 1833, young Theodoros was named for the famed Greek General. They called him “Theos” and he celebrated his Name Day each September 22nd (Julian Calendar in the 1800′s), on the Feast Day of St. Hierotheos, the Student of Saint Paul, the Apostle, who in 53 A.D. became the First Bishop of Athens. Theodorus grew up fishing with his father, and spending time around the port; while his mother (a native of the Peloponnese Peninsula) pushed him to the Church. The era after Greek Independence was wrought with economic problems and the Armenians and Bulgarians had replaced the Ottomans as bankers and merchants, allowing our young Theos to become ever more acquainted with other cultures. Two-thirds of the population had vanished and the land was devastated.   

His early schooling was in the Church of Panagia Trypiti that is built inside a cavity of the cliff just 150 stair steps above the Port of Egio and he helped the Priests with all their duties, occasionally traveling into the local mountains to visit Agia Lavras Monastery, about 20 miles south and up in the mountains. Greek Independence had started there with Bishop Germanos Declaring Independence with his blessing of the troops. Later the Ottomans burned the Monastery, but it was reconstructed with help from the Russian Orthodox Church. Many of the Icons there were gifts from the Russian Monastery Panteleimon on Holy Mt Athos and the Be-jeweled Gospel in the Monastery was printed, signed and given by Catherine the Great of Russia. History and multi-ethnic cultures literally surrounded him. As a young adult, he was Tonsured a Monk and was given the name Theoclitos. He soon traveled to Mt Athos where he was accepted as a resident of the Panteleimon Monastery, where he became fluent in Slavonic and studied Russian language and customs; and made regular visits to the Serbian Monastery Hilandar learning the Serbian language and customs. He had become fascinated with languages.   

He was invited to complete a formal education and become a teacher at the Slavic Greek Latin Academy and Theological Seminary at Holy Trinity – St. Sergius Monastery, better known today as the Moscow Theological Academy, just outside Moscow, Russia. After under-graduate, a Graduate Degrees in Theology and a few years of teaching; he was called upon by the new Danish born King of Greece, George I, to tutor his son Prince George. Later, the King’s brother-in-law, Tsar Alexander III of Russia called upon him to tutor the Royal Family’s 6 children specifically in other Orthodox cultures including the Greek language. So, he became a Greek cultural teacher to the future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, who was Canonized a Martyr Saint of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1991. It is also said, Fr. Theoclitos was one of the 30 or so clergyman serving at the wedding of Nicholas II and Alexandra Fyodorovna, who was Canonized a Martyr Saint of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. The Parishioners of Galveston would later call him, “The Priest of Three Kings.”   

It is known that with the outset of the American Civil War, a group of multi-ethnic Orthodox Christians were having regular prayer meetings in Galveston, as early as 1861, and they called themselves “the Parish of S.S. Constantine and Helen.” Galveston is a seaport, and its citizens were accustomed to our Eastern European and Mediterranean People. Our Eastern Orthodox Christians were always around the port. There were those that came, returned home and came back again. The first known Serbian in America lived in Galveston for a long time; his name was Djordje Sagic (aka: Djordje Ribar and/or George Fisher). He came to Texas in the late 1820’s after “jumping ship” (because of indentured servitude) in Philadelphia, and became the first Port Director of the Port of Galveston under the Mexican Government. He then became a Major in the Texas Revolutionary Army under General Sam Houston. He served in public office as City Councilman in Houston, Texas and Justice of the Peace in Harris County after the Texas Revolution. Sagic had studied for the Priesthood in Karlovci Serbia, but left the seminary to join the last efforts of the first Serbian uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1813, lead by Serbian leader, Karageorge Petrovitch. He left the area in 1850 to ultimately retire in San Francisco, California as a Justice of the Peace and retained the status of the Official Greek Government Consul there until his death, in 1873. He knew 13 languages.   

The First known Greek in Galveston participated in the Parish Church group. He called himself only by the name of Captain Nicholas. Captain Nicholas joined the notorious Privateer Jean Lafitte in New Orleans, when Lafitte sailed for Galveston, as Capitan of Lafitte’s prize schooner the Mirabella. Captain Nicholas sailed away from Galveston with Lafitte after burning everything they left behind. Captain Nicholas returned to Galveston after Lafitte’s death, becoming a farmer on west Galveston Island and recounting old pirate stories at the waterfront. He lived more than 100 years and is believed to have died in the Hurricane of 1900. Some have said that with Lafitte came the first of many nationalities to Galveston, but I am unable to corroborate any other Orthodox Christians. During the late 1880′s and early 1890′s these Orthodox Christian Serbian, Russian, Greek, Bulgarian, and Arab (Lebanese) immigrants to Galveston had organized and started gathering moneies for a church. Aside from the religious group, they each started several individual nationalistic groups. Each had separately written many petitions to their former Bishops back home for a Parish Priest and had received only denials; justified by the facts of distance and costs, but these denials were in some cases including the suggestion that they petition the Russian Orthodox Mission Diocese in North America. So the culture in Galveston was ripe for the addition of an Eastern European & Mediterranean Priest of Arch. Fr. Theoclitos’ stature.   

Nicholas II became Tsar of Russia on November 26, 1894. The Romanov Royal Family had created and supported the Russian Orthodox Mission into North America through Alaska since 1794. At that time, because of the Romanov family’s truly un-matched wealth, the Russian Mission into America was the only Orthodox jurisdiction on the continent prior to 1922.   

So, the Slavs, headed by Risto Vukovich; and the Greeks headed by Athurs Menutis gathered and decided to petition the Russian Mission Diocese. They sent three telegrams written in Cyrillic and signed by Vukovich, Christo Chuk, and Milosh Porobich which explained the diversity of the parishioners to; (1) the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, (2) Tsar Nicholas II personally, and (3) His Grace Bishop Nicholas in Sitka, Alaska. A short time later the parish board received a telegram personally from Tsar Nicholas II, stating his acceptance of their plea. The Tsar had a large Gospel Printed, all the Vestments and Liturgical necessities including a signed Antimins, and all the Icons for an Iconostas painted and assembled including the icon to be used for the name day of the future Church (His own Namesake, Saint Nicholas); and he chose his teacher Fr. Theoclitos to go to Galveston, telling him “Let there be an Orthodox Church in Galveston.”   

By this time, Fr. Theoclitos was 61 years of age, and was a well traveled man and spoke more than a dozen languages: Greek, Russian, Serbian, Slavonic, Latin, Bulgarian, Arabic, Hebrew, Danish; and some Spanish, English, French, German, and Romanian. The Ambassador of Russia to the United States acquired US Citizenship for him even before he left Russia. Prior to leaving Russia, Fr. Theoclitos was given the heavy cross he always wore by Tsar Nicholas II and he was elevated to the rank of Right Reverend Archimandrite, because he would soon be the Priestly leader of a flock of Christians so far away with little known chance of a visiting Bishop anytime soon. His journey to the far off land of Galveston, Texas began with six companions. With him were; the Very Reverend Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny (Glorified a Saint in March of 2000 by the Orthodox Church in America) and his three Deacons Constantine Abu-Adal, Istvan Moldowanyi and John Shamie (later Shamie was a Priest in Galveston); and Archimandrite Fr. Theoclitos’ two Russian Deacons, Theodore Pashkowsky and Joakim Zubkowsky, and his Romanian Deacon Pavel Grepashewsky; and Fr. Peter I. Popoff. The first leg of the trip was by train to Berlin, serving liturgy there at the Russia Embassy Church; then on to the Port of Bremen. Next leg was by passenger ship to Southampton for a change of ships, then on to New York aboard the passenger ship, S.S Havel out of South Hampton, as a United States Citizen. Only 82 passengers sailed that day. Although a group of Priests were at the port of New York to greet them on the Morning of November 14, 1895, they were required by customs to spend one night in Quarantine. The next morning, they were joined in New York by Bishop Nicholas Ziorov of the Russian Orthodox Mission in America to consecrate the First Arab-Syrian Orthodox Church in America under the Russian Mission’s jurisdiction, and to install Archimandrite Raphael as Pastor, with his three deacons. A few days later, Arch. Fr. Theoclitos, his three Deacons; and Fr. Popoff traveled with Bishop Nicholas by train to Washington D.C., then to western Pennsylvania, where Fr. Popoff was to serve and then on to Kansas City. At this point, it was decided that only the Romanian Deacon Grepashewsky would travel to Galveston with Arch. Fr. Theoclitos; and Bishop Nicholas and the other two Deacons would go on to San Francisco. Arch. Fr. Theoclitos stopped in Hartshorne, American Indian Territory, Oklahoma to have Liturgy for a group of Russian Miners, just outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma before reaching Galveston.   

The distances from Galveston to either San Francisco or New York are about 1600 miles. Although his rightful rank was high, which gave him the right to consecrate his own chapel including the right to wear a Mitre (Crown, but with a flat, not standing Cross on top) and carry a Pastoral Staff (Bishop’s Staff); he lived his life in Galveston as a meager Monk, teacher, and Pastoral Priest. The Church Congregation never paid Arch. Fr. Theoclitos, because he received his pay directly from the Tsar (1500 rubels a month and 500 rubels as expenses; about $120 total, at that time) until Arch. Fr. Theoclitos passed away in 1916, a year and a half before Tsar Nicholas II and his Family were murdered.   

The Trustees of The Existing Congregation Board (Chris Vucovich, Chris Chuoke, Athurs Menutis and Mitchael Mihaloudski) formally received their State Corporation Papers on January 13, 1895 and subsequently purchased a 43’ wide x 120’ deep property that is at 4107 Avenue L, Galveston, Texas on December 15, 1895. They started to build a rectangular wood frame Orthodox styled Church, and when Arch. Fr. Theoclitos arrived, in January of 1896, he directed the finishing of the Church. The congregation was astonished to be blessed with an Archimandrite and a Deacon, not just a Priest, and best of all he was somewhat of a linguist.   

In Galveston, all properties faced either North-west or South-east, so they had chosen property that leaves our Church unusually facing South-east. And, although the Icon of Saint Nicholas was placed in the Iconostas to Honor Tsar Nicholas II as the Patron of the Church; it was Arch. Fr. Theoclitos’ decision to use the name S. S. Constantine and Helen Church, because the congregation that started on its own should be remembered. Bishop Nicholas was invited and he accepted; and the Consecration of our church occurred on June 3rd 1896, the feast day of Sts Constantine and Helen. Arch. Fr. Theoclitos’ decision on the name of the Church, was not unusual with him. He was known to have baptized children with names other than their parents had asked for. My mother’s name was to be Ruza, Serbian for Rose, but he baptized her as Sophia which her parents accepted without question, and gave my mother and others an unusual lifelong connection to their Archimandrite. But then, his guidance and decisions were always accepted by his congregation. There have never been any questions of his guidance that were ever passed down through the years even though we Eastern Europeans have always loved a good argument. He had services in the Slavonic, Greek and Arabic languages. It was as though his congregation was standing with a Saint.   

In 1897, Arch. Fr. Theoclitos purchased a 36 plot track in the Lake View Cemetery as a gift to his Congregation. He buried his flock in the next consecutive plot, without regard to couples or children or any Relationship, because he saw them as one congregational family.   

In early 1897, Bishop Nicholas replaced Deacon Grepashewsky with a young Russian Monk, Fr. Mikhail Kurdinovski to allow Arch. Fr. Theoclitos time to travel and invited Arch. Fr. Theoclitos to San Francisco to speak in the Greek language on the mounting losses of the Cretan insurgents in their revolution against Ottoman rule. Bishop Nicholas had to be acutely aware that his Archimandrite was the highest ranking Greek born Clergyman in America. While in route, we know that he also served Liturgy again in Oklahoma; and in Denver, Colorado. After his sermon in San Francisco he was asked to traveled with Fr. (later, Archimandrite) Sebastian Dabovich (currently being considered for Canonization as a Saint), to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, where they served Liturgy in Slavonic, Greek and Arabic in both cities. He again traveled to San Francisco in 1898, to participate in the installation of Bishop Tikhon Bellavin, as the new Bishop, replacing Bishop Nicholas of the Aleutians and Alaska (Diocesan name was changed in 1900 to Diocese of the Aleutians and North America). Although little is known about it, Bishop Tikhon visited our parish in 1899, for the first of two visits.   

It’s known that Arch. Fr. Theoclitos traveled extensively on the Gulf Coast going as far east as Mobile, Alabama, as far south as Corpus Christi, Texas, and into the interior north to Ft. Worth, San Antonio, San Angelo and Austin Texas, performing Marriages and Baptisms and serving Liturgy where ever he found our Orthodox Christians. In 1897, The Wiemar, Texas newspaper had an article about him; where he borrowed the local Catholic Church in LaGrange, Texas to perform the wedding of a Greek Couple. The writer (obviously Protestant) posted the short article that follows.   

Weimar Mercury, 29 Jan 1898: “LaGrange, Tex., Jan. 25, –Married today, Mr, Abraham John to Miss Zeche Nemer, both Greek, at the Catholic Church by Rev. Theoclitos (Archimandrite of the Orthodox Church), Galveston, Tex. A very large crowd attended the ceremonies, which were ‘somewhat of a novelty,’ no such ceremonies having ever been performed here.”   

Our Church Board additionally purchased a like adjoining property west of the Church doubling the size of the property in early 1900. But, in his 66th year, on September 8th 1900, Galveston Island was hit by the greatest natural disaster in United States history when the massive Hurricane of 1900 came ashore. The Island was almost totally destroyed (est. of 8,000 to 12,000 deaths of a population of 30,000, which included 24 members of the congregation. Arch. Fr. Theoclitos and Fr. Mikhail spent 30 hrs in the church praying and giving refuge to parishioners and neighbors that sought safety in the church. After the storm had passed, the Church structure was still standing although it had floated to the west about 10 feet partially onto the additional property just purchased. Those that were with him in the church believed Arch. Fr. Theoclitos and his church had truly saved their lives. The congregation gathered and raised the Church, repaired the damage and early in 1902 petitioned Bishop Tikhon, who had since moved the headquarters of the Diocese to New York, to visit and Re-consecrate their repaired Church. Bishop Tikhon accepted and arrived shortly before services on June 3rd 1903. This event made Arch. Fr. Theoclitos and his congregation’s church not only patronized by, but also consecrated by future Saints of Orthodoxy. By order of Tsar Nicholas II, Bishop Tikhon bestowed on Arch. Fr. Theoclitos the Royal Honors of (1) the Order Of St. Vladimir and (2) the Order of St. Anne (in his picture, the ribbon and cross like medallion around the neck to his right side is the order of St. Vladimir, the ribbon and medallion around the neck to his left side is the Order of St. Anne and the necklet with the large medallion was awarded him upon attaining his Graduate Degree in Theology from the Moscow Theological Academy.   

While in Galveston, Bishop Tikhon visited the cemetery, and became aware that it was filling fast. As a gift to the Congregation, Bishop Tikhon,who was later made Patriarch of Moscow, purchased 27 additional plots next to the original cemetery track. Arch. Fr. Theoclitos and the Church continued with a new influx of immigrants coming to Galveston each year, even purchasing another 21’ to the west of the Church. Although he did keep constant communications with the Diocese, it is not clear whether he ever met with Archbishop Platon of New York, who replaced Bishop Tikhon.   

He was known to include the Romanov Royal Family each week in the Liturgy, as: (1) word of Tsar Nicholas II’s son, Alexander’s affliction with hemophilia began to spread, (2) World War I was building and (3) talk of revolution against the Tsar was in the news from time to time. Also, because of our multi-ethnic culture in Galveston, the shot by Serbian Gavrilo Princip that assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, (believed to be the shot that started World War I, was heard loudly in our Church making the War and the assassination more than an important issue.   

On weekly trips to the business district, the neighborhood children would gather on the church steps and wait for his return. He would always have a large bag full of fruit and the latest sweets for them, saving a large portion for his parish children. He became acquainted with many people during his years in Galveston and was thought of respectfully, while they became somewhat enchanted with his customary meager but stoic Orthodox Monastic ways. He was a constant visitor to St. Mary’s Infirmary (the local Catholic Hospital) and John Sealy Hospital at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Following his heart, as the Apostle St. Paul guided him through his Name Day St. Hierotheos, he was known to give Confession, Baptizism and Communion to anyone who professed to be Christian. He truly became a friend to many families, who felt his visits to their loved ones in the hospital made those loved ones better. He converted to Orthodoxy many of these families: the Dambido family, the Matthews family and the Lelirra family to name a few.   

In 1911, the Galveston-Houston Inter-Urban Train was instituted, allowing many of our Orthodox Christians in Houston (50 miles north and largely Greek and Lebanese) an ease of access to Galveston for Sunday Liturgy. The trains were one or multiple electric cars that ran from downtown Houston to downtown Galveston, and you could get on or off at any time. So, our members could get off, then on again, less than 800 feet north of the Church on the main road into Galveston. It was still a 75 minute trip, one way, but it was an inexpensive way for our Houston parishioners to get to church from time to time. It was later discontinued in 1936.   

And then, in his 81st year, the Island was hit by another devastating Hurricane in August of 1915. Again, Arch. Fr Theoclitos and others prayed in the Church. This storm was even more tenuous for them, but never was anyone in the church lost in any storm. The Church floated to the north about 50 feet into the street, and the front wall was torn open and the Gospel given by Tsar Nicholas II was found by parishioner George Mandich another 200 feet away in the city cemetery across from the Church, miraculously with very little water damage. The congregation repaired the Church and moved it back into place with mule and muscle.   

The parish again, needed more future graves. This time, as a religious benevolent society, they purchased their own private Cemetery in the western part of the city, about a quarter mile from the other cemetery. The land was far larger (would easily accommodate about 300 graves) and would meet their needs for long years into the future. But they also divided it into two sections, the Greeks to one side, and the Serbians and other Slavs on the other.   

Later in the following year, the Church was hit by the loss of their 21 year life with Arch. Fr. Theoclitos, just short of his 83rd year, on October 22nd 1916. He had become gravely ill six weeks before. He somehow knew his time was near, and had the Diocese notified of his illness, and he asked parish leaders to find a way for them to bury him under the Altar of the Church. It was his belief that his grave would, by its nature, cause the Church to continue at the location for centuries into the future. He passed to his Creator at 8:15 in the evening, in St. Mary’s Infirmary Hospital. With the help of Church leaders, his body was prepared by Malloy & Sons Funeral Home, but the parishioners then took the body to the church and stood vigil over his remains continually, until his Funeral. The New Archbishop Evdokim of New York ordered his Diocesan Secretary, Archpriest Fr. Peter I. Popoff (who had been one of Arch. Fr. Theoclitos’ companions on the trip from Russia), and two others of his Diocesan Council members; Fr. Louniky Kraskoff of Denver, Colorado (whom he had visited with on trips to San Francisco) and Hieromonk Fr. Paul Chubaroff of Hartshorne, Oklahoma to immediately travel to Galveston so that Our Beloved Archimandrite would be religiously cared for. They finally arrived in Galveston six days later, on the morning of October 28th. Hierarchical Funeral Services were held that afternoon at 2:00 P.M. During the six week wait, the Parish Board had received permission from the County Judge to place his remains under the Church’s Altar and workers prepared the Concrete Vault that was required by the Judge for his casket to be encased, where it remains today. As Arch. Fr. Theoclitos requested in his will, his Cross and Medals were all taken to Archbishop Evdokim by Archpriest Popoff.
+Memory Eternal+   

In the following years our Church was served by numerous short-term or as they were called in those days, traveling Priests. In 1929, the parishioners, spear-headed by Petar B. Kovacevich, built a wood frame Hall (32’ X 75’) with a parish home above, in hopes of having a Priest and his family, stay in Galveston. It helped, but, in 1933, our Greek brethren gathered and purchased their own Church, The Assumption of The Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church. Our parishes have helped each other thru the years, whenever either was without a Priest or there was a time of need, as our Arch. Fr. Theoclitos would expect of us.   

The Hierarchs of the Church in those years were Archbishop Alexander, Metropolitan Platon, and Metropolitan Theophilus.   

In 1934, Fr. Alexis Revera and his family arrived in Galveston and stayed for 27 years. In 1948, the parish decided it was time for the Church to receive some upgrades, mainly in the form of cosmetics. Wing additions were added to the elevated Altar area, the interior was totally painted, Stain Glass windows were added, hard wood flooring, a new roof coving, and the old siding was covered with a light brown brick; work was completed in 1949. The parish petitioned the Diocese, and in 1950, the newly elected Metropolitan Leonty, traveled to our fare city to re-consecrate the Church. Air-conditioning was added in the 1960.   

In 1962, it had become apparent that the community was almost totally made up of Serbians. Metropolitan Leonty and Bishop Dionisije (right) of the Serbian Diocese met and sealed an agreement that put our beloved Church under the Serbian Diocese, while the Russian Diocese would receive under its control the Church in Billings, Montana, which was started by Serbian Bishop Nikolai (Canonized a Saint by the Serbian Orthodox Synod in 2003,) and Archimandrite Fr. Sabatian Dabovich; but had over the years become almost totally Russian. They further agreed to guide these two parishes to remain multi-ethic and services were to be in both English and Slavonic and should include a litany of any other languages when needed for other ethnic parishioners.   

In 1964, the Texas Highway Department was working on plans to expand the street next to the cemetery into a 6 lane highway. They were intending to put an over-pass over the Serbian Section. Two parish leaders, Ilija P. Kovacevich and John N. Milosevich went to the highway department with their plan to move the Serbian Section at the Highway Department’s expense. The Highway Department agreed. So, it became the work of parishioners; lead by local Constable and parishioner Sam Popovich to get every relative of a loved one in the Serbian section to sign the necessary papers. The highway department would provide 6 times the land they were taking and would bare all expenses of exhumation and reburial; where a solid caskets or a vault was not found, the earthen material would be placed in a vault to be transported; and the Priest would attend and be paid for a service of exhumation and re-burial for each grave. The new cemetery is much like a Church with a center aisle and rows of graves to each side; with small side-walks between the rows and an Alter table at the front.   

In 1978 our Parish came under the Jurisdiction of one of its own, Serbian Bishop Christopher. The First American Born Bishop to serve an American Diocese. He was born and raised in Galveston and had been ordained a Priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1949. With his leadership, the congregation has prospered through the past 30 years, with him becoming Metropolitan in 1991.   

Now we have been hit by another devastating Hurricane “IKE,” which came ashore on September 12, 2008. Our Church sustained minor damage with only a few inches of water inside and some wind damage (no doubt that our Arch. Fr. Theoclitos mystically was riding out the storm in his Sanctuary). But our Hall was in 3 feet of water. The old wood frame structure was left structurally unsound. The Parish decided to fix the Church first. We then had the old hall destroyed, and are planning to break ground on a new hall in early 2010. Our Greek Brothers and Sisters didn’t fare as well; their beautiful Church was inundated with 8 feet of sea water. The masonry of the Church and hall structurally survived, but the interiors didn’t make it. They are without a Priest, but have managed to somewhat re-do their Church and are working to completion. During this time, they have attended Liturgy on Sundays with us, and now that their Church is presentable, our priest Fr. Srdjan Veselinovich has liturgy on Saturdays for them.   

In 2009 our parish was placed under the jurisdiction of His Grace, Serbian Bishop Longin, ending an over 40 year schism in the Serbian Orthodox Church in America. Interestingly, His Grace Bishop Longin and Arch. Fr. Theoclitos, both received Graduate Degrees in Theology from the Moscow Theological Academy at Holy Trinity – St. Sergius Monastery (name changed to Zagorsk Monastery in 1930).   

And so, 168 years after the first parish meeting in Galveston, Texas, we beseech Our Archimandrite Father Theoclitos Triantafilides; his friends Archimandrite Saint Raphael Hawaweeny and Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich; Our Patrons Saints Tsar Nicholas II and Saint Trazistza Alexandra, Our First Metropolitan and Patriarch Saint Tikhon Bellavin, our first Serbian American Bishop Saint Nikolai Velimirovich and all those who with the Saints have guided our Parish in their goodness, to intercede on our behalf for yet another Century of existence.   

From 1895 -2010, the Church-School Congregation of SS. Constantine and Helen was served by the following priests:   

Archimandrite Theoclitos (Greek) 1895-1916
Father Michael Andreades (Greek) 1916-1918
Father John Shamie (Lebanese) 1918-1920
Father George Palamarchuk (Serbian) 1920-1925
Father Marko Dimitrieff (Greek) 1925-1926
Father Pavel Markovich (Serbian) 1927-1928
Father George Milosavljevich (Serbian) 1928-1929
Father Joakim Tkoch (Russian) 1929-1934
Father Alexis Revera (Russian) 1934-1961
Father Damaskin Susjnar (Serbian) 1961-1965
Iguman Mitrofan Kresejovich (Serbian) 1965-1968
Father Jovan Trisich (Serbian) 1968-1969
Father, Dr. Tihomir Pantich (Serbian) 1969-1971
Father Constantine Pazalos (Serbian), (Greek Born) 1971-1982
Father Svetozar Veselinovich (Serbian) 1982-1985
Father Zarko Mirkovich (Serbian) 1985-1987
Father Dragan K. Veleusic (Serbian) 1987-1992
Father Oleg Vifliantsev (Serbian), (Russian Born) 1992-1994
Father Dane Popovich (Serbian) 1994-1994
Father Dejan Tiosavljevich (Serbian) 1994-1995
Father Srdjan Veselinovich (Serbian) 1995-Present   

Fr. Theoclitos performed Marriages and Baptisms, and Celebrated Liturgies in the following locations in America:   

City/Town and Approx. Distance from Galveston   

New York, New York 1416 miles
Washington, D.C. 1213 miles
Hartsborne, Oklahoma 380 miles
Dallas, Texas 269 miles
Ft. Worth, Texas 281 miles
San Angelo, Texas 363 miles
New Braunfels, Texas 199 miles
La Grange, Texas 132 miles
Galveston, Texas 0 miles
Houston, Texas 50 miles
Beaumont, Texas 90 miles
Eagle Lake, Texas 93 miles
Seattle, Washington 1937 miles
Portland, Oregon 1881 miles
San Francisco, California 1686 miles
Denver, Colorado 928 miles
New Orleans, Louisiana 287 miles
Lake Charles, Louisiana 117 miles
Mobile, Alabama 414 miles
Biloxi, Mississippi 362 miles
Port Lavaca, Texas 122 miles
Polacios, Texas 86 miles
Corpus Christi, Texas 181 miles
San Antonio, Texas 216 miles
Waco, Texas 209 miles
Austin, Texas 191 miles
Cameron, Louisana 81 miles
Rockport, Texas 154 miles
Indianola, Texas 35 miles
Brazos, Texas 60 miles
Sabine, Texas 75 miles   

Approximate total missionary miles of work: over 25,000 by train or horse and buggy. 31 locations in 11 States in 21 Years.   

Extreme Post Script:   

In retrospect, this writer remains in awe, that The Right Reverend, Most Venerable Archimandrite Father Theoclitos Triantafilides may truly be “The Forgotten” First Greek-American saint. He was the answer to our predecessors’ every prayer. He traveled extensively on a global basis to serve the religious needs of many. He provided the “Connecting Link” for our multi-ethnic American lives, and through the teachings of Orthodoxy and his God-Given Art of Language, he lead us on the path of Saint Paul, the Apostle, past the ever separating ethnic divide.

The Forgotten Saint of the Forgotten Church on the Forgotten Island is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

After I published that piece, I unconvered several more reports on Karydis’ death, from the New York Sun, Tribune, and Evening World. Those newspapers make it apparent that Karydis’ death was a suicide.

The Sun (6/7/1901) spoke with Captain Nicholas Theodore, the oldest member of the New Orleans parish. Here is what Theodore said:

Ever since Sunday I had known that something was going to happen. I was sitting out in the yard when Father Misael came running to the gate. He said he wanted to see me quick. His shirt was open in the front and his face was very pale. A lot of little boys were following him and calling him Santa Claus. I told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and made them stop. Then the father came in and talked to me.

He was pale and trembling all over. He did not look right. I don’t think he was quite right in his head. He had been working so hard and for so long on some kind of a thing to make a bicycle go that he was tired out. “I am tired of living,” he told me. “My father is dead in Bulgaria and I want to go there. I think I will kill myself.”

I told him that he ought not to talk of suicide, but that he should think of his congregation and the people for whom he had worked so long, and did my best to quiet him.

According to the Sun, the invention was less a flying machine than a kind of motorcycle: “a bicycle that would be a sort of automobile, the rider only guiding it. He made several applications for a patent, but could never perfect the invention.” Of course, it’s entirely possible — likely, even – that Karydis was working on multiple inventions.

Karydis came to New York and visited Demetrius Botassi, the Greek consul. Botassi was the son-in-law of Nicolas Benachi, the founder of the New Orleans church. Karydis told Botassi that he was on his way to Bulgaria, to claim an inheritance. Considering his statement to Capt. Theodore — “My father is dead in Bulgaria and I want to go there” — it seems likely that the elder Karydis had just died, and that the inheritance was from him. It could be, then, that something in Karydis snapped when he learned of the death of his father.

Then again, it could be something else. From the Sun: “Not long before he died at the Hudson street hospital here the priest told Policeman Durr that he had been accused of an assault on a boy in New Orleans.”

Karydis checked into the Eastern Hotel in the morning, and spent most of the day in the hotel’s cafe. A little after 4:00 PM, he went to his room and ordered some dinner. According to the World, when the waiter brought the food, he saw Karydis sitting at a table, writing something. Soon thereafter, a shot was heard. The hotel staff broke down the door to Karydis’ room, and saw that the priest was wounded. The newspapers differ on where the wound was — the Times and Tribune say that Karydis was wounded in his right side, but the World says that he was shot “over the heart,” which sounds more plausible. Karydis reportedly told the hotel manager, “Let me finish my work. I want to die.”

He did die, a few minutes before 11:00 PM. May God have mercy on his soul.

The death of Fr. Misael Karydis is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in New Orleans. I believe the priest in the photo is Fr. Misael Karydis, who served the community from 1881 to 1901.

Archimandrite Misael Karydis spent twenty years as the priest in New Orleans, from 1881 until 1901. Two decades at a single parish is a long time, especially in the early years of American Orthodox history. Before Karydis, only one priest (that I know of) had ever served such a lengthy tenure — Hieromonk Nikolai Militov, who spent 22 years (1845-67) as pastor of the Russian church in Kenai, Alaska. Then came Karydis’ long stretch in New Orleans, followed by Fr. Theoklytos Triantafilides (Galveston, 1896-1916) and Fr. George Maloof (Boston Syrian church, 1900-1920).

Karydis was an odd character. In 1888, he got into a fistfight with a Greek writer for a French newspaper. From the New Orleans Daily Picayune (8/24/1888): “A conversation was entered into and soon assumed the attitude of a heated debate. The language used by the reverend gentleman [Fr. Misael] was not very polite, and Mr. Nicolopulo reminded him of his insolence. Without more ado Misael struck Nicolopulo in the face…”

Despite the fact that Karydis, and not Mr. Nicolopulo, had done the striking, the police arrested Nicolopulo for assault and battery. Eventually, Nicolopulo was released, and the newspaper criticized the poor judgment of the officers.

Supposedly, Karydis had some mental problems. Here is a report out of New Orleans, published in the New York Times (6/6/1901):

The Rev. Michael Jevizoylon Karidis is pastor of Holy Trinity Church, on the corner of Dorgenois and Hospital Streets, here [in New Orleans]. His congregation is composed of Greeks. He came here from Bulgaria twenty years ago, and is supposed to have had some means. About eight years ago he showed signs of mental unbalance, and since then has been engaged in constructing a flying machine.

Last Sunday he donned a stovepipe hat for the first time in his life, and with a small grip left his house, announcing that he was going to collect some money that had been left to him.

He traveled to New York City. On the morning of June 5, 1901, he checked into the Eastern Hotel under the name, “Victor Misalel.” At 4:30 in the afternoon, a hotel porter heard a gunshot and rushed to Karydis’ room. From the Times:

The door was broken open and the man’s body was found lying on the bed, with a bullet wound in his right side.

The would-be suicide was removed by Dr. Johnson to the Hudson Street Hospital, where he died at 11 o’clock last night. Before his death he told an interpreter that he was Michael Jevizoylon Karidis, pastor of the Greek Church of the Holy Trinity of New Orleans, La.

News of Karydis’ suicide spread quickly. Before Karydis had even died, one of the Orthodox in New Orleans, Marcos Papovich, received a telegram saying that Karydis was deathly ill in New York. “Papovich says he does not know the priest,” the New York Times reported. “Karidis lived a rather secluded life.” In a front-page story, the Biloxi Daily Herald (6/7/1901) said, “He had become demented from long work at a flying machine he was trying to invent. His workshop was a part of his home adjoining the church in which he had lived all alone for the past eighteen years.” 

With only a handful of newspaper accounts as our guide, it’s difficult to get a real sense of who Karydis was. The papers say he was from Bulgaria, but was he an ethnic Bulgarian, or a Greek? How did he end up in New Orleans? He’s supposed to have been “mentally unbalanced” and “demented” because of his work on a flying machine, but just two years later, the Wright Brothers flew an airplane in North Carolina, so the idea of a flying machine was not, in and of itself, evidence of mental instability.

When I started research for these articles on Karydis, I assumed that his suicide was an open-and-shut case. The newspapers (and presumably the police) assumed the same thing, but I’m getting a little skeptical. Isn’t it at least a little odd that he traveled all the way to New York before committing the act? This suggests the possibility that Karydis left New Orleans with no intention of killing himself. We don’t actually know why he was in New York — he’d been there at least once before, in 1886. Was he really going to collect money, as he claimed? Are we to believe that he planned all along to shoot himself, but took the trouble to journey halfway across the country and check into a hotel first?

The location of the gunshot wound is also suspicious. Who shoots himself in the side? I don’t mean to be macabre, but wouldn’t some other part of the anatomy be more logical? Isn’t it at least possible that Karydis was shot by somebody else? The problem with that theory is that Karydis was apparently conscious enough to tell an interpreter who he was — and if he could do that, you’d think he could have told the interpreter if someone had shot him. Unless he had some reason not to reveal his murderer. It’s at least within the realm of possibility that Karydis was killed either in a crime of passion, or in some sort of nefarious act (blackmail?) gone awry — and in both cases, Karydis would have had an incentive not to tell the whole story.

Why am I writing about this? Why tell such an unpleasant story, and then speculate about even more unpleasantness? I’m writing about this because it is a part of our past. This man, Fr. Misael Karydis, was the longest-tenured Orthodox priest in America at the time of his death. His parish was, for over half of his career, the only Greek church in the Western Hemisphere. He appears to have served the first Orthodox liturgy in Chicago, and possibly in other places as well. He was one of the most significant figures in 19th century, continental US Orthodoxy, and yet no one, today, has ever heard of him. I would be negligent if I didn’t tell his story.

UPDATE (12/23/09): Below, a reader named Lolajl points out that I’m wrong about the photo: “Looking at the clothes, especially the women’s dresses and their hats, I would say that this was taken around 1908 – 1914. The big hat style was very popular in this time range. Plus the dress style of the woman standing to the left (and next to the woman with the big black hat) was popular around 1910 – 1912.”

Assuming those approximate dates are correct, the priest in the photo is most likely either Fr. Chrysanthos Angelopoulos, Fr. Paisios Ferentinos, or Fr. S. Vassiliades.

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The actual first pastor of Holy Trinity seems to have been Archimandrite Stephen Andreades. He was there as early as December 1867, when he gave a homily which was translated into Russian and published the following March in Honcharenko’s Alaska Herald. I haven’t seen the homily itself, but according to Fr. Alexander Doumouras (St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, 1967), “In this sermon Fr. Andreades stated that he had been ‘invited from Greece’ to come to America and serve the parish in New Orleans. He did not state who invited him and who appointed him.”

I don’t know when Andreades left Holy Trinity, but I do know that, by 1872, Fr. Gregory Yayas was the parish priest. I’ve seen all sorts of spellings for Yayas’ name, including, “the Right Reverend Father Gregorio Therodidasme von Giagias.” I’ve only found one account of Yayas, from Elizabeth Brooks’ Prominent Women of Texas (1896). In the chapter on Mrs. V.O. King, we find the following:

The Greek became to her [Mrs. King] a familiar tongue, but only as it was spoken twenty-five hundred years ago. A new ambition seized her; the modern or Romaic Greek must be acquired. The design was scarcely formed before events were so ordered as to favor its accomplishment. Her husband removed to New Orleans to practice his profession [medicine], where, very soon, he made the acquaintance of Father Gregorio, priest of the newly-organized Greek Church in that city. The Reverend gentleman was a scholarly man and deeply cultured in both the modern and Hellenic literature of his country, but he knew not one word of English and he was thrown among people who knew not one word of Greek. When Mrs. King, therefore, proposed that he should become her teacher in the colloquial forms of his language, he was not loth to accept the charge. As the years went by, the interest of both pupil and preceptor daily grew with the progress they made, and when this relation ceased they talked together in his native tongue as freely as Greek might discuss with Greek the school of Plato in the grove of Academus.

Yayas’ tenure appears to have been rather brief, 1872 to 1874 or ’75. As best I can tell, Andreades and Yayas were the first ethnic Greek priests to serve in America.

Yayas did not have an immediate successor. It wasn’t until 1881 that Holy Trinity received a new priest. Archimandrite Misael Karydis (or Michael Kalitski, or Karidis, or Karidas, etc.) was from Philippopolis, Bulgaria, and was born sometime in the 1840s. The Chicago Herald (5/31/1886) described him as “a stout, florid-faced man, with long, wavy hair, a high forehead and thick moustache and chin beard.” The Biloxi Daily Herald (6/7/1901) said that he “resembled the pictures of the patriarchs of old, with his long flowing snowy white beard.”

Karydis was a pretty colorful figure, and in some upcoming posts, I’ll discuss his career and his tragic death.

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On July 4, 1789, after nearly five years of service, Thomas Jefferson was coming to the end of his time as US minister plenipotentiary to France. It was the eve of what would come to be known as the French revolution, but this did not prevent Jefferson from hosting a celebration to mark the recently won independence of the United States. The party was attended by many of Jefferson’s closest friends in Paris, including John Paradise, the son in law of Philip Ludwell III.

John Paradise was by any account a remarkable man: an extraordinarily gifted linguist with a talent for friendship which brought him into contact with almost all the great men of his day. English was probably only his seventh language and by all accounts he never spoke it well! He was, however, able to converse freely in Greek, Italian, Turkish and Arabic amongst others and almost certainly knew Russian. He used his gifts to teach Thomas Jefferson classical Greek whilst visiting him in Paris.

John Paradise was also an Orthodox Christian. His father, Peter Paradise, had been the British Consul in Salonika (Thessalonica) and his mother was half Greek. It is possible that his paternal grandfather was also both English and Orthodox, making John Paradise a third generation English Orthodox at the time of his birth at Salonika in April 1743. His father, Peter, had contacts with monks from Mt. Athos during his years in Salonika and it is not known whether it was these, or his marriage, that had brought him to the Church.

After his early years in Greece, John was sent to the University of Padua (modern day Italy) and ultimately to Oxford to complete his education. At some point in the 1760’s it seems that the Paradises met Philip Ludwell and his three daughters in London. On April 20, 1766 they are all recorded as partaking of the sacrament of Holy Communion at the Russian Orthodox Church in London. When Philip Ludwell III died less than a year later, Peter Paradise became one of the legal guardians of Ludwell’s three daughters. When Frances died less than a year after her father and Hannah (the eldest daughter) married in March 1769, Lucy Ludwell went to live at Peter Paradise’s London home. Barely two months later Lucy married Peter’s son John.

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, commissioned by Philip Ludwell III in 1762

Philip Ludwell III’s London house was also a home for an extended Virginian family including three of his sister Hannah’s children: Alice, Arthur and William Lee. It was William who was to marry the eldest Ludwell daughter in March 1769. She was also his first cousin. Close to the Ludwell house in Cecil St. was the London home of Benjamin Franklin, who at that time was on his second extended visit to England.  Franklin was one of the early members of the Royal Society, to which John Paradise would subsequently be elected.  Philip Ludwell III was very proud of the inventive achievements of his fellow countryman and in 1762 commissioned a portrait of Franklin.  This became Franklin’s preferred painting of himself.

Franklin was an intimate of the Ludwell household and on his return to America he sent his “best wishes to Miss Ludwell and the other ladies.”  This familial contact with Franklin was to prove vital for John Paradise and Lucy Ludwell Paradise. The division of the Virginian estates of Philip Ludwell III after his death was to prove complex and made even more so by the outbreak of war between the American colonies and the British Empire. By that time Franklin was the first US minister plenipotentiary to France. In this capacity John and Lucy Ludwell Paradise visited him in Paris in 1779. Through his office John Paradise was to be granted US citizenship in October 1780, whilst the War of Independence was still raging. It can be said therefore that one of the first (and perhaps the first) naturalized American citizen was an Orthodox Christian, a member of the Russian Orthodox Church of mixed English and Greek ethnicity!

It was not until September of 1787 that John and Lucy Ludwell Paradise were finally able to travel to their estates in Virginia. During their time in America they were able to spend four days at Mt. Vernon with General George and Martha Washington. Washington’s diary for Sunday, December 30, 1787 records that at around eleven o’clock that day “Mr. Paradise and his Lady, lately from England but now of Williamsburgh , came in on a visit.” Sadly, we have no detail of the conversation that was exchanged during their stay, although it is known that Washington suspended the normal conduct of his affairs during their visit, which was not his normal practice. As John Paradise was on intimate terms with the two most important representatives of the United States overseas (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson) and personally acquainted with so many other persons of note, it is not difficult to think that Washington would have found his visit of immense interest.

Barely two months after their visit to Mt. Vernon, the Paradises were to receive the shocking news of the death of their daughter Philippa, aged only thirteen, in London. So it was, that shortly afterward, they were to return to London. Here it was that they met the newly appointed Russian priest, the Rev. Yakov Smirnov, who was to become Lucy’s cherished spiritual father. John Paradise was to work very closely with Fr. Smirnov is 1791 in a concerted public campaign to persuade British public opinion against war with Russia. For his service in this respect Paradise was awarded a pension of £150 p.a. by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, a substantial sum for its time.

It also seems likely that Paradise recruited the assistance of Frederick North, the future Earl Guildford, whose father Lord North was British Prime Minister during the American War of Independence. The young North was secretly baptized as an Orthodox Christian in Corfu in 1791 and at the same time was composing and publishing sonnets in praise of Catherine the Great! When John Paradise died in 1795 he left Frederick North some of his most precious possessions, thereby indicating the closeness of the relationship they must have enjoyed during his lifetime.

I have only briefly skimmed the facts of John Paradise’s life and adventures here. There is more to be written. But it must be of considerable interest that a man who was clearly an active Orthodox Christians was on intimate terms with the first three Presidents of the United States. James Boswell in his famous “Life of Johnson” penned the best obituary of him. He wrote: “John Paradise (1743 1795). Son of the British Consul at Salonica and a native woman of that country. He was distinguished by his learning and a very general acquaintance with accomplished persons of almost all nations” (Boswell’s Life of Johnson, vol. IV, p. 364, note 2).

Nicholas Chapman, Yonkers, NY, December 14, 2009

Orthodoxy in Colonial Virginia (Part 2) is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

For the most part, the attitudes we find towards the Orthodox Church, typically referred to as the “Greek Church” among southerners, were either negative or ambivalent. There were some individuals, particularly George Fitzhugh, who praised the Orthodox Church, but for the most part southern attitudes towards Orthodoxy were informed by either a prejudice against anything that seemed Catholic or were filtered through an Enlightenment lens. Much of what southerners knew of Orthodoxy was through Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon took an unfavorable view of the eastern churches and wrote of the rise of Islam thusly:

More pure than the system of Zoroaster, more liberal than the law of Moses, the religion of Mahomet might seem less inconsistent with reason than the creed of mystery and superstition which, in the seventh century, disgraced the simplicity of the Gospel.

Southerners consistently praised Islam and Muhammad for limiting the influence of the Eastern Churches. C.A. Woodruff, who wrote for the Southern Quarterly Review, judged Islam “more pure” than the “depraved” Orthodox churches that were existing in the Near East. Those churches had fallen into “gross superstition,” through the “idolatrous introduction of images as objects of worship,” and the “deification of saints and martyrs.” An article in the Southern Quarterly Review on Peter the Great contrasted the “self-control” enforced by Islam with the “merely nominal” Greek Christianity adopted by the Russians. John Fletcher, a New Orleans Orientalist and author, also credited Muhammad and Islam with limiting the influence of the “degenerate” Eastern Church, even though he argued that Islam adopted the “errors” of the Eastern Churches to mollify Greek Christians. Just what these errors were, Fletcher does not say.

An article that appeared in the 18 April, 1846 issue of the Southern Quarterly Review described the condition of life in Palestine and Jerusalem in particular, with a great deal of attention given to what the author considered the “nominal” Christians of the Eastern churches. The author ridiculed the descent of the Holy Fire at Pascha as a “farce” and compared the gathering of the faithful in the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre as more akin to a heathen ceremony or an Indian war dance. “Of the iniquity of the bishop, who thus annually deceives these deluded pilgrims, it is not necessary to speak,” he writes.

The article is an indictment of the worship and lifestyle of eastern Christians, and the author wonders how such a brand of Christianity could ever attract anyone:

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Kanellas’ letter, which runs over 900 words, gives a lot of details on his life and ministry. We already know that he was born in 1837. In 1880, while probably just a monk, he was invited to become the priest of the Greek church in Calcutta, India. Bishop Dionysios of Gefthia quickly moved Kanellas through the ranks of the clergy, all the way up to archimandrite.

Apparently, the Calcutta parish had their priests on five-year terms. After his first term ended, Kanellas re-upped for another five years, and the community gave him a raise of 50 British pounds. Kanellas explains (translation by Fortomas):

But unfortunately, becoming sick before the first year ended, I resigned and traveled to Europe for one year for my therapy. Then I went to the United States, not for work, but to visit. Unfortunately, here another illness was made manifest to me, on which I spent my money, and because of this need, I took refuge in being the rector and teacher of the in California Russian Church, with a very small wage, because I was not a member of the Russian Church.

After some years, Hierarch Vladimir was called back, and his replacement, Hierarch Nicholas, came with his entourage, and new staff consisting of six priests and deacons. He let the old staff go, especially me not being Russian.

I then went towards the east, to my friends and countrymen. Then, the Birmingham Association “Lord Byron” invited me to be the regular rector, under the appointment of the Sacred Synod of the Church of Greece, with a wage, which you can see in the letter of invitation, and so I continued for eight whole years, having as my main concern the establishment and advancement of the Church.

Bp Nicholas Ziorov took over the Russian Diocese in 1892, and Kanellas didn’t move to Birmingham until 1902 or 1903, so he must have spent a whole decade roaming around the Eastern US. He served in Birmingham until 1911, and he goes on to note that, at the time, he was one of the only Orthodox priests in the entire American South. In addition to his duties in Alabama, he visited the Greek churches in Atlanta and Memphis (among other places).

Health problems seem to have plagued Kanellas — they drove him out of Calcutta, and, in 1911, he began to have issues with a cataract in his right eye. He resigned his post in Birmingham and had surgery. The Holy Synod of Greece then appointed him to St. Nicholas Church in Tarpon Springs, Florida, but within a year, Kanellas became ill and had to resign yet again. He moved to Arkansas, hoping that the thermal springs would cure his ailment. In Little Rock, he happened to meet a handful of Greeks. He continues:

There I came into religious contacts with a few from the community so that I could be invited to serve here, finally being hired as the regular rector. But unfortunately, right away in the beginning and in the first meeting of the few that I called, it was forbidden for me to take an active part in the establishment and advancement of the Church. Certain members said that the Community would take care of the Church as a whole: I was to only liturgize not as I should have wanted to liturgize, but as they wanted me to, that is at a quick speed because their occupations did not allow them time to allot for prayers and churches.

Take note of this: the Community so far is comprised of 17 families and 150 people, from 4 regions (of Greece). They are Kravarites, Argirites, Maniates, and Peloponisians, who are from different cities. Instead of something happening, it does not happen without much noise.

The Church did not advance from then until today – there is a committee for the collection of funds for the preservation of the so called Church (because I liturgize in some sort of hall, and after the end of the liturgy, I need to quickly transfer the holy vessels, because another organization rents the hall).

By 1918 — when he wrote this letter to Metaxakis – Kanellas had had enough. He was over eighty, and he was tired of dealing with all the drama in Little Rock. He put out the word that he was going to leave, and began to search for a replacement. As it happened, several priests wrote to him about the job, and Kanellas passed these contacts on to the parish trustees. But the trustees didn’t bother to respond, and Kanellas, frustrated, told Metaxakis that he was considering a return to Birmingham. Of the Little Rock parish, he said to the archbishop, “From this Community, do not wait for any show of response, or any written acts.”

And yet, in the end, Kanellas did not leave. He stayed in Little Rock for another three years, dying there in 1921. He had lived through a turbulent period of American Orthodox history, from the scandalous era of Bp Vladimir in San Francisco, through the conversion of the Uniates and the mass immigration of the Greeks, all the way up to the founding of the Greek Archdiocese. He may not have been the very first Greek priest in America, but he was the first important one, and, by all accounts, he was a good man.

Fr. Kallinikos Kanellas: filling in the gaps is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

It will come as a surprise to many, if not all Orthodox Christians in America, to learn that the story of their Church here begins not in 1794 but in 1738. Not in Russian Alaska, but rather British Virginia. Furthermore, what began in 1738 was not a mere blip on the radar, a passing moment of no historical import. Otherwise, how could it be that the daughter of a man described as “renowned in early Virginia history “(Annette Gordon-Reed: The Hemingses of Monticello) would write to President Thomas Jefferson early in his second term of office (Aug 27, 1805) “With the blessing of God I am now in good health, and with my priest’s blessing and command who is the Rev. Mr. Smirnov.”

Where does this story begin and who are its principal characters? Where are there descendants today and what became of their heritage of Orthodox faith and life that lasted for at least sixty/seventy years? My early research is only beginning to answer some of these questions, whilst posing many more.

Let’s begin with Colonel Philip Ludwell III, a third generation Virginian. He was the man who in 1753 gave George Washington his commission in the army and they exchanged frequent correspondence. Ludwell was a cousin of Washington’s wife, Martha. He was also a relative of Confederate General Robert E Lee and Presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, amongst many other distinguished figures of American history. His grandfather, Philip Ludwell I was the first British Governor of the Carolinas and his father, Philip Ludwell II a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and Rector of the College of William and Mary. (The second oldest college in the USA and its first University.) Ludwell’s English manservant, John Wayles, was the father in law of Thomas Jefferson and the father of Jefferson’s African American mistress, Sally Hemings!

When, where and why did Colonel Philip Ludwell become Orthodox? He was received in the Russian Orthodox Church in London, on December 31, 1738 (Old style) by Fr. Bartholomew Cassano, a half French, Alexandrian Greek whose wife Elizabeth (nee Burton) is one of the first recorded English converts to Orthodoxy.  Ludwell would have been twenty-two years old at the time. His reception was authorised at a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Church of Russia, who blessed him to take the Holy Gifts back to Virginia and which approved of his translation into English of the “Orthodox Confession” written by Peter Moghila, Metropolitan of Kiev, one hundred years earlier.  They also granted him a dispensation to continue attending the Anglican church in Virginia, taking into account his position as “an important Royal official” and recognising that “apart from the Province of Pennsylvania, all religions but Protestantism are banned.”

His extensive business interests seem to have led him to travel frequently between Virginia and London. The London parish register documents his participation in the sacraments of confession and Holy Communion on twelve occasions between August 5 1760 and his death on March 14, 1767. (This is very frequent by the standards of the time when once a year communion was the norm.) On April 3, 1762 (Holy Wednesday) he brought his three daughters to be chrismated and somewhat unusually also stood as their sponsor.

His health began to fail him during 1766 and the register records that on Sunday, September 17, 1766, “The sick Philip Ludwell received Holy Communion in his house during the day.” On February 22, 1767 it states “the sick Mr. Philip Ludwell confessed and received Holy Communion, and was anointed with oil at his home.” Shortly thereafter on March 14, 1767 “Philip Ludwell died at five o’clock in the afternoon” and that the following day the “Canon after the departure of the soul from the body” was read at the church. On March 19, 1767 (the fourth day of Great Lent) his funeral took place. On March 22,1767 he was buried in the crypt of the church of St. Mary Bow. (A small Anglican Church to the east of the City of London, which at that time was a distinct village apart from the city.)

Another hint of the intensity of Ludwell’s commitment to the Church is found in Edward L Bond’s 2004 work Spreading the Gospel in Colonial Virginia. Writing in the context of what Bond describes as  “Private devotional exercise common among some of Virginia’s elite gentleman” he states that “Philip Ludwell  III transcribed from the Greek his own translation of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom “The Divine and Holy Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom as it is performed without a Deacon.” ”  Did Ludwell’s so called “private devotion” set him on a path to Orthodoxy? Perhaps it is so.

For now, I have only one clear statement, which is found in a letter written in 1791 by the Russian Ambassador in London, Count Vorontsov to his brother Alexander in St. Petersburg. The relevant passage is actually focusing on John Paradise (of whom there is much more to say.) Vorontsov writes “By a strange coincidence an Englishman, a friend of his (i.e. Paradise’s) father’s, who had some property in Virginia, took it into his head to read in the original all the Fathers of the Church and become convinced that our religion was the only true one; he forsook his own to study it and brought up his only daughter who afterwards married my friend Mr. Paradise.”

As mentioned previously, Ludwell in fact had three daughters, but only one was alive in 1791 and known to Count Vorontsov. All three daughters had been baptized as Orthodox Christians and at least one (Lucy who wrote to Jefferson in 1805) was married in the Church. In my next articles I will turn to their stories and those of the men they married.

Nicholas Chapman, Herkimer, NY, Nov 11, 2009

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Fr. Theodore Prussianos, pastor of Evangelismos (Annunciation) Greek Orthodox Church in Philadelphia, 1905

Newspaper reporters were amused by the difference, and every year, there would be a spate of articles on the “Russian Christmas,” or the “Greek New Year.” For instance, here’s something from the Philadelphia Inquirer (12/24/1905):

When the thousands of children of this city upon whom the favor of good old St. Nicholas will fall this year have lost the keen delight first occasioned by the sight of their toys there will be about three hundred little ones who will still be wondering what Christmas morn will bring forth. There will also be about one thousand adults who have not yet satisfied their inclination for gift-giving.

It will not be until the seventh day of January that Christmas Day will dawn for these people.

It is due to the fact that they are communicants of the Greek Orthodox Church that their Christmas is so belated in comparison with that of the Western churches, the difference in time — thirteen days — being caused by the Greek Church’s adherence to the Julian calendar. All the Western churches use the Gregorian calendar, it having been adopted early in the eighteenth century.

Even before a portion of global Orthodoxy adopted the New Calendar in the 1920s, some American Orthodox people thought that a change should be made. On Pascha in 1906, Greek laborers in Gurley, Arkansas got into a fight over ”whether the modern or the Greek Church calendar should be observed in celebrating the Christian festival.” The fight turned into a drunken riot, and it got so bad that the National Guard had to be called in. At least seven men died, and many more were injured. (Cf. New York Times, 4/17/1906.)

Fortunately, the calendar issue didn’t always lead to such turmoil. The Greeks in Columbia, South Carolina peacefully took matters into their own hands. From The State (1/8/1915):

Yesterday was Christmas day, under the Julian calendar, which is that retained by the Greek Orthodox church, but the Greek colony in Columbia, comprising upwards of 100 persons, lacking a church, did not observe the day. Louis Malloy, proprietor of a restaurant, said that he and his fellow countrymen in Columbia had adopted the Gregorian calendar and therefore their Christmas is December 24.

Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine

I should emphasize, both the chaos in Arkansas and the unilateral lay action in Columbia were anomalies; the vast majority of American Orthodox kept strictly to the Julian Calendar. In 1917, Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine drafted an article on the calendar issue. I don’t think it was ever published; I found a handwritten copy in the OCA archives, and I’ve never seen it anywhere else.

It is very inconvenient, for the members of the Holy Orthodox Church to be observing the Great Festivals and fasts on days other than those on which Christians who belong to the Western Patriarchate and Protestantism observe.  Many faithful sons of Orthodoxy have lost their positions because they have kept Fasts and Festivals on days which have not coincided with those of their Western brethren.  Work would not wait for them and therefore, others stepped into their “jobs.” In many respects it takes a martyr to be a member of the Holy Orthodox Church in America – especially in the City of Greater New York.

The Holy Orthodox Church observes what is known as the Julian Calendar.  The Roman Church and all Protestant Bodies, on the other hand, observe the Gregorian.  At present there is (since 1901) thirteen days difference.  That is, the Gregorian Calendar runs ahead of the Julian and unless some conclusion is universally accepted as to the best method of correcting the whole Calendar the difference will become greater as the years come and go.

Who is at fault for this divergency?  Historians will not lay the blame on the Orthodox.  Rome has ever been the transgressor in such matters.  Her assumption of the doctrine of “supremacy” has given her the idea that all Christendom must bow before her.  Four hundred years ago the Orthodox Church had little consideration in the minds of the West.  Protestantism even worried more over Papal doctrines, interval abuses and superstitions than about the ancient ways and unblemished truths kept sacredly in the bosom of the Holy Orthodox Church of the East.

It may, indeed, be inconvenient for the Orthodox Church members in the West to go by the Julian Calendar and while Western Christians may count their Eastern brethren archaic in their observations yet the keeping of the Julian Calendar here in the West serves a good purpose.  It is a standing protest against the encroachments of Rome on the rights of Christendom and suggests investigation on the part of seekers after Ancient ways and truths amongst Protestants.

So, according to Irvine, the calendar difference could actually be a blessing in disguise, providing an opportunity for evangelism. He then went into considerable detail about the differences between the two calendars, and why Rome was wrong to have arbitrarily changed things. He then concluded:

According to this mode of reckoning, and because of the Church of the West’s disregard under the Roman Pope Gregory XIII in the 16^th Century of the Canons of the General Council of Niece, there is sometimes several weeks difference between the two Churches in holding Easter. This creates confusion and is destructive to the Faith.

Again: — Whose fault is it? Surely it is not that of the Holy Orthodox Church. Being the Mother Church of Christendom she must protect the Canons of the General Councils which are binding upon all Christians. The Western Church is only a part of the Catholic Church, in fact her disobedient child.

For the information of inquirers it may be added that, Easter will fall on the same day for both Churches in the years 1916, ’22, ’30, ’36, ’39, ’42, ’43, etc., etc. In the intervening years there will be from one to several weeks apart in the observance of the Blessed Day – the greatest of Feasts which ought to bring us all together to the Empty Tomb of our One Lord and Risen Saviour. Whose fault is it that we are divided?

Of course, in the end, most of the Orthodox in America did switch to the New Calendar (with only the Paschal cycle remaining on the Old). That change, which was first implemented in 1924, is a story for another day.

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Archimandrite Arsenios Davis of Savannah, participating in the cornerstone-laying ceremony at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Brunswick, Georgia, in 1911.

Officially, of course, the Orthodox Church has never been in communion with the Protestant Episcopal Church. Yes, there’s been some close dialogue over the years, and once upon a time even St. Raphael blessed his people to seek out Episcopal priests in extreme situations (though he soon rescinded that permission). Still, Orthodoxy has never entered into communion with the Episcopalians.

Officially.

Unofficially, things occasionally get a little fuzzy. Case in point: Archimandrite Arsenios Davis, a Greek priest in the American South during the early 20th century. Davis (or Davids) was an Anglicized name; Fr. Arsenios was an ethnic Greek through-and-through. Born, most likely, in the mid-1860s, Davis held the title “priest of the Holy Orthodox Church of Savannah and Archimandrite of Southern Georgia and Northern Florida.” He was pastor of St. Paul’s Church in Savannah, Georgia from 1909 to 1916. After that, he spent three years as the priest of St. Nicholas in Tarpon Springs, Florida. The last traces I have of Davis are from 1922, when he visited Columbus, Georgia, and baptized some Greek children.

When he was the priest in Savannah, in 1911, Davis visited Brunswick, Georgia, to participate in a cornerstone-laying ceremony at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Brunswick had no Orthodox church, so a lot of the town’s Greeks attended St. Mark’s. From a local newspaper:

It is appropriate to dwell for a moment on the presence of the Greek Archimandrite. There are many Greeks in this city, who, having no church of their own communion, have for many years and especially during the rectorate of Mr. Boykin, sought and received the ministrations of the American [Episcopal] Church. They have been placed by their own clergy under the pastoral care of the rector, and are frequently seen in large numbers at the services of the Church. This has led to very close relations between the clergy and Bishop of our own Church with the Greek clergy, and it is no uncommon thing to see them at the greatest functions of either communion.

At the most recent celebration of Greek Independence Day, the newspaper continues, the Episcopal bishop was invited to “pontificate” at St. Paul’s Greek church in Savannah. Meanwhile, “at the last annual convention of the diocese of Georgia, Father Davis was present in the chancel at the opening service, and received the Blessed Sacrament at the hands of this Bishop.”

At the cornerstone-laying ceremony, reports the paper,

Father Davis was present in his own vestments (as the accompanying photograph shows), and addressed his own people, urging them to more regular attendance at the services of the American Church. At the Holy Eucharist following he occupied a stall on the right hand of the rector, and after the Gospel advanced to the altar and read the Epistle and Gospel in Greek. Thus Georgia seems to be “setting the pace” for intercommunion with the Orthodox Church, not by talking or discussing, but by “doing things” in a quiet matter of course way.

This is the only example I’ve yet seen of an American Orthodox priest openly communing with Episcopalians.

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I don’t mean to denigrate this position; while I personally think the flag-planting theory oversimplifies things, it certainly has its merits, as well as many supporters. A lot of people make an argument along the following lines: “The Russian Orthodox Church was the first Orthodox Church to establish itself in America; therefore, it had jurisdiction over all of America. And since it granted autocephaly to the OCA in 1970, now the OCA has exclusive canonical authority over the entire North American continent.”

It occurred to me that much the same argument could be made on a state-by-state basis. The United States is, after all, a “federal” country, right? (Or at least, we’re supposed to be, according to our Constitution.) Couldn’t you make the argument that while the Russian Church (and, by extension, the OCA) may have flag-planting rights in Alaska and California, the other 48 states are up for grabs?

I don’t actually think this is a viable theory, but I thought it might, at minimum, be interesting to see what exactly such a theory would mean. For instance, the Greeks established the first Orthodox parishes in Georgia, Missouri, Idaho, and twenty other states. The Syrians were the first in Nebraska, the Serbs in Montana. (And, yes, I realize that the Syrians and Serbs were technically a part of the Russian Mission in the early 20th century.)

My research is far from complete; I’m presenting what amounts to partial results thus far. For some states, I’m not yet entirely certain who was the first. I would very much appreciate help from any readers who might have additions or corrections.

With that out of the way, here are the fifty U.S. states (plus the District of Columbia) and their first Orthodox parishes:

Alabama - Greek (Birmingham, 1909). Another possibility is an early Russian parish in Brookside, which began sometime between 1906 and 1911. (For a discussion of the Brookside parish, see the comments below.)

Alaska - Russian (Kodiak, 1794). Of course.

Arizona – Serbian (Globe, by at least 1916).

Sign in Slovak, Arkansas (courtesy Mickey Hodges)

Arkansas – Russian or Greek (Slovak, ca. 1895-1918?, or Little Rock, 1913). Slovak (or Slovaktown) was a town of Eastern European immigrants to Arkansas, and it was founded in 1894. I’ve heard rumors that a Russian church was founded not long after the town itself, but I can’t find it on the official Russian lists of parishes in 1906, 1911, or 1918. The last service inthe Slovak church took place in 1948. (See the update at the bottom of this article for more information.) The oldest surviving Orthodox church in Arkansas is the Greek parish in Little Rock, founded in 1913. Depending on when the Slovak parish was established, it’s possible that the Little Rock Greek church was the first in Arkansas.

California – Russian (Fort Ross, 1825 or San Francisco, 1868). There was a Russian chapel at Fort Ross from 1825 to 1841. During this period, California was a part of Mexico; it wouldn’t become an American territory until 1847. The first parish in the American period was begun in San Francisco in 1868, and it still exists (after numerous name and building changes) as Holy Trinity Cathedral (OCA).

Colorado – Russian (Denver & Pueblo, 1903). Both parishes joined the Russian Mission in 1903. I’m not sure when the Denver Greek cathedral was founded; it’s possible that it predates the Russian churches.

Connecticut – Russian (Bridgeport, 1894).

Delaware – Russian (Wilmington, ca. 1911-1913).

District of Columbia – Greek (Washington, 1904).

Florida – Greek (Tarpon Springs, 1907).

Georgia – Greek (Savannah, 1900).

Hawaii – Russian (Fort Elizabeth, 1815). That’s right, 1815. For a good history of Orthodoxy in Hawaii, check out this Orthodox Wiki article.

Idaho – Greek (Pocatello, 1915).

Illinois – Greek & Russian (Chicago, 1892). We’ve discussed the early Chicago parishes in earlier posts, and we’ll continue to do so in the future.

Indiana - Greek (Indianapolis, 1910).

Iowa – Greek & Syrian (Waterloo & Cedar Rapids, 1914). Both parishes began in 1914, and when the founding dates are in the same year, I’m calling it a tie.

Kansas - Serbian (Kansas City, 1904). Of course, in 1904 the Serbian churches were technically a part of the Russian mission, but many (including Kansas City) functioned almost independently, obtaining their priests directly from Serbia and being run, for all practical purposes, by lay boards of trustees.

Kentucky – Greek (Louisville, 1927). There were Greeks in Kentucky by the turn of the century, and there may have been a parish prior to 1927.

Louisiana - Greek (New Orleans, 1865).

Maine – Greek (Saco, 1909).

Maryland - Greek (Baltimore, 1894 & 1906). A Greek parish was founded in Baltimore in 1894, but it lasted only a few months. The next Orthodox church in Maryland – also Greek, and also in Baltimore — was established in 1906.

Massachusetts – Greek & Syrian (Lowell & Boston, 1900).

Michigan – Russian (Detroit, 1907).

Minnesota – Russian (Minneapolis, 1892). This was the parish of St. Alexis Toth.

Mississippi – Syrian (Vicksburg, 1908).

Missouri – Greek (St. Louis, 1904).

Montana – Serbian (Butte, 1904).

Nebraska – Syrian (Kearney, 1903).

Nevada – Greek (McGill/Ely, 1910). As I indicated in the 2/24/10 update (below), St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church began in McGill in 1910. Early sources list it as being located in nearby Ely, but it was actually located in McGill. In 1940, a separate church was founded in Ely. Dianna Callaway explains:

The Greek people of Ely had always traveled to McGill for church. St. Barbara’s had decided to build a fellowship hall in Ely around 1940. At the last minute the Ely people decided that they wanted to build their own parish. Hence, the beginning of St. Alexios Greek Orthodox Church in Ely, Nevada.

Both churches are still in operation, though neither has a resident priest.

New Hampshire – Greek (Manchester, 1905).

New Jersey – Russian (Garfield, 1898).

New Mexico – Greek (Albuquerque, 1944).

New York – Russian (New York City, 1870). That parish was really more of an embassy chapel, and it closed in 1883. The oldest surviving parish in New York is Holy Trinity Greek Cathedral, founded in 1892.

North Carolina – Greek (Asheville, 1922). One of the other Greek parishes may predate Asheville. The 1916 Census of Religious Bodies lists no Orthodox churches in the state, so the first parish would have been sometime after that.

North Dakota – Russian (Wilton, ca. 1913-18).

Ohio – Russian (Cleveland, 1896).

Oklahoma - Russian (Hartshorne, by at least 1906). This was founded as a Uniate parish in 1897. I don’t know the precise date when it joined the Russian Mission, but it would have been close to the turn of the century.

Oregon – Russian (Portland, 1895). The Russian chapel in Portland fell into disrepair, and by 1907, the Greeks founded their own church, which is the oldest surviving parish in Oregon.

Pennsylvania – Russian (Wilkes-Barre, 1892).

Rhode Island – Greek (Providence, 1905).

South Carolina – Greek (Charleston & Spartanburg, 1911).

South Dakota – Greek (Sioux Falls, ca. 1959). There might be something earlier, but as of the 1936 Census of Religious Bodies, there were still no Orthodox churches in South Dakota.

Tennessee – Greek (Memphis, ca. 1915-16). The Greeks also started a parish in Nashville in 1917.

Texas – Russian (Galveston, 1895). The Galveston parish, Ss. Constantine and Helen, is now under the Serbian Church.

Utah – Greek (Salt Lake City, 1905).

Vermont – Russian (Springfield, 1906).

Virginia – Greek (Norfolk, 1911).

Washington – Russian (Seattle, 1892).

West Virginia – Syrian (Charleston, 1905).

Wisconsin – Not sure. I know that Greek parishes in Milwaukee and Sheboygan both existed by 1911. According to the OCA website, its parish in Lublin was founded in 1908, though I’m told that the oldest parish in Wisconsin is St. John the Baptist (Russian?) in the small rural town of Huron. The official Russian Archdiocese list of parishes, published in 1911, includes none in Wisconsin. It’s possible that Lublin and/or Huron began as Uniate communities and later became Orthodox, but I can’t confirm this. In any event, by 1916, there were three Russian parishes in Wisconsin. At the moment, who got there first is unclear.

Wyoming – Greek (Cheyenne, 1922). I don’t know when the Greek churches in Rock Springs and Casper were founded, and it’s possible that one of them predates Cheyenne. Regardless, I’m confident that the first Orthodox parish in Wyoming was Greek. In 1916, there were no Orthodox churches in the state. By 1936, there were two — both of them Greek.

Adding it all up, that’s (roughly) 22 states for the Greeks, 18 for the Russians, 3 for the Syrians, and 3 for the Serbs, plus several states with ties (that is, multiple first parishes in the same year).

Another interesting way to look at this is to divide the states into regions – say, East, Midwest, South, and West. In the East, Midwest, and West, the Greeks and Russians are basically even. In the South, the Greeks dominate, with 9 of 13 states. In fact, the Syrians and the Russians are even in the South, with two states apiece.

Let me be clear: I am not arguing that one or another jurisdiction has special rights to any given state. I am simply pointing out 1) what the first parishes in each state were, and 2) which jurisdictions might theoretically have claim on which states, if the flag-planting theory were applied to states rather than the entire continent.

As I said earlier, the above list is far from complete. If you have any information at all that would make the list more accurate, please comment below or email me at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com.

UPDATE (9/1/09): Isa Almisry points out that I have the wrong date for the Chicago parishes, which were founded in 1892 (not 1894, as originally reported). I’ve corrected the entry above.

Also, thanks to Stephen Smith for sending some interesting articles on the history of Slovak/Slovaktown, Arkansas. One of these articles, from the Stuttgart Daily Leader (May 16, 1980), indicates that Slovak’s first Russian church building was constructed in 1918. A Roman Catholic church (Ss. Cyril & Methodius) was founded in the town’s early years, near the turn of the century, but the Orthodox church seems to have come along later. As I originally noted, the Slovak parish does not appear on the official Russian Mission lists of 1906, 1911, or 1918. I have heard rumors that St. John Kochurov of Chicago visited Slovak; St. John returned to Russia in 1907, so obviously, such a visit must have taken place before then. But the fact that he visited doesn’t necessarily mean there was a parish; it simply means that there were Orthodox Christians present. Given the lack of evidence for a parish in Slovak prior to 1918, I’m inclined to say that the Greek church in Little Rock (founded in 1913) is the first Orthodox parish in Arkansas.

Finally, thanks to Kathleen Barngrover, who, on our Facebook page, made the following comment:

St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in rural Huron, WI is the oldest in WI. The area was settled by Russians, Ukrainians in the logging industry. Holy Assumption in Lublin, WI just celebrated their centenial last year 2008.

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And as we’ve also discussed, there were Greeks and other Orthodox Christians living in New Orleans in the 1860s. In fact, they had been there for several decades already. The city was a major port, and it became an early center for Greek cotton merchants and sailors. A few weeks after Honcharenko’s liturgy in New York, the New York Times reported:

Father Agapius, the Russo-Greek priest, now residing in this city, will leave in a few days for New-Orleans, where there are about 300 Sclavonians [sic] and others who belong to the communion of his church. The Father will make a short stay in New-Orleans for the purpose of baptizing those who desire it.[1]

Upon arriving in New Orleans, Honcharenko wrote a letter to the city’s Orthodox Christians. This letter appeared in the New Orleans Times on April 11:

Beloved Children of the Orthodox Oriental Church in New Orleans:

Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, is pleased not to leave the members of our branch of the Holy Apostolic Church to remain any longer without the enjoyment of their own ecclesiastical services.

The Divine Mind has sent my humility — His Evangelist — to this New World, to gather together the scattered sheep and invite them again in the privileges of the Church.

I therefore come that I may show you how to so walk in the church militant, and to receive the Holy Sacraments, that you may be the better prepared for the church triumphant.

After spending some time in the Northern States of this great Republic I have just arrived in your city. I intend to remain here only until the 22nd of April — through Passion and Easter weeks.

I earnestly recommend you to prepare yourselves by fasting and prayer for confession and holy communion — yourselves and your dear children.

The divine liturgy, according to the Orthodox Oriental Church, will be celebrated by divine permission on Saturday next, April 15th, at 10 1/2 A.M., in St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Camp street, corner of Gaiennie. Those desiring to attend will please call at my present residence, No. 7 St. Ann street, Jackson Square, where I may be found every morning, excepting on Saturday next, until 12 o’clock M.

Your affectionate brother in Christ and Missionary to America,

AGAPIUS HONCHARENKO
Priest of the Orthodox Oriental Church[2]

Honcharenko is widely reported to have been the first pastor of the New Orleans parish (for instance, the website of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral refers to him as “the first priest of the Community”). But really, Honcharenko was only in New Orleans for a visit (cf. his above statement, “I intend to remain here only until the 22nd of April”), and he returned to New York soon thereafter. He soon moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he continued his colorful and controversial career (about which, more to come).

Incidentally, about St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the site of the first Orthodox liturgy in the American South — the church of Honcharenko’s day was built in the mid-1850s, replacing an earlier structure. But New Orleans surrendered to the North early in the Civil War, and from 1862 to 1865, St. Paul’s was closed and the church was used to stable Union horses.[3] The Civil War officially ended on April 9, 1865, and Honcharenko served liturgy on April 15 — in other words, that Orthodox liturgy must have been one of the first services in the newly-restored St. Paul’s. Unfortunately, the structure no longer exists; it burned in a fire in 1891.

The New Orleans Orthodox parish went on to build a church of its own, named for the Holy Trinity. Their first full-time pastor was a Fr. Stephen Andreades, who was apparently “invited from Greece” to come to New Orleans. We know that Andreades was in New Orleans by at least December of 1867, which makes him the first Orthodox parish priest in the contiguous United States.[4] In future posts, we’ll discuss both the life of Fr. Agapius Honcharenko and the early history of the New Orleans parish.

____________________________________________________________
[1] “General City News,” New York Times (March 26, 1865), 8.
[2] “The Orthodox Oriental Church,” New Orleans Times (April 11, 1865), 8.
[3] “History,” St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
[4] Fr. Alexander Doumouras, “Greek Orthodox Communities in America Before World War I,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 11:4 (1967), 179.

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Government records show an unofficial memorandum mentioning “Greek Company A,” Louisiana Militia, 1861. The company included a captain, three lieutenants, eight non-commissioned officers and twenty privates. Although it was called “Greek,” the list included other Orthodox people residing in New Orleans after 1860.[1]

A few months ago, I mentioned this fact to the pastor of Holy Trinity Greek Cathedral in New Orleans. He’d never heard such a story; nevertheless, it’s all true. Here’s a note from the May 28, 1861 issue of the Daily True Delta, an old New Orleans newspaper:

Our Greek fellow citizens are emulating the public spirit of other nationalities, and are organizing a company. The old blood which animated the heart of heroic Greece will be found yet strong in the veins of her children resident among us.[2]

Within only a few days, there was trouble. And, in a precursor to the next 150 years of American Orthodox history, this dispute was all about nationality. From the Daily True Delta on June 1:

The Greek company recently formed, for lack of other employment, has become split into parties, and the excitement of internal feuds supplies the place of more legitimate hostilities. One party strenuously opposes the entrance into the company of any but [illegible] Pure Greeks, while the other favors the admission of men of all nationalities. An embittered contest of factions led to personal collisions, in which the sharp logic of steel was used by the opposing parties, as the only argument which would convince obstinate doubters on either side. Chartres street, near Madison, was this morning the scene of the last animated debate between the opponents. Three or four of the contenstants were considerably worried by “gentlemen on the other side,” one of whom was sent to the hospital, one is lying at the company’s armory and two were conducted to the Second district lock-up.[3]

Just a few days after that incident, another member of the Greek regiment, Alexandro Philipuso, “was attacked and severly wounded with knives, by some persons [...] who from their language are supposed to have been Sicilians.”[4]

The last news I’ve found of the Greek regiment comes from June 20, 1861. The Daily True Delta reported simply,

There has been some trouble in the Greek company of volunteers, and five of them have been arrested on a charge of larceny, proferred, as we understand, by some of their own officers. This is bad for the Greeks.[5]

Yes, it was bad for the Greeks. I don’t know what became of the Greek regiment, but it sure doesn’t sound like they would have been very useful in battle.

____________________________________________________________
[1] Fr Alexander Doumouras, “Parish Development” in Constance J. Tarasar, gen. ed., Orthodox America 1794-1976 (Syosset, NY: The Orthodox Church in America Department of History and Archives, 1975), 38.
[2] “A Greek Company,” Daily True Delta (May 28, 1861), 1.
[3] “Greek Meets Greek,” Daily True Delta (June 1, 1861), 1.
[4] “Recovering,” Daily True Delta (June 12, 1861), 1.
[5] “The Greeks,” Daily True Delta (June 20, 1861), 1.

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