While the United States Bureau of the Census produces raw statistical data on the findings of the census in the immediate aftermath of the enumeration, specific, personal information (basically, the individual schedules recorded by enumerators) is kept under confidential seal for a period of 72 years.  For historians, this means there’s an artificial barrier on how far we can go with this vital information.  With the exception of the 1890 census (which was almost entirely destroyed in a fire), we’ve been able to utilize federal census information going all the way back to the first count, in 1790.  With the advent of the internet, it’s become easier than ever to conveniently search for detailed, personal information and compile large amounts of material in relatively little time from fifteen of the twenty-three censuses.

Yet for the last ten years, we’ve been stuck at the composite picture of the United States as it was in 1930, in the early throes of the Great Depression, and the immediate aftermath of significant restrictions on immigration.  Monday, however, that picture changed quite a bit, as the National Archives released the records for the 1940 census, bringing us past the Depression and to the brink of the Second World War.

The release date was an interesting day, to say the least.  The record set covers some 132 million people, 3.8 million pages of records, coming in at about 18 terabytes of digital data (and, if you’re truly interested, it comes out to 4646 reels of microfilm, which would set you back a cool $580,750).  This was all released as raw image files, with no indexing done aside from the separation of schedules by their enumeration districts.  That’s where the public comes in.

After the unveiling at 9AM EDT, a mad flurry of researchers and volunteers from throughout the country flocked to the official website to begin downloading and indexing millions of pages worth of census schedules, many of them working in conjunction with FamilySearch.org, a rather comprehensive genealogy website operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Immediately, all of the major genealogy sites started a de facto horse race to get files downloaded, indexed, and uploaded to their sites, a process estimated to last well into the summer.

By noon, the website had received almost 23 million hits, and was almost immediately rendered useless.  (According to the genealogy blog Ancestry Insider, the NARA’s contract with webhost Archives.com called for accessibility for 10 million hits and 25,000 concurrent users for the release date, with overflow handled by Amazon.com).  I spent all day furiously attempting to download several enumeration districts I was interested in perusing, and in several hours of work, somehow managed to download exactly one district, some 29 pages covering several blocks in midtown Manhattan.  By the late afternoon, it was impossible to get even a preview image to load.  By all accounts, the release was a general failure, with the demand far outweighing the anticipated threshold of interest.

Clearly, the release of the 1940 census was something anticipated by many, and it will be interesting to watch as the millions of schedules are indexed state-by-state in the coming months.  Slowly, we will see a more personal picture evolve out of this rich archive, indeed a much more personal picture than we’ve seen out of census documents in quite some time.  It is estimated over 20 million people who appear in these documents are still alive today.

For us here at SOCHA, it means we will be able to move a lot of our stories ten years into the future, and opens up a number of new avenues for research.  I’m excited to see where these documents will take us, and how we will be able to better tell the story of Orthodoxy in America as a result.

The 1940 Census Release: American History Moves Up a Decade is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

It’s hard to believe, but SOCHA has been around for nearly three years. Our founding directors were Fr. Oliver Herbel, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick, and Matthew Namee. This past October 1st, at the 2011 SOCHA Symposium, we added Aram Sarkisian to our board.

On March 9th, SOCHA was incorporated as a legal entity in the State of Kansas, a step we have long anticipated. We are in the process of obtaining 501(c)(3) nonprofit status from the IRS. Once that happens, we’ll be able to do all sorts of things to expand the work of SOCHA, and we look forward to including all of our readers in these endeavors.

We would also like to announce that on March 9th, Fr. Oliver Herbel resigned from his position as the Executive Director of SOCHA, and is no longer a member of our board of directors.  We thank Fr. Oliver for his contributions to the society’s work. With Fr. Oliver’s resignation and our incorporation, we’ve also moved to a different shape of governance for the Society. There will no longer be an Executive Director or Associate Directors, but simply a board of directors.

We also welcome Matthew J. Baker to the SOCHA Advisory Board. Matthew has an M.Div. from St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, as well as a Th.M. from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. He is a Ph.D. student in the Theology department of Fordham University, specializing in the writings of Fr. Georges Florovsky, a towering figure in 20th century Orthodoxy, both in America and throughout the world. Matthew’s special interests include hermeneutics, the intersection of patristics and modern philosophy, and questions of reason, revelation and tradition in Orthodox dogmatics. He has published articles in International Journal of Systematic Theology, Participatio: The Journal of the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship, Transactions of Russian-American Scholars in the U.S.A., Theologia: The Journal of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, and Crkvene Studije, and has several book chapters forthcoming. He is editorial assistant to the journal Participatio and theological advisor to the Fr. Georges Florovsky Orthodox Theological Society of Princeton University. Matthew spoke at the 2011 SOCHA Symposium and has been featured prominently at the 2011 and 2012 Patristics Symposiums hosted by the Florovsky Society at Princeton Theological Seminary.

We are also working on a new format and name for the SOCHA journal (a sort of “reboot”), to be entitled the Journal of Orthodox Church History in the Americas (JOCHA). It will take a while to put together, but we’ll be offering some exciting content from a variety of authors, on subjects both familiar and perhaps less known. Matthew Baker will also be serving on the editorial board of the journal. We’re planning a re-launch later this year.

We’ve decided to postpone the previously scheduled 2012 SOCHA Symposium that had been slated for Princeton this Fall and to expand to a national-level conference in 2013, as well as looking at some regional conferences on a smaller scale.  This was a difficult decision for us to make, but we feel it will lead to an extremely productive event next year.  We thank Princeton Seminary and the Florovsky Society for their support, and look forward to working with them again in the future.

Also of note is that SOCHA is now on Twitter! You can find us there as @OrthodoxHistory. We hope to see you there, too.

We are very excited about the future of SOCHA. There are a lot of things in the works, and we look forward to keeping you posted through OrthodoxHistory.org, our Facebook page and our new Twitter account.  As always, we welcome your input on topics you would like us to research, as well as any other ideas you may have for SOCHA’s consideration.

SOCHA Updates, Changes and Expansions is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Fr. Oliver Herbel, Executive Director of SOCHA

Fr. Oliver Herbel, Executive Director of the Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas, has a newly published work, Sarapion of Thmuis: Against the Manicheans and Pastoral Letters. The book is published by St. Paul’s Publications in conjunction with the Centre for Early Christian Studies in Australia. Here’s the official blurb:

Although St. Anthony the Great, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, and the Desert Fathers have received considerable attention in early Christian studies, St. Sarapion of Thmuis has remained in relative obscurity. This book introduces the thought of this early Egyptian monastic bishop, highlighting the importance of both Sarapion’s biblical hermeneutics and his utilization of Stoic philosophy. It includes an argument for Sarapion’s authorship of the Letter to the Monks as well as translations of Sarapion’s three extant writings: Letter to Bishop Eudoxios, Letter to the Monks, and Against the Manichaeans.

To order a copy directly from the Centre, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page. The book will also be available through the incomparable Eighth Day Books of Wichita, Kansas, and SOCHA readers are encouraged to order a copy from that fine bookseller.

New book on St. Sarapion of Thmuis by SOCHA Director is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Matthew Namee

Programming Note is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

While the work does not pertain explicitly to the history of Orthodoxy in the Americas, it does contain some general Orthodox history, as well as history of many Christian denominations and world religions. Its focus is on comparing Orthodox Christianity with other Christian religious groups and also non-Christian religions.

Here’s the official blurb from Conciliar Press: Are you an Orthodox Christian who wonders how to explain to your Baptist grandmother, your Buddhist neighbor, or the Jehovah’s Witness at your door how your faith differs from theirs? Or are you a member of another faith who is curious what Orthodoxy is all about? Look no further. In Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick covers the gamut of ancient heresies, modern Christian denominations, fringe groups, and major world religions, highlighting the main points of each faith. This book is an invaluable reference for anyone who wants to understand the faiths of those they come in contact with—as well as their own.

The work is available both from Conciliar Press and also Amazon.com.

New Book from SOCHA Assoc. Director: Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday this weekend!

Sincerely,
Matthew Namee, Editor

Programming note is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Matthew Namee

Programming Note is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

The schedule at the above link says that my talk is titled, “The History of the Greek Orthodox Church in Chicago.” That isn’t quite right… While I definitely talk a lot about the Greeks, my lecture also covers the other Orthodox of Chicago (particularly the Russians and Serbs).

Anyway, if any OH.org readers can make it out to the talk, I’d love to meet you.

Matthew Namee

Chicago-area lecture on March 23 is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

A Meeting of Hierarchs of both Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian churches

If you have a Facebook account and read the responses to these comments, you will see some very good reasons. Foremost among them is that this website is a private, cooperative endeavor between those who happen to be spending their own time on it. We don’t receive funding from anywhere other than our own pockets, so there’s no reason why anyone should fear that official funds are being used in some objectionable way.

Yet one must ask why this is supposedly objectionable in the first place. Ironically, we’ve covered a number of apostates and outright non-Orthodox in the past without much protest, yet there are folks who object to Non-Chalcedonians being covered. How they’re okay with the former but not the latter is frankly a bit beyond me.

To be sure, there are some among the Chalcedonian (“Eastern”) Orthodox who look upon the Non-Chalcedonian (“Oriental”) Orthodox as heretics and therefore utterly irrelevant to such a site as this. Readers are left to determine for themselves what they think about this theological issue. At the same time, the official dialogues between the two church bodies have pretty much determined that we have the same Orthodox faith. Whichever may be the case, it is an unmistakable fact that of all the church bodies in the world, the Oriental Orthodox are the closest to the Eastern Orthodox. Although we share the same literal language of Christology as the Roman Catholic Church, anyone who’s ever spent time with both the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox church families will find much more in common there than between Eastern Orthodoxy and Rome. As such, it only makes sense that we would spend time together. How or if the theological problems will be solved is another matter, to be sure (and an important one), but that is not the point of this website, nor of SOCHA in general.

SOCHA consists of people who like history, both reading it and often writing it. If we happen to like writing about Non-Chalcedonians (something we’ve largely not done as yet because most of us are unqualified), or if we want to invite someone to write about them for the site, then that is simply for furthering our mutual interest in history. If readers want to read it, great! If not, then they can simply skip it. No one’s losing anything by virtue of there being such articles on OrthodoxHistory.org.

At the same time, even if we were to receive funding from a church or foundation or the like, we would still have no problem publishing material about the Non-Chalcedonians. After all, there are print publications that do the same thing—even from Chalcedonian seminaries. And who is harmed by this? I would argue that we are all actually benefited by getting to know each other better. There actually is some real possibility for reunion between the two church bodies in the future—whether readers happen to think this is a good idea or not, it is nonetheless actually a possibility, and it’s being discussed at the official level by both bodies in a way more serious than they treat any other church body.

In any event, I myself am not interested only in Orthodox Christian history (whether one defines that only as Chalcedonian Orthodoxy or to include Non-Chalcedonian), but Christian history in general and even non-Christian religious history. If you’ve ever listened to any of my podcasts comparing Orthodoxy and heterodoxy, you know I’m not particularly “ecumenical” (I like to practice what I call “Ecumenism with a Gun“). So believe me when I say that I think it’s worthwhile for us to include material from the Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Indian, Ethiopian and Eritrean churches on this site. And if you don’t believe me, well, then don’t read it! You’re most likely not paying for it, anyway.

This article was written by Fr. Andrew S. Damick.

Editorial: Non-Chalcedonian Orthodoxy on OH.org is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

RSS feed is back is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

I wish I could write more often, but between my now-four person family and the demands of law school, I’m stretched pretty thin. Right now, I’m working on a number of Orthodox history-related projects, including finalizing my “Myth of Unity” article for the first issue of our peer-reviewed journal (due out this spring!); working with Alexei Krindatch to produce an atlas of Orthodoxy in America (with historical data, and due out later this year); and preparing a lecture on Chicago’s Orthodox history for the annual “Book Week” conference at Holy Apostles Greek Orthodox Church in Westchester, Illinois (I speak on March 24, if you’re interested in coming). I’ve got other projects in the works, and I’m very excited about them, but unfortunately that means that my (increasingly scarce) research time is spent on things other than this website.

On a positive note, we certainly aren’t closing the doors — far from it. While OH.org is shifting gears a bit, we’ll still feature monthly contributions from Fr. Oliver Herbel and Dr. William Samonides, and if you know me at all, you know that I won’t be able to resist at least the occasional article myself. We’ll also continue to publish original sources, historical photos, and other nuggets, with new posts coming at least once a week.

Also, I’ve been told that something has gone wrong with our RSS feed. If you’re used to reading the site that way, I apologize for the inconvenience. I haven’t the slightest clue how to fix the problem, but people more capable than me are looking into it.

Anyway, many thanks to all our loyal readers. I hope you’ll keep visiting the site, commenting, and sharing our love of American Orthodox history.

Matthew Namee

Shifting Gears is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

To read the interview, click here.

Interview with Byzantine, Texas blog is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Right now, there is no charge for membership. Eventually, we’ll charge a small fee to cover our expenses, and in return, members will get access to a peer-reviewed journal, a monthly e-newsletter, members-only online resources (including a register of historical clergy and a primary source archive), and other benefits. Our future plans also include SOCHA-backed books and conferences. But, as we said, there are no initial fees. By responding now, you are basically letting us know that you are interested in SOCHA and may want to become a dues-paying member when the time comes. This will help us begin to prepare a budget and begin planning expanded offerings.

To become a SOCHA member, just send an email to joinsocha@gmail.com. Please include the following basic information:

• Name
• City and State
• Parish
• Jurisdiction
• preferred email address

Also, if there is a specific area or aspect of American Orthodox history that particularly interests you, feel free to include that as well. And if you’ve done any research and/or writing on the subject yourself, let us know too — we would love to feature guest articles from SOCHA members here at OrthodoxHistory.org.

We look forward to hearing from you, and to expanding the scope and work of SOCHA.

Sincerely,

The Executive Board

Become a member of SOCHA today! is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Since we started this website last June, we have published around 300 articles. I believe I’ve written the majority of them, but we’ve received many outstanding contributions from other SOCHA members and guest authors. Up to now, all of the guest articles have come at my request — as editor, I’ve specifically sought out other authors and asked them either to write something for us, or to give us permission to reprint articles they’ve already published elsewhere. But we have not, up to now, solicited contributions from the public in general. I’d like to change that.

There are, in this country, hundreds of amateur Orthodox historians. Many of you read this website, and I know that you’ve done valuable research that would be of interest to others. If you would like to contribute an article for publication here at OrthodoxHistory.org, please send me an email (mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com). I can’t promise we will publish every submission, but we will consider each one. If we choose to print an article, we’ll edit it before publication.

I do hope that you, our readers, will consider submitting an article. While I thoroughly enjoy writing my own articles, I think everyone benefits from a diversity of authors. Once again, my email address is mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks so much.

Matthew Namee, Editor

Want to write about American Orthodox history? is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

If you are interested in contacting her about this study, you may do so at donna.mazziotti [at] scranton.edu.

Thanks!

Website study survey closed is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Also, if you haven’t done so already, please take a couple of minutes to fill out the anonymous online survey being conducted by Donna Mazziotti of the University of Scranton.

A blessed Holy Week and joyous Pascha to all of you!

Sincerely,

Matthew Namee

A break for Holy Week is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Donna Mazziotti, a librarian at The University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania, is conducting a study about theology and technology. She would love to hear from OrthodoxHistory.org users about how they access the content and use the information contained on OrthodoxHistory.org. As a user of this site and its content, please take a brief moment to take this anonymous user survey, located at the following link:

Thank you!

OrthodoxHistory.org User Survey is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

The other feature I’m introducing is something I’m tentatively calling, “Source of the Week.” We’ll reprint a particular source document, and offer some basic commentary on its meaning and significance.

Today, we’re going to look at “the edict of His Imperial Highness the Autocrat of All Russia, from the Most-holy Governing Synod to the Alaska Spiritual Consistory,” issued on May 27, 1877. Obviously, this document was originally in Russian; an English translation appeared in Holy Trinity Cathedral LIFE (the newsletter of the San Francisco OCA cathedral) in May 1997, and is included in their archive.

By edict of His Imperial Highness, the Most-holy Governing Synod reviewed the proposal of the Chairman of the Special Committee on the affairs of the Orthodox Bishop’s Cathedra in America, which was received on 20 April 1877 along with the minutes of the Committee’s meeting.

On the basis of this information, we do DECREE:The Special Committee, consisting of three members and, established by the Synod for the preliminary review of the affairs related to our Orthodox Bishop’s Cathedra in America, in the second minutes of its meeting has come to following conclusions:

1) The necessity for the existence in America of the mentioned cathedra is determined by the special situation in which our local churches, clergy-missionaries assigned to them, and the Orthodox population there find themselves — they are far removed from the Siberian dioceses and are deprived of any regular communications with the shores of Siberia via the Eastern Ocean, which makes it impossible to subjugate said churches and clergymen to the supervision of the Kamchatka diocesan authorities. Meanwhile, our clergy in America, in their missionary and pastoral activities among heterodox and pagan population, are in special need of the proper directorship, and only a local diocesan Hierarch can be such a director.

2) Since our Orthodox Bishop’s Cathedra in America is widowed, our churches and clergy there at the present time remain without proper hierarchical supervision, and subdeacons assigned to the cathedra have found themselves almost totally idle since their only regular occupation is reduced to hierarchical services. The Right Reverend Innocent of Moscow stated that our American clergy can better, and with fewer obstacles, communicate with Saint Petersburg from New York, than from California to Kamchatka. Therefore, it appears to be more convenient, while the Bishop’s Cathedra in America remains widowed, to entrust our local churches and clergy to the jurisdiction of the Saint Petersburg diocesan authorities, and to charge subdeacons assigned to the cathedra with teaching at the school attached to the cathedra.

3) A member of the Spiritual Consistory in San Francisco and district dean, Archpriest Paul Kedrolivansky, can not be left in America any further since he has not cleared himself from the accusation of transporting contraband, brought upon him by the Alaskan Trade Company, as a result of which our Ambassador in Washington and our Consul in San Francisco declare it extremely necessary to remove him from America; and now he is being accused of incorrectly reporting the expenditure of sums allocated for the diocese; and

4) Sailor Wilson’s statement about a blameworthy liaison between a member of the Spiritual Consistory in San Francisco, Priest [Nicholas] Kovrigin, and the wife of a certain Philip Kashevarov, must be investigated because of the gravity of the accusations detailed in this statement.

On the basis of these facts, the Most-holy Synod decides:

1) At this time, not to enter into a discussion on the abolishment of our bishop’s cathedra in America.

2) Following the example of other churches abroad, to subordinate our churches and clergy located in America to the jurisdiction of the Saint Petersburg diocesan authorities for the entire period of the widowhood of said cathedra.

3) To charge subdeacons assigned to the cathedra with teaching at the school attached to the cathedra such subjects as are accessible to them according to their knowledge.

4) To leave to the Right Reverend Metropolitan of Saint Petersburg the selection of a person who can be useful in the position of a member of the Spiritual Consistory in San Francisco and a dean of the churches and clergy of the Aleutian and Alaskan Diocese; to send this person to the city of San Francisco, and upon this person’s arrival there, to recall from San Francisco to Russia the Archpriest Paul Kedrolivansky who should turn over all sums and documents in his possession to the person who is replacing him, who is also charged with the investigation of the sailor Wilson’s statement regarding the Priest Kovrigin.

The Alaska Spiritual Consistory is to be notified of these decisions.

May 27, 1877.

Ober-Secretary: A. Polonsky

Secretary: Ushakov

This is a rich document, full of information about the Russian Orthodox presence in America in the late 1870s. Recently, I discussed the mysterious death of Fr. Paul Kedrolivansky in June 1878. We see here that, one year earlier, serious accusations were made against Kedrolivansky, and the Holy Synod decided to recall him to Russia. This was on the advice of both the Russian ambassador and the Russian consul in San Francisco. Yet, a year later, Kedrolivansky was still in San Francisco. Why? Did he somehow clear himself of the charges? Did he find a way to make them, essentially, go away? 130-plus years later, it’s impossible to know whether he was blackmailing somebody in a position of power, but such a thing seems at least somewhat likely. After all, when the powerful Alaska Commercial Company accuses you of serious crimes, and the Russian ambassador and consul demand your recall to Russia, and the Holy Synod orders you to come back… Well, all things being equal, you’re going back. But Kedrolivansky did not, and I don’t know why.

The very next item in the list details the accusation that Fr. Nicholas Kovrigin, Kedrolivansky’s assistant, had a “blameworthy liason” with a married woman. The woman’s name is not given, but her husband’s name is Philip Kashevarov. Who was he? The Kashevarov family was in both Alaska and San Francisco. In fact, Vasily Kashevarov was the deacon of the San Francisco cathedral. As for Philip Kashevarov, his name doesn’t appear on any of the parishioner lists from the period, published in the Holy Trinity Cathedral archives. I did find an online reference (which, alas, I’ve since lost) to a certain Filipp Kashevarov, who was born in Sitka in 1844 and died there in 1904. I also found this little tidbit — an excerpt from the minutes of the Sitka Ecclesiastical Consistory, dated 10/4/1868:

Olga P. Nedomolvin, a creole girl, asked Bishop Paul’s permission to be married to Philip Kashevarov, a Russian pilot, before reaching the legal marriage age of sixteen, which age she would be in one month and four days. Bishop Paul ordered the Consistory to grant permission, if there were no other objections to the marriage.

Was Olga Kashevarov the woman with whom Fr. Nicholas Kovrigin allegedly had a “blameworthy liason”? It’s hard to say. Kovrigin traveled from Sitka to San Francisco in March of 1868, returned to Sitka in the summer, and then brought his whole family to San Francisco in 1869. He thus would have been in Sitka at the time of Philip Kashevarov’s marriage to Olga Nedomolvin, and he probably knew the couple. The 1877 Holy Synod edict (the only mention of the specific accusation regarding Mrs. Kashevarov) was issued more than eight years later.

More significant is the fact that Kovrigin was repeatedly accused of immorality. In 1879, Bishop Nestor sent him back to Russia. Nestor wrote to the Bishop of Irkutsk, “Right after beginning my administration of the Aleutian diocese I found myself forced to remove Priest Nikolai Kovrigin, who had become known, sadly, all over Russia for his deeds.” He hoped that “the Lord God will call and put poor Fr. Kovrigin on a better and right road.” To Metropolitan Isidore of St. Petersburg, Nestor said, “Considering all circumstances, the future tenure of Priest Nikolai Kovrigin in America, because of many matters existing against him, will cast a shadow on Orthodoxy.”

I suspect that some additional document must exist in the archives of the Russian Orthodox Church, which would explain why Kedrolivansky didn’t return to Russia as ordered, and whether Sailor Wilson’s accusations against Kovrigin were ever investigated.

Source of the Week: the 1877 Holy Synod edict is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Anyway, I ran across this passage, which I’d dog-eared years ago. It had always resonated with me, but, having now presented my unfinished wanderings to the general public over these past five months, it means more to me now than ever.

Laymen — that is to say, non-academic friends or friends from other academic disciplines — sometimes ask me how the historian goes to work when he writes history. The commonest assumption appears to be that the historian divides his work into two sharply distinguishable phases or periods. First, he spends a long preliminary period reading his sources and filling his notebooks with facts: then, when this is over, he puts away his sources, takes out his notebooks, and writes his book from beginning to end.

This is to me an unconvincing and unplausible picture. For myself, as soon as I have got going on a few of what I take to be the capital sources, the itch becomes too strong and I begin to write — not necessarily at the beginning, but somewhere, anywhere. Thereafter, reading and writing go on simultaneously. The writing is added to, subtracted from, re-shaped, cancelled, as I go on reading. The reading is guided and directed and made fruitful by the writing: the more I write, the more I know what I am looking for, the better I understand the significance and relevance of what I find. [...]

I am convinced that, for any historian worth the name, the two processes of what economists call “input” and “output” go on simultaneously and are, in practice, parts of a single process. If you try to separate them, or to give one priority over the other, you fall into one of two heresies. Either you write scissors-and-paste history without meaning or significance; or you write propaganda or historical fiction, and merely use facts of the past to embroider a kind of writing which has nothing to do with history.

Before I started writing almost daily here at OrthodoxHistory.org, I kept copious notes of my research findings. I drafted and re-drafted dozens of articles — some long, some short, but none for immediate publication. I wrote, with myself as my only audience, because I could not resist the urge to write. And as Carr said, the act of writing fueled the act of researching, and led me to grapple with the evidence and better understand it in the process.

Now that I write for public consumption, that process has only intensified. I still keep private notes (hundreds of pages’ worth, by now), but I also put a lot of my unfinished work here at OH.org. I have been pleasantly surprised to find so many people who are also interested in American Orthodox history, and many of you have turned the tables, writing to me and, in the process, teaching me and forcing me to look at my own research in a fresh light. The whole experience has been extremely gratifying.

So, in this season of Thanksgiving here in the United States, I would like to thank each of you who read what we write here at OrthodoxHistory.org, be it on the website itself, on Facebook, on Google Reader, or via some other means. I am humbled that you would take the time to read our work, and I am very happy to know that there are thousands of you out there who care about this subject. I know I speak for all of us here at SOCHA when I say: Thank you.

A note of thanks is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

I’d like to highlight one part of the Resources page in particular: the Parish Histories. At this writing, we have links to the histories of 103 different Orthodox parishes in the U.S. and Canada, and we’ll be adding more. Many of these parishes are old, with histories dating to before World War II (and most going back long before that). Individually, these parish histories may be interesting, but they can only tell us so much about American Orthodoxy in general. Taken together, though, they provide a valuable insight into the history of Orthodoxy in America as a whole.

If you study historiography, you’ll quickly become acquainted with the “Great Man” theory of history. This theory was popular in the 19th century, and Wikipedia defines it as “a philosophical theory that aims to explain history by the impact of ‘Great men,’ or heroes.” In other words, when you do history — so the theory goes — you should focus on the “great men”: kings, presidents, generals, and statesmen. If you extend that to Church history, it means you should focus on bishops, saints, and prominent theologians.

The Great Man Theory is no longer popular among academic historians, but it still holds sway among many in the Orthodox Church. It’s one reason why so many people just can’t wrap their minds around the idea that all the Orthodox in America were not a part of the Russian Mission prior to 1917. “The only bishops were Russian,” the argument goes, “ergo, all the Orthodox were under the Russians.”

This way of thinking tends to marginalize the laity and most parish clergy (with the rare exception of prominent priests like St Alexis Toth). But of course, the Church is not just the hierarchy. It is composed of the whole body of the faithful — bishops, priests, and non-clergy alike. The overwhelming majority of clergy are not bishops, and the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Christians are not clergymen at all. To ignore the priests and their flocks is to ignore more than 99% of the Church.

So when I do history, I try to pay special attention to the way things were “on the ground” — at the local level. That means reading old local newspapers, scouring the Internet for parish histories, and even calling dozens of parishes to ask questions. This sort of local history, repeated countless times, is the only way to answer many of the most interesting questions about our past. For instance: When and why were pews introduced into American Orthodox churches? How about organs? I’ve heard the same old answers over the years, but until now, nobody has bothered to systematically study the issue. What did American Orthodox clergy wear in the early 1900s? How many priests shaved, and how many had beards? Were the Russians more “conservative” than the Greeks, or was it the other way around? Did communities tend to construct their own churches, or buy existing Protestant buildings? How often did parishes change clergy? What percentage of American Orthodox were women? How about children? How prevalent was the use of English in church services, and how did that change over time?

To answer these and a thousand other questions, you have to look individual, local communities. The good news is, you can now do a lot of that research without getting into a car or catching a plane. Most established Orthodox parishes now have their own websites, and those websites usually include a parish history. (And, as an aside, many parishes have hard-working parish historians, and we hope SOCHA can help network those people.) If you want an overview of American Orthodox history, you can buy Fr John Erickson’s simple but enlightening Orthodox Christians in America: A Short History. But if you want to know more, take a look at our Resources page, and especially the Parish Histories section.

Parish Histories is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.