The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas
Firsts
Nicholas Chapman: Was Fr. Samuel Domien a Greek Catholic? Part 3
01 year ago
by Nicholas Chapman
in Firsts
Editor’s note: What follows is the last of three articles by Nicholas Chapman on Fr. Samuel Domien, the first Orthodox priest known to have set foot in the Western Hemisphere. Domien was fascinated with electricity and became friends with Benjamin Franklin, who mentions Domien in his letters. To read Nicholas’ original article on Domien, from back in March, click here. To read the first article in this latest series, click here, and to read the second article in the series, click here.
In a recent article on this website I introduced Fr. Samuel Domien as the first Orthodox priest in the Americas. I acknowledged that this statement contradicts the only known published research about Domien found in two articles by Demetrius Dvoichenko-Markov:
1. A Rumanian Priest in Colonial America, (published in the October 1955 issue of The American Slavic and East European Review.)
and
2.Benjamin Franklin and the first American Romanian-Relations (Cahiers roumains d’etudes litteraires 1/1977 – The Romanian Book of Literary Studies, a French language publication of the University of Bucharest.) I am indebted to Matthew Namee for finding this second work.
In both of these essays, Markov takes the view that Domien was not an Orthodox priest, but rather a Greek Catholic (Uniate) clergyman. I believe that all of his arguments for reaching this conclusion are weak and do not stand up to serious examination. I hope that I can retain the interest of the reader whilst showing in some detail why I reach the opposite conclusion to Markov. I will do this by introducing a substantial amount of recently unearthed materials that further evidence the level of awareness of Orthodoxy in eighteenth century America.
Why did Fr Samuel Domien leave Transylvania?
As mentioned earlier Markov suggests that Domien left Transylvania in 1747 to further his education, with support from the Vatican. Perhaps The Boston Gazette of January 26,1748 offers an alternative reason. In that issue it publishes an Extract of a Letter from Transylvania dated August 23. (Presumably 1747) The letter describes in fairly apocalyptic terms and great detail the progress of a plaque of locusts across the Transylvanian countryside. The locusts are said to be of “an enourmous size” and they eat “the Leaves, the Grass, the Cabbages, the Melons, and Cucumbers to the very Roots. “ So starvation could well have been a factor in Domien’s departure from his native land.
Orthodoxy and knowledge of Latin
Markov argues that Domien’s knowledge of Latin is further evidence that he is a Greek Catholic rather than an Orthodox. This argument fails to give credence to the importance of knowledge of the Latin to the Orthodox in Eastern Europe in the years following the counter reformation (that began at the Roman Catholic Council of Trent in the mid sixteenth century) and the subsequent Union of Brest in 1595 that created the Slav Eastern Rite Catholic churches.
The use of Latin in the Orthodox churches at this time is ilustrated by the famous catechism of Metropolitan Peter (Moghila) of Kiev (that Philip Ludwell III later translated into English) which was probably origininally written in Latin or at the very least translated into it at a very early stage in the mid seventeenth century.
The Orthodox clergy were also being taught Latin.The precursor of the present day Moscow Theological Academy was the Slavic Greek Latin Academy which began in Moscow in the 1680′s. So it should not be at all unusual for Orthodox clerics, particularly from Ukraine and points west, to know Latin. For a Orthodox priest of Romanian orign to acquire a knowledge of Latin should be even less surprising given that Romanian is considered to be the living language that is closest to Latin.
A Glimpse into the Theology of Fr Samuel Domien
Finally, I am indebted to Joel Brady of the University of Pittsburgh for finding a further reference to Fr Samuel Domien in the writings of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin writes from Philadelphia on May 9, 1753 to Peter Collinson (a London based cloth merchant and avid botanist) on the subject of “The Support of the Poor.” Franklin contrasts attitudes to labor amongst both Protestant and Catholic workers in Europe and then says:
We had here some years since a Transylvanian Tartar, who had travelled much in the East, and came hither merely to see the West, intending to go home thro’ the spanish West Indies, China &c. He asked me one day what I thought might be the Reason that so many and such numerous nations, as the Tartars in Europe and Asia, the Indians in America, and the Negroes in Africa, continued a wandring careless Life, and refused to live in Cities, and to cultivate the arts they saw practiced by the civilized part of Mankind. While I was considering what answer to make him; I’ll tell you, says he in his broken English, God make man for Paradise, he make him for to live lazy; man make God angry, God turn him out of Paradise, and bid him work; man no love work; he want to go to Paradise again, he want to live lazy; so all mankind love lazy. Howe’er this may be it seems certain, that the hope of becoming at some time of Life free from the necessity of care and Labour, together with fear of penury, are the main-springs of most peoples industry.
If we allow for what Franklin describes as Domien’s “broken English” his words could be said to indicate an Orthodox understanding of redemption as a return to the paradisical state from which we fell. The passage also evidences that Domien’s interactions with Franklin were not linked exclusively to scientific matters.
Conclusion
In the extract from his journals which I quoted in my previous article Franklin states that Domien is “a priest of the Greek Church.” Having examined Markov’s argument I see no reason why Franklin’s words should not be taken at face value. I think “the ball is in the other court” for more compelling evidence to be presented to support Markov’s contentions that he was in fact a Greek Catholic.
There is also a wider undercurrent to this story related to Franklin’s links with other Orthodox scientific scholars and clergy which further contextualise his relation both with Fr Samuel Domien and Philip Ludwell III. I hope to have time to write about these over the coming months.
Nicholas Chapman, Herkimer NY, May 21 2012
Nicholas Chapman: Was Fr. Samuel Domien a Greek Catholic? Part 2
01 year ago
by Nicholas Chapman
in Firsts
Editor’s note: What follows is the second of three articles by Nicholas Chapman on Fr. Samuel Domien, the first Orthodox priest known to have set foot in the Western Hemisphere. Domien was fascinated with electricity and became friends with Benjamin Franklin, who mentions Domien in his letters. To read Nicholas’ original article on Domien, from back in March, click here, and to read the first article in this latest series, click here.
In a recent article on this website I introduced Fr. Samuel Domien as the first Orthodox priest in the Americas. I acknowledged that this statement contradicts the only known published research about Domien found in two articles by Demetrius Dvoichenko-Markov:
1. A Rumanian Priest in Colonial America, (published in the October 1955 issue of The American Slavic and East European Review.)
and
2.Benjamin Franklin and the first American Romanian-Relations (Cahiers roumains d’etudes litteraires 1/1977 – The Romanian Book of Literary Studies, a French language publication of the University of Bucharest.) I am indebted to Matthew Namee for finding this second work.
In both of these essays, Markov takes the view that Domien was not an Orthodox priest, but rather a Greek Catholic (Uniate) clergyman. I believe that all of his arguments for reaching this conclusion are weak and do not stand up to serious examination. I hope that I can retain the interest of the reader whilst showing in some detail why I reach the opposite conclusion to Markov. I will do this by introducing a substantial amount of recently unearthed materials that further evidence the level of awareness of Orthodoxy in eighteenth century America.
The Unia
Markov explains that the Greek Catholic Church came into existence in Transylvania in 1701, when the previously Orthodox Metropolitan Atanasie recognized the authority of the Pope and was followed in this allegiance by some sixteen hundred clergy in Romania. Markov does recognize that there was considerable contiunuing opposition to this which gained new impetus in 1744 with the arrival of Visarion, a Serbian Orthodox monk. This in turn led to an intensification of persecution of the Orthodox. Markov says that at the same time the favored status of the Greek Catholic Church enabled then to send clergy of a scholarly disposition abroad to further their education. Without citing any particular evidence he concludes that Domien was most likely one of these scholarly Uniate clerics, rather than an Orthodox fleeing persecutions. He assumes that Franklin would simply not be aware of the difference.
This assumption is open to challenge. Early American newspaper accounts illustrate that the difference between an Orthodox and Greek Catholic was understood by the educated classes, of whom Franklin was most certainly one. Here is one example, from The Boston Newsletter of August 17, 1713:
Rome, April 29. A Father Missionary arrived here some days ago with 3 Deputies of the Patriarch of Alexandria, who have full Powers to abjure in his Name the Rites & particular Doctrines of the Greek Church, and embrace the Roman, which has given a great Satisfaction to the Pope. A Select Congregation met on Sunday Morning in the presence of the Pope, to examine the Validity of the Powers given by the said Patriarch, which were admitted, and on Wednesday Morning those Deputies made the abjuration aforesaid before the Cardinals of the Holy Office, which was yesterday morning ratified in a public Consistory held for that purpose. The Bulls of the Pope in favour of the said Patriarch are to be forthwith dispatched, and his Holiness has granted him the Pallium. They hope that this will prove a means for reconciling the Greeks with the Romish Church, which has been always aimed at by the Holy See, and so often attempted to no purpose.
In this article it is said that the Alexandrian Orthodox will abjure the rites as well as the doctrines of the Greek Church, which may suggest a less nuanced form of conversion to Catholicism. But in an article published on October 11, 1731 in the Weekly Boston Rehearsal it is clearly Uniatism being described:
Constantinople, May 17, New Style. Here has been a great commotion of late among the Greeks, about their Patriarch Jeremias, who was deposed, and banished to Mount Sinai, but found means to return, and endeavoured to raise a Posse, that should not only make him Patriarch again, but subject the Greek Church to the Government of the Pope of Rome……….For we are credibly informed, that besides the Money promised by Pater Jeremias both to Turks and Franks, he had entered into an engagement to assist the Romish Missionaries, in bringing the Greeks over to Popery, and to acknowledge the Bishop of Rome to be Head of the Greek Church.
An analysis of the specific situation of the Greek Church in Transylvania is found in an essay on European Affairs printed in The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies in 1758. Within the context of a discussion of Russian-Turkish relations the writer explains that:
the Russians are by far the more dangerous enemy to the Turks, for the greater part of the grand Seignior’s subjects being christians, and these generally of the Greek Church, are naturally inclined to the Russians,who are of the same communion; whereas they are much better pleased to live under the power of the Turks, then to fall under that of the Austrians, because the latter are papists, which implies a disposition to persecute. Nay so true is this remark, that any liberty of conscience the Greek christians enjoy in Transylvania, is owing to their Ottoman neighbours, under whose milder government, the Austrians have just reason to apprehend, they would take refuge, if occasion were given them, from the intolerant spirit of popery.
This extract is particularly pertinent to the question of Markov’s identification of Domien as a Greek Catholic as it was published in Philadelphia within three years of Franklin’s letter identifying Domien as a priest of the Greek Church from Transylvania. The publisher was William Bradford, who like Benjamin Franklin was a Philadelphia printer who published The Weekly Advertiser, the main competitor to Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette.
Nicholas Chapman, Herkimer NY, May 21 2012
Nicholas Chapman: Was Fr. Samuel Domien a Greek Catholic? Part 1
21 year ago
by Nicholas Chapman
in Firsts
Editor’s note: What follows is the first of three articles by Nicholas Chapman on Fr. Samuel Domien, the first Orthodox priest known to have set foot in the Western Hemisphere. Domien was fascinated with electricity and became friends with Benjamin Franklin, who mentions Domien in his letters. To read Nicholas’ original article on Domien, click here.
In a recent article on this website I introduced Fr. Samuel Domien as the first Orthodox priest in the Americas. I acknowledged that this statement contradicts the only known published research about Domien found in two articles by Demetrius Dvoichenko-Markov:
1. A Rumanian Priest in Colonial America, (published in the October 1955 issue of The American Slavic and East European Review.)
and
2.Benjamin Franklin and the first American Romanian-Relations (Cahiers roumains d’etudes litteraires 1/1977 – The Romanian Book of Literary Studies, a French language publication of the University of Bucharest.) I am indebted to Matthew Namee for finding this second work.
In both of these essays, Markov takes the view that Domien was not an Orthodox priest, but rather a Greek Catholic (Uniate) clergyman. I believe that all of his arguments for reaching this conclusion are weak and do not stand up to serious examination. I hope that I can retain the interest of the reader whilst showing in some detail why I reach the opposite conclusion to Markov. I will do this by introducing a substantial amount of recently unearthed materials that further evidence the level of awareness of Orthodoxy in eighteenth century America.
Was Domien a Tartar?
Markov states that Benjamin Franklin made a mistake in identifying Domien as being of Tartar descent. He observes that Domien himself, in his advertisements for his electricity experiments in the South Carolina Gazette, does not claim Tartar descent, but only that he is a native of Transylvania. This is essentially an argument from silence. Why should Domien use up precious column space in a newspaper advertisement to mention his Tartar descent?
Markov also believes that Franklin would not have understood who the Tartars were and would simply identify any inhabitant of the Russian Empire as a Tartar. He suggests that John Ledyard, the Connecticut Yankee explorer who travelled across the Russian Empire in 1787-1788, makes such a misidentification. My own reading of Ledyard’s journals suggests the exact opposite. For example, when Ledyard is in Siberia he dines with a Mr. Karamyscherff. Ledyard writes of this name It is a Tartar name and he is of Tartarian extraction. Why would Ledyard write this if Tartar and Russian were synonymous?
What is much more commonly the case is to the wider use of the word “Tartar” in eighteenth century English to refer to any native, non Caucasian people group of Europe, Asia and the Americas. But this wider usuage does not preclude a more specific one. An American source much close to the time of Domien’s meeting with Franklin in Philadelphia in 1747/48 evinces such an understanding. In the Boston Weekly Newsletter of December 20, 1750 O.S. the following news is reported from Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire:
Sept. 8 – The Synod (i.e. The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.) has received letters from the college established for the Propagation of the Gospel among the people of Asia, whereby it appears, that during the first six months of the present year they have brought into the Pale of the Greek Church 5182 men, and 2532 women; all which converts have been made among the Tartarian Nations inhabiting the Kingdom of Kazan and the Government of Orenbourg…
Even today the Kazan Republic in Russia is the principal center of Tartar peoples. The Tartars were subjugated by the Mongols in the thirteenth century and are often thought of as being synonymous with them. As the Mongols also overran Transylvania at that time I cannot see why people of Tartar descent in Transylvania should not have existed some four/five hundred years later.
In this regard I was particularly intrigued to learn of a village called Tartaria in the Săliştea region of Transylvania. In the 1750’s this area became the center of Orthodox resistance to the attempts by the Austro-Hungarian empire to force union with Rome upon the Orthodox.
Nicholas Chapman, Herkimer NY, May 21 2012
Florovsky Visits America
01 year ago
Sixty-five years ago today, on Holy Monday, April 7, 1947—the feast of Annunciation (O.S.)—an important event in the history of Orthodoxy in America occurred, with the first visit of Father Georges Florovsky to the United States. As with so many key turns in his ecclesiastical trajectory, Florovsky’s coming to America was occasioned by his intense involvement in the ecumenical movement.
The general plan to establish a World Council of Churches (WCC) had been agreed upon at the meeting of the Faith and Order Movement in Edinburgh, 1937, where Florovsky was present together with Fr. Sergii Bulgakov. While Florovsky himself had at this point yet no official standing as an Orthodox representative within Faith and Order, he was on this occasion elected to the “Committee of Fourteen,” composed of seven representatives of Faith and Order and seven of Life and Work, whose task it was to organize the future World Council of Churches. Given that the Orthodox representative for Life and Work was Metropolitan Germanos (Strinopoulos) of Thyateira and Great Britain, it was felt that the other Orthodox representative should be a non-Greek. The likely candidate was Fr. Sergii Bulgakov, who was both senior to Florovsky and had also been involved in Faith and Order since its inception at the Lausanne Assembly of August 1927.
Bulgakov, however, had recently drawn controversy for his sophiological teaching. And of the two, Florovsky had the greater facility with the English language. In all likelihood for these reasons, both the Orthodox and the Anglicans and American Episcopalians, who were responsible for funding much of the scholarly and ecumenical activity of the Orthodox centered at the Institute St. Serge (Paris), chose Florovsky instead, considering him the more trustworthy representative of Orthodox theology. According to Florovsky’s own unpublished account, it was Metropolitan Antony Bashir, also present at Edinburgh, who informed him of this decision. The reason Antony gave is interesting: it was because the “American Orthodox” wanted him.
The preparation of the World Council of Churches, however, was deferred by the Second World War. Florovsky was in Geneva at the outbreak of the war, unable to return to Paris, and therefore spent the whole of World War II in exile: in Yugoslavia (December 1939 to October 1944), serving as a chaplain and religion teacher at two high schools for Russian boys and girls; and then finally in Prague, teaching English and engaged in extensive pastoral work among the Russian emigres. Only in December 1945 was he able to return to Paris and resume his pre-war scholarly and ecumenical activities, commuting frequently throughout 1946 and 1947 to Geneva for meetings in preparation for the WCC. It was at this point that the stage was set also for his visit to the U.S. A meeting of the provisional committee of the WCC was planned to be held in America, Spring 1947. As a member of the committee, Florovsky was invited.
Other developments were taking place during this same time that would be determinative both for Florovsky’s future and that of Orthodoxy in America. In November 1946, the Seventh All American Church Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America (the “Metropolia”) was held in Cleveland, Ohio. At the request of Metropolitan Theophilus (Pashkovsky), plans were drawn up for the re-formation of St. Vladimir’s Seminary (founded in 1938) into a real theological academy, on the model of the four pre-revolutionary Russian academies. At the suggestion of the historian George Fedotov, a colleague from St. Serge who had come to teach at St. Vladimir’s in 1945, Florovsky was named as the choice for professor of dogmatics and patrology.
The meeting of the provisional committee was held in Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, on April 22-25, 1947. There it was announced that the first Assembly of the World Council of Churches would be held at Amsterdam from August 22 to September 5, 1948, having as its general theme “Man’s Disorder and God’s Design.” It is perhaps indicative of Florovsky’s influence that, already at this point, the WCC’s general secretary W. A. Visser’t Hooft emphasized to the press that the WCC was not to be understood as a “super-church” which would dictate to its member bodies, but only “an expression of the desire of the Churches to obey the will of their common Lord,” involving “not . . . the denial of the confessional heritage of the churches,” but rather “the attempt to manifest that unity which has actually been given to churches that take their confessions seriously” (“Progress Report for the World Council: Provisional Committee Holds First Meeting in United States,” Federal Church Bulletin, Vol. XXX, No. 5, May 1947, 6-7).
Following the conclusion of the provisional committee meeting, Florovsky traveled to New York in May 1947 to discuss the possibility of his coming to teach at St. Vladimir’s. The seminary was at this time housed in a cottage owned by General Theological Seminary (Episcopal Church USA), and had only a dozen students and limited faculty and resources. Florovsky spent most of his visit with Metropolitan Theophilus. The result of their conversations was that Florovsky agreed to accept appointment to the faculty, with the tacit understanding that he would later take up the deanship. Theophilus and Florovsky saw eye to eye both on the need to develop high-level theological education for clergy and to introduce the English language into teaching and church services. Almost exactly a year after Florovsky’s visit, on April 2, 1948, the Metropolitan Council of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America sent a letter to the American consulate in Paris requesting the entry of Florovsky and his wife into the US under non-quota status. Florovsky would later become a naturalized American citizen in 1954.
After his visit to Pennsylvania and New York in spring 1947, Florovsky returned to Europe. The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches took place in Amsterdam on August 22 to September 4, 1948, with some 14,000 persons present. Here, together with his friend the Anglican priest Michael Ramsey (who would become Archbishop of Canterbury in 1961) and the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth, with whom he shared a common resistance to political pragmatism in ecumenical relations, Florovsky emerged as the leading theological voice. He was at this time elected also to the executive committee of the WCC.
Just ten days after Amsterdam, on September 15, 1948, Florovsky left Europe for good, arriving in New York by boat on September 21 to begin teaching at St. Vladimir’s. A year later, Florovsky took over the acting deanship from Bishop John Shahovskoy, and in 1950, he was officially made dean. He was to remain in that capacity until 1955. During his tenure at St. Vladimir’s, Florovsky raised academic standards and introduced the English language, placing the seminary on the map as an important center of theological education and injecting a crucial missionary dimension to its outlook.
Florovsky’s 1947 visit to America was therefore an event which both foreshadowed and helped to prepare two important developments in Orthodoxy and the Christian world at large: first, the formation of the World Council of Churches, and the presence of a powerful Orthodox theological voice within it; and second, the development of an articulate and missionary-minded Orthodox theology on American soil.
Photographs of Florovsky’s arrival in New York Harbor on April 7, 1947, published in The New York Times and Newsweek have a certain strangeness and wonder about them, marking the distance from his time and situation and our own. That the visit of any theologian—not to mention, Orthodox—would be considered worthy of feature in a major news source bespeaks a bygone age when Christian churches and theology still wielded a certain recognized cultural authority. That epoch gasped its last some time after the media excitement of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). It is perhaps significant that, with the sole and recent exception of Pope Benedict XVI, no theologian has appeared on the cover of Time magazine since the April 20, 1962, feature of Karl Barth. It is hard to imagine a photograph of any leading Orthodox theologian today being featured within the pages of Time, Newsweek, or The New York Times, as Florovsky himself was in the 1940s and ’50s.
The modern ecumenical movement was itself conceived initially as a missionary response to an era of intense secularization. Doubtless, it was spurred on also by a humanitarian reaction to two massive wars, in which men of different countries equally confessing the name of Christ spilled one another’s blood over nationalist interests. Yet the early ecumenical movement came to birth nevertheless with a hope and confidence among some Christian leaders that a soundly Christocentric theology might matter still, and be heard by more than a few. With all their crucial differences, leading ecumenical figures of this period such as Florovsky and Barth were united at least in their attempt to respond to “man’s disorder,” not with humanitarian bromides regarding “tolerance” and “diversity,” or demi-Marxist clarions to class struggle, identity politics, and statist social planning, but with a word about creation, sin and redemption: the good news of Christ and his Church.
In “The Church and Her Responsibility,” a paper written for the Faith and Order Study Commission “The Universal Church in God’s Design” in March 1947, just a month before his visit to America, Florovsky stressed that the primary work of the Church was the proclamation of the Gospel, aimed precisely towards conversion—a ministry of the Word consummated in the ministry of the sacraments. This mission required that the Church avoid equally two temptations: sectarianism and secularization. The message of the Gospel is a word of judgment upon the world, but a saving judgment. The Church exists in the world as an antinomical and heterogeneous body, in a state of opposition, but also reformation of the world. As Florovsky said in his speech at Amsterdam, August 1948:
…the real strength of the Christian position is precisely in its ‘otherness.’ For indeed, Christianity is ‘not of this world’ and is not merely one of the elements of the worldly fabric. … the strength of Christianity is rooted in its opposition to everything Christless. No secular allies would ever help the Christian cause, whatever name they bear. As Christians we have but one Heavenly Ally, Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom all power has been given in Heaven and on earth, even in this perplexed and rebellious world of ours. For this very reason, Christians can and should never admit any other authority, even in secular affairs. Christ is the Lord and Master of history, not only of our souls. Again this gives ultimate priority to the theological issue. For our practical disagreements inevitably bring us back to the diversity of our interpretations of the Divine message and the Divine solution of our human tragedy and fall. (Florovsky, “Determinations and Distinctions: Ecumenical Aims and Doubts,” Sobornost, No. 4, Series 3, Winter 1948, 126-132, at 132)
It is dangerous to posit simple causes in the complex chain of historical events. Yet the marked wane in the cultural authority of theology and of churches themselves that became apparent only two decades or so after the Amsterdam Assembly did coincide with a certain “failure of nerve” on the part of theologians and pastors—a hesitance to address the culture at large with such robust evangel. Many preferred instead to adjust the content of their message in the attempt to be “relevant” to ever more radical forces of secularization.
Already at the meeting of the provisional committee of the WCC at Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, in April 1947, Dr. J. Hutchinson Cockburn, former moderator of the Church of Scotland, had noted how “anti-Christian forces” had become so strong that the Christian tradition “no longer dominates the European scene.” “If Christ is to be enthroned over the lives of men in Europe,” he added, “it will only be by the reviving of the Church by the Grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. Of this revival the churches are the appointed instruments. It is Christian civilization that is at stake, not merely in Europe but also in Britain and in the United States” (“Progress Report for the World Council: Provisional Committee Holds First Meeting in United States,” Federal Church Bulletin, Vol. XXX, No. 5, May 1947, 6-7). Cockburn’s diagnosis remains even more true today. Yet it is a sad fact how many professed theologians and Christian leaders, even among the Orthodox, respond to it with sophisticated cynicism, chameleon-like compromise and defeat.
Images of Florovsky’s arrival in New York Harbor on April 7, 1947, Holy Monday—a day when many Orthodox in America celebrated the feast of the Annunciation, and all were preparing to follow after Christ to his sacred Passion in the city—show the Russian priest-theologian flanked by Cockburn and Visser’t Hooft aboard the deck of the Queen Elizabeth dressed in his riassa, cigarette visible between his fingertips, his long uncut hair blowing crazily in the wind, the expression on his face so confident as almost to radiate joy. It was precisely his spirit of confidence—confidence in the truth of Christ and his Church, and in the legacy and task of Orthodox theology—combined with magnanimity towards divided brethren, in hope of their eventual recovery, that made Florovsky’s example so singularly important for his time and context. Much depends upon the revival of that same spirit in our own.
(In addition to the articles cited and several unpublished sources, this essay relies upon Andrew Blane, “A Sketch of the Life of Georges Florovsky,” in Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual—Orthodox Churchman, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993, pp. 73-91.)
This week in American Orthodox history (April 2-8)
01 year ago
April 3, 1904: On Palm Sunday, Fr. Nicola Yanney was ordained to the priesthood by St. Raphael Hawaweeny. Fr. Nicola was a young widower living in Kearney, Nebraska. His wife had died during childbirth in 1902, just days before her husband’s 29th birthday, leaving behind three other children. In August of 1903, the Syrian Orthodox of Kearney decided that they wanted a priest, and they asked the 30-year-old Nicola to take the position. The next year, he went to Brooklyn and studied under the soon-to-be Bishop Raphael. In March 1904, Raphael was consecrated, and a few weeks later, he ordained Fr. Nicola — the first ordination ever performed by St. Raphael. Fr. Nicola was given responsibility for a vast territory; in addition to his regular pastoral duties in Kearney, he visited seven other states in his first eight months on the job. His life was difficult and inspiring — far too much to summarize here. I highly recommend reading the biographical article on Fr. Nicola written by Fr. Paul Hodge and published here at OrthodoxHistory.org.
April 2, 1922: St. Raphael’s remains were interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Brooklyn. After his 1915 death, St. Raphael’s body had been placed in a crypt in his Brooklyn cathedral, but a few years later, his successor Bishop Aftimios Ofiesh decided to move the cathedral to a new building, and Raphael’s body was moved to the cemetery. Decades later, it was transferred to the Antiochian Village in Ligonier, PA.
April 2-4, 1924: [The following was written by Aram Sarkisian] The Russian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America convened in Detroit for the 4th All-American Sobor. The Sobor opened with a Presanctified Liturgy and Molieben at All Saints Russian Orthodox Church on the city’s east side, but for lack of space moved downtown to the parish house of St. John Episcopal Church for its plenary sessions.
Delegates to the 4th All-American Sobor, Detroit, MI, April 1924
The 4th All-American Sobor was convened for several reasons, much of it having to do with the general turmoil the Archdiocese had experienced in the wake of the Russian Revolutions of 1917. The most notable of its decisions is the oft-cited “Declaration of Autonomy,” in which the Archdiocese invoked Patriarchal Ukaz #362 of November 1920, in which Patriarch Tikhon gave leeway to dioceses to temporarily govern themselves when communication and regular contact with the authorities in war-torn Russia became insurmountable for normal church life, until such time as normal relations could be established.
In an April 12th telegram to Patriarch Tikhon announcing the decision, it was stated that this action was taken “as a way of self-preservation,” a somewhat imperfect solution to an intensely difficult set of questions facing the church in North America. And, thus, the jurisdictional body which would become known as the Metropolia was formed, which would in turn receive its autocephaly from Moscow in 1970 and rename itself the Orthodox Church in America.
April 7, 1934: Metropolitan Germanos Shehadi died in Beirut. Met Germanos had come to America twenty years earlier as a visitor, raising funds for an agricultural school in his archdiocese in what is today Lebanon. But then St. Raphael, the Syrian bishop in America, fell ill and died, and the popular Germanos decided to remain in America. The Syrians splintered, and one faction — the “Antacky” — recognized the authority of Germanos. The other group — the “Russy” — favored Bishop Aftimios Ofiesh, who served under the Russian Church. Germanos’ position was pretty shaky, because his own Patriarchate of Antioch refused to bless his work in America and instead ordered him to return to his archdiocese. Germanos held out, but then in 1924, the Patriarchate sent an official delegation to America and established the modern Antiochian Archdiocese of North America. This seriously undermined Germanos’ position, and most of his “Antacky” parishes naturally switched over to the official Antiochian jurisdiction. Germanos hung around in America for another nine years before finally returning to Syria in late 1933. The 62-year-old Germanos soon fell ill and died several months later. In addition to his role in the Russy-Antacky schism, he is most remembered for two things: (1) he briefly oversaw a Ukrainian jurisdiction in Canada, and (2) he was renowned for his beautiful singing voice.
April 7, 1947: Fr. Georges Florovsky arrived in New York aboard the Queen Elizabeth. Later this week, we’ll be publishing an article by Matthew Baker on this event.
