Fr. Demetrios Petrides of Atlanta was one of the leading Greek priests active in 1916.

Before I get started, I wanted to let you all know that I do plan to finish my series on St. Raphael and the Syrian controversies of 1905. However, I’ve got several other irons in the fire, so I’m going to take a little time off of that project to present some other research. But don’t worry; we’ll get back to it.

Anyway, recently, I took another look at the 1916 Census of Religious Bodies, conducted by the US Census Bureau. The census includes data on numerous aspects of American Orthodox church life in the mid-teens, including clergy salaries. Of the seven Orthodox groups reported in the census, six — all but the Syrians — provided data on clergy pay. Of those six bodies, three — the Albanians, Bulgarians, and Romanians — provided salary information on just two priests apiece:

• Albanian priests averaged $780/year, or $15,187 in 2009 currency.
• Bulgarian priests averaged $850/$16,549.
• Romanian priests averaged $570/$11,098.

Obviously, the sample sizes are small, but it’s clear that none of these priests were making much money. Here is the data for the larger groups:

• 93 Greek priests reported an average of $913/year, or $17,776 in 2009 currency.
• 149 Russian priests reported $762/$14,836.
• 11 Serbian priests reported $1050/$20,443.

The average salary for all American Orthodox priests in 1916 was $828, equivalent to just $16,117 in modern terms. (Inflation data courtesy of www.westegg.com/inflation.) I should emphasize that these numbers are based only on the clergy who reported their salaries to the Census Bureau; other priests did not report, including, as I said, all of the Syrian clergy.

Obviously, the 1916 salaries are startlingly low. Even the Serbs — the highest-paid group — were scraping by by modern standards. However, things were quite a bit different in 1916 than they are today. Many parishes had rectories or parsonages, so a lot of these priests didn’t have to pay for their housing. Some of our biggest expenses — health care, transportation, various forms of insurance — would have been minimal 94 years ago. And while I don’t have any hard data to support this, it’s my impression that a higher proportion of clergy were unmarried in 1916 than in 2010.

In addition to all those facts, there is a high probability that the reported salaries don’t include honoraria for weddings, baptisms, funerals, house blessings, and the like. In other words, simply taking the 1916 base salaries, plugging them into a calculator, and figuring out their modern equivalent, is not really an accurate way to determine how well American Orthodox clergy were actually compensated in 1916.

Beyond the seemingly low numbers overall, I was struck by the fact that the Russian clergy reported significantly lower salaries than their Greek and Serbian counterparts. The Russian Church in America was substantially subsidized by the Russian government in 1916, whereas the Greek and Serbian parishes primarily relied on local funding. Nevertheless, the Russian clergy were among the lowest-paid in America.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

St. Alexander Hotovitzky

On November 4, 1905, a religious and literary journal entitled The Friend published a letter by St. Alexander Hotovitzky, dean of St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York. Hotovitzky wrote in response to an article in The Friend which claimed, “In this Russian service, of course, no one understood what was said, not even the Russians themselves, as the whole of it was in the ancient ecclesiastical Slavonic tongue. As the Romish Church addresses the Lord in Latin, so do the Greeks use this Slavonic language.” Here is Hotovitzky’s reply:

This is not true.

1. Our ecclesiastical Slavonic tongue is the original of modern Russian, Servian, Slavonian, and of other branches of the Slavic world.

2. Every Russian, even children (of school age) understands well the real text and meaning of all prayers in Slavonic, excluding, perhaps, not many expressions which are lost for living use and are not fitting for ordinary practice.

3. Easy to be understood, this Slavonic language has, besides, immense dignity of words, and is sanctified as proper church language by long ecclesiastical usage.

4. To compare the use of the Latin tongue in the Roman Church and of Slavonic in the Russian is, then, far from consistency and knowledge of true conditions of things, because the chief rule of the Eastern Church (which combines Russia, Greece, Jerusalem, Antiochia, etc.) is to say the divine services in the language of the people for whom the services are intended; in Japan we celebrate and preach in Japanese, in China in Chinese, in Alaska in the native tongue of the Aleutians, and in some churches of America in English, always according to the needs and understanding of the congregation.

5. Russians do not understand Greek, and Greeks do not understand the Russian; so in a Greek church you never hear one word of the Slavonic tongue, and vice versa; yet both are of the same Eastern Catholic confession.

A. Hotovitzky, Dean of the Russian St. Nicholas Cathedral.

New York, Ninth Month 24, 1905.

I’m particularly interested in St. Alexander’s point about the use of English in some American Orthodox parishes. This was 1905; the very next year, Isabel Hapgood published her landmark English translation of the Service Book, facilitating the wider use of English. But Slavonic would remain the dominant language of the Russian Archdiocese for years to come. The 1916 Census of Religious Bodies reports that 166 of the 169 Russian Orthodox congregations in America worshipped exclusively in Slavonic.

In fact, among American Orthodox groups, only St. Raphael’s Syrians (Antiochians) really embraced English in the early years of the 20th century. Although they liturgized exclusively in Arabic in 1906, by 1916, over half of the Syrian parishes had completely switched to English, and numerous others had incorporated English to one degree or another. In fact, in 1916, no more than four of the 25 Syrian congregations continued to worship in Arabic alone. It was a remarkable, dramatic shift that probably had several contributing causes, including the vision of St. Raphael, the influence of Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine, and the translation work of Isabel Hapgood. For more, check out my article from August 21 of last year.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Editor’s note: The following article appeared in the New York Times on August 4, 1873. That’s nearly two decades before Greek immigrants began to flood into America. According to the book Race, Ethnicity, and Place in a Changing America, only 217 immigrants came from Greece to the US in the entire period from 1824 to 1872. Another source (Ethnic Chicago: A Multicultural Portrait) has similar numbers, reporting 188 immigrants in the 1821-1870 period. Yet another book, Greeks in America (1913), reports just 77 Greek immigrants via New York from 1847-1864, and 77 more from 1869-1873.

To be honest, I’m a tad skeptical of these statistics. The article below talks about 20 Greek custom houses in the US in 1873 (including 12 in New York alone), plus two Orthodox communities with large Greek contingents in New Orleans and San Francisco. From the article, it sounds like Greeks sailed to America pretty regularly, looking for temporary work before returning home. Add it all up, and I would guess that there were maybe a couple thousand Greeks in America in 1873, rather than only a few hundred. Either way, though, the numbers were quite small, and this article presents a rare snapshot of Greek life in America long before the Ellis Island era.

Comparatively little is known about the Greeks in America. Reference is made occasionally in the daily Press to the Greek merchants of this City, whose enormous transactions in cotton and grain form an important item in the exports of the country; but beyond that we seldom see a Greek name coming before the public in the daily incidents of this cosmopolitan City.

Greece is so thinly populated that she can hardly spare any hands to emigrate to foreign countries, and we seldom see any Greeks among the nationalities mentioned in the regular reports of our Commissioners of Emigration. Yet a great many Greeks arive daily on our shores, but they come under the quality of sailors, working their passage on board sailing ships of various nationalities. As soon as they land here they apply to their Consul in this City, Mr. D.N. Botassi, for work, when with few variations, the following dialogue takes place:

“When did you arrive”

“This day.”

“Any particular profession?”

“None.”

“What do you expect to do?”

“Anything, your Excellency.”

“Have you got any money?”

“Not a cent, your Excellency.”

“Where are your lodgings?”

“Our traps are at the door; we shall go anywhere your Excellency will send us.”

“Can you speak English?”

“Nothing but Greek, your Excellency.”

There are two sailors’ boarding-houses in this City doing a thriving business. The Consul invariably sends them there, and it seldom occurs that they do not find work in a short time. They begin by doing rough work in loading and unloading merchandise at our piers, and, being generally very temperate, they soon accumulate some savings.

Their first care is to send the little which they can spare to their families in Greece. The family ties are so strong among all her classes, particularly the lower ones, that even years of absence in foreign lands cannot diminish their love for their native land and the dear ones they have left behind. The love of their country is one of the strong characteristics of the Greeks; they emigrate under compulsion to better their condition, but the hope to return one day to their country under more comfortable circumstances is always strong and paramount.

Few of the Greeks who arrive at this port go West to become agriculturalists. This means to become in time owners of land whereon to build their new home. But, as we said before, the Greek has always the hope to return one day to his country. They mostly go to Chicago, where they easily find work in loading vessels and navigating the lakes. On the water they find themselves happy, being in their element. As soon as the lakes are frozen in the Winter time they go down the Mississippi River, and many of them are working on the steam-boats plying between St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Cairo, and New-Orleans. Over 200 of them are to be found in the Crescent City, where they seem to be thriving under the more genial climate, not dissimilar to that of their own country. They have all sorts of professions; many are fruit dealers, keep little restaurants and coffee houses, where the American bar is combined with little tables a l’orientale, round which are seated Greeks talking all at the same time generally, all the idioms of the Grecian Archipelago, drinking coffee, and smoking paper cigarettes. Many of them are oyster dealers and oyster fishers, owning generally their little craft, which they navigate themselves, and trade all along the coast from New-Orleans to Indianola and Matamoras, or on the other side through the lakes to Mobile and Pensacola. The writer tasted, some years ago, an excellent glass of sherry cobbler made by a Greek barkeeper on one of the steam-boats on the Alabama River. In New-Orleans the Greek colony is important enough to maintain a church of their own religion, built some five years ago by subscription, and divine service is celebrated every Sunday in the Greek language by a priest educated in the National University of Athens.

The Greek colony in San Francisco numbers about 300 members, and is the best organized of all the Greek colonies in the States of the Union. They maintain a little chapel of their own, and have established a benevolent society. This latter was rendered necessary from the quantity of new-comers of their countrymen to the Golden State, with the hope of finding gold in abundance. It is strange with what great expectations these children of Hellas go to California, and their disappointment in not finding gold in the streets of San Francisco can be better imagined than described. They seem utterly astonished when they are told that they must work in San Francisco, as everywhere else, to gain their living, and the idea of gold is so deeply rooted in them, that many go to the mines of California and Oregon with the hope of enriching themselves one day by some sudden smile of fortune.

Even in those distant localities they do not forget their native land. They write to their families in Greece from time to time, and are subscribers to a Greek newspaper, to learn the news. To the positive knowledge of the writer eight copies of a Greek newspaper are sent to Greek miners in Placer County, California, and a Greek roaster of pea-nuts in Galveston, Texas, is a subscriber to one of the best Greek newspapers. The only subscribers in America to an Ecclesiastical Review, published in Athens, are an American Episcopalian clergyman in New-York and a Greek boarding-house keeper in Chicago, Ill.

There are no students from Greece in this country, with the exception of one, who is studying agriculture at the expense of the Greek Government, in the Illinois Industrial University, in Champaign, Ill., on the scanty allowance of $40 per month.

The average salary of sailors, on board Greek vessels, is about $10 per month; it is no wonder, therefore, that those who come to this country are reluctant to go back, getting, as they do, from $30 to $40 per month. But they get even more on land. Last year a Greek vessel arrived at this port from Sicily with a cargo of brimstone. The crew, consisting of twelve men, refused to go to Havana, where the vessel was bound, and remained in New-York. They soon found their way to Athens, below Albany, where they engaged to work at the railroad depot. They ahve worked there for one year, saved $300 each, which they sent to Greece through their Consul, and worked their passage home recently on board an American vessel. Their abstinence from drinking and their hard work were much remarked by the employees of the railroad.

But the most remarkable incident of the strength of family ties among the Greeks which came to our knowledge is that of a Greek boy who came to this country thirty years ago. He was educated for the ministry and pursued his avocation. A year ago he made inquiries about his relatives in Greece, and finding that a sister of his, a widow, was still living, but very poor, he opened a correspondence with her. They have never seen each other, but the expatriated Greek felt an inherent duty to assist her. He sends her now very regularly a yearly pension, with which she lives at present comfortably in Athens.

We mentioned above a Greek vessel which arrived at this port last year. The father of her Captain has a rather curious history. He was the owner of a small vessel employed in the grain trade during the Crimean war. A tthe time he was in the City of Kertch, in the Crimea. The Russian ports were blockaded by the allies. A Russian regiment was ready in Arrapa, on the Black Sea, to come to the Crimea. But how? The Greek Captain made an arrangement with the Russian General to run the blockade, and bring the regiment where it was needed. He ran the blockade successfully, took the regiment on board, and was nearing the coast of the Crimea, when he was discovered by the English cruisers, who began to fire on him. He succeeded in landing the Russians safely, but his vessel was captured. The Russian General was delighted. Acting on superior orders, he paid to the Greek 5,000 silver roubles, and added a Russian schooner in the bargain. But the port was shortly bombarded by the allies, and his schooner was destroyed. Nothing daunted by this reverse, the Greek started for St. Petersburg, and, laying his case before the Emperor Nicholas, he had the satisfaction to receive 10,000 silver roubles as an additional compensation for his services to the Russian cause, besides a medal of honor.

There are twelve commercial Greek houses in this city, dealing largely in cotton, grain, and East India produce; four more are in New-Orleans, similarly engaged; one in Mobile, one in Memphis, Tenn., and two in Boston, Mass. These latter deal principally in Mediterranean produce, mostly dried fruit from Constantinople and Smyrna, exporting thither New England rum, machinery, and Yankee notions.

Last week, Alexei Krindatch released his landmark 2010 census of Orthodox churches in the United States. (Also last week, Krindatch was interviewed by Kevin Allen on Ancient Faith Radio. Click here to listen.) Sifting through the census data, I naturally got to thinking about historical censuses. Every ten years, from 1906 to 1936, the US Census Bureau conducted a thorough census of all religious bodies in the country. And they did a good job of it: like Krindatch so many generations later, the Census Bureau gathered lists of individual congregations and then contacted each local congregation directly. They didn’t just ask the various denominations, “How many members do you have?” By working with each parish, they were able to obtain very reliable results. (For details on how these censuses were conducted, see the journals of the American Statistical Association from December 1920 and September 1927.)

In addition to the 1906-1936 censuses, a less rigorous study was conducted by the Christian Herald in 1947. It’s in this latter census that we begin to see the inflated numbers that would become the hallmark of Orthodox population data until Krindatch did his work over the last decade.

Today, I’m going to focus solely on raw population data from the historical censuses. For starters, here is what American Orthodoxy looked like in the 1906 census. Keep in mind that these numbers don’t include Alaska:

1. 90,751 Greeks
2. 19,111 Russians
3. 15,742 Serbs
4. 4,002 Antiochians

That’s a total of 129,606 Orthodox in the United States of America. A decade later, the Orthodox population had nearly doubled, to 249,840. Much of this growth was from the Russians, who grew by more than 80,000 members. I assume that most of these new members were former Uniates.

1. 119,871 Greeks
2. 99,681 Russians
3. 14,301 Serbs
4. 11,591 Antiochians
5. 1,994 Romanians
6. 1,992 Bulgarians
7. 410 Albanians

Abp Platon oversaw a period of remarkable growth for the Russian Archdiocese in the early 20th century.

You know, I’ve always had it in my mind that the big growth of the Russian Church in the continguous United States came during the era of St. Tikhon (1898-1907) and St. Alexis Toth (1891-1909). But this data shows that the really big increase didn’t happen until 1906-1916. I find this fact especially ironic in that this period coincides almost precisely with the episcopate of Archbishop Platon, who ruled (and I mean ruled, with an iron fist) from 1907 to 1914. Abp Platon did encourage Uniate conversions to Orthodoxy, but he also wanted the ex-Uniates to become “real Russians” — to give up their distinctive ethnic languages and traditions and fully embrace Russian-ness, in all of its meanings. It’s all rather contrary to the traditional Orthodox missionary outlook espoused by people like St. Innocent; nevertheless, Abp Platon oversaw a period of massive growth in the Russian Archdiocese.

Moving ahead another ten years, to 1926, we find that the population has leveled off. At 259,394, American Orthodoxy had grown by less than four percent in the preceding decade. However, I strongly suspect that the actual numbers were higher than this. Remember that 1926 was right in the middle of a period of schism, with competing jurisdictions for almost every Orthodox ethnic group. Do the 1926 census numbers include, for instance, both the Russy and Antacky factions of Antiochians? The same sort of question could be asked of the Russians, Greeks, and others. It’s just a hunch, but I’d wager that a sizeable number of Orthodox Americans fell through the cracks in this census. Anyway, here’s the breakdown for 1926:

1. 119,495 Greeks
2. 95,134 Russians
3. 18,853 Romanians
4. 13,775 Serbs
5. 9,207 Antiochians
6. 1,993 Albanians
7. 937 Bulgarians

Metropolitan Germanos Shehadi was one of three claimants to Antiochian leadership in the mid-1920s.

It’s especially striking to see the Romanians jump to the #3 spot on the list. Realistically, I think the Antiochians may well have been as populous as the Romanians, but by 1926 there were three strong claimants to leadership of the group — Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh (Russy), Metropolitan Germanos Shehadi (the original Antacky), and newcomer Archbishop Victor Abo-Assaley (leader of the newly-founded Antiochian Archdiocese). As I said above, it’s likely that the Census Bureau didn’t get data from all three factions, the result being an apparent decline in the Antiochian population.

Anyway, growth had resumed by 1936. The Orthodox population (counting mainstream jurisdictions only — that is, excluding the Ofiesh spinoff groups and such) was 348,025 — a 34% increase over the 1926 figure. Most of that growth was fueled by the Greeks, whose numbers rose by 58%:

1. 189,368 Greeks
2. 89,510 Russians
3. 20,020 Serbs
4. 18,451 Antiochians
5. 15,090 Romanians
6. 11,480 Ukrainians
7. 3,137 Albanians
8. 969 Bulgarians

This was the second decade in a row that the Russian Orthodox population had declined. Keep in mind, though, that the Russian data has much the same problem that the 1926 Antiochian data had — the Russians were split into three groups (Metropolia, ROCOR, and Moscow Patriarchate), and I think that only the Metropolia was counted in the census.

The 1936 census was the last one conducted by the Census Bureau, but as I said earlier, the Christian Herald did its own census in 1947. The numbers aren’t quite as reliable. I don’t know what their methodology was, but… well, take a look at their data, and then I’ll offer some thoughts:

1. 300,000 Russians
2. 275,000 Greeks
3. 42,000 Serbs
4. 39,500 Ukrainians
5. 21,000 Romanians
6. 20,300 Antiochians
7. 3,137 Albanians
8. 1,336 Bulgarians

It seems that the Christian Herald‘s numbers came directly from the jurisdictions themselves, rather than from the individual congregations. And look at the growth: the Christian Herald reported 702,273 Orthodox in 1947, almost exactly double the population in the 1936 census. Are we really to believe that America’s Orthodox population experienced 100% growth from 1936-1947? Looking at the jurisdictions, some of the numbers are more believable than others. The Antiochian, Romanian, and Bulgarian figures are reasonably in line with their 1936 populations. And notice that the 3,137 number for the Albianians is exactly the same as it was in 1936 (meaning, obviously, that it was taken directly from the ’36 census, without additional research).

Could the Greeks have grown from 189,368 to 275,000 in just 11 years? Absolutely. That would be a 45% increase for the Greeks, after a 58% jump from 1926-1936. It might be a bit of a stretch, but it’s well within the realm of possibility. Even being conservative, the Greek Archdiocese must have had well over 200,000 members in 1947. But I simply don’t buy that there were 300,000 Russian Orthodox in 1947, when there were fewer than 90,000 in 1936. Here, I think we see the beginnings of a process that culminated with the OCA officially reporting a nice, round, 1,000,000 members until recently. Reducing the Russian data to a more reasonable level — say, 150,000 rather than 300,000 — we’re left with somewhere around 550,000 Orthodox in America in 1947. If we accept that as roughly accurate, here are the approximate increases in population from 1906-1947:

• 1906-16: 93%
• 1916-26: 4%
• 1926-36: 34%
• 1936-47: ~58% ?

According to Krindatch’s 2010 census, there are 799,400 members of the mainstream Chalcedonian jurisdictions. If we take the 1947 data at face value — that is, if we accept that there were 702,273 Orthodox Americans in 1947 — then the US Orthodox population has grown by just 14 percent in the past 63 years. Even if we halve the 1947 Russian figure, the growth since 1947 has been 45%, which is pretty modest considering over six decades have passed. While the 1947 data isn’t precise, I think it’s safe to say that we grew more in the 11 years from 1936-1947 than we have in the 63 years since.

Finally, note the exponential growth of the Serbs and Ukrainians from ’36 to ’47 — 110% and 244% (!), respectively. The Ukrainian figure, while very high, is definitely plausible, as the Ukrainians were a fledgling jurisdiction in 1936 and grew through the conversion of Uniates in the years that followed. I don’t know enough about the Serbs to say whether their number is accurate, but I know that many Serbs came to America during World War II (including St. Nicholai Velimirovich in 1946). I’m inclined to believe that there were roughly 42,000 Serbian Orthodox by 1947.

As far as I can tell, this 1947 Christian Herald census, while obviously flawed, was the last reasonably accurate census of American Orthodoxy to be conducted in the 20th century. From 1947 until Alexei Krindatch began his work in the early 21st century, American Orthodox jurisdictions (and, in some cases, politicians) began to come up with their own statistics, and the results were way out of line with reality. Yes, there might be four or even eight million US citizens who are descended from an Orthodox Christian. And there may well be several million Americans who were baptized into the Orthodox Church as infants. But it’s incredible — literally, not credible — to count them all as Orthodox parishioners. Future historians will be indebted to Alexei Krindatch for his meticulous work, just as we, today, can be grateful for the accurate censuses conducted in the first half of the 20th century.

UPDATE (10/11/10): I happened to have lunch with Alexei Krindatch just yesterday, and he pointed out that a much higher proportion of Americans were religious in the 1906-1947 period than today. To get a real sense of the relative growth of American Orthodoxy from 1947-2010, we need to take into account the overall population of religious Americans. I don’t have the data right now, but suffice it to say that it isn’t quite so simple to compare the raw 1947 population to the raw 2010 population.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Krindatch

Over the past decade, my friend, the incomparable sociologist Alexei Krindatch, has developed a reputation for his remarkable studies of Orthodox Christianity in America. The full collection of his work is housed at www.orthodoxreality.org. Today, Alexei has released the results of his latest and most ambitious project yet — a census of all Orthodox congregations in the United States. The most notable aspect of this census is the fact that Alexei didn’t just go to the administrations of each jurisdiction and ask for their reported numbers. He contacted every single parish in America, asking two key questions:

• Approximately how many individual persons in total are associated in any way with the life of your parish: counting adults and children, regular and occasional attendees, paid stewards and persons who do not contribute financially?
• Approximately how many persons — including adults and children — attend Liturgy in your parish on a typical Sunday?

Counting all “Orthodox” churches — that is, including the non-Chalcedonians as well as HOCNA (which isn’t in communion with mainstream Orthodoxy) — Alexei found that 1,043,600 people were associated with American Orthodox parishes. Of those, about 280,300 (27%) attend Liturgy on a typical Sunday.

I’m tempted to pick out some of my favorite bits of data from the census, but I really do want you to visit Alexei’s website and read what he’s presented. In the future, I’ll probably unpack the census a bit, comparing it to the old Censuses of Religious Bodies. Once again, here’s a link to the 2010 Census, and here’s a link to Alexei Krindatch’s website.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

St. John Kochurov is one of the most famous of the many "Fr. Johns" in American Orthodox history

Recently, I did a study of the most common names of American Orthodox parishes. In response, Christopher Orr commented, “I wonder what a similar study of clergy (bishop, priest, deacon) names would show. My guess would be Michael, John and George, and perhaps also Nicholas, with Alexander also very popular among Russians.”

I realized that I could actually do that sort of study. For several years now, I’ve been compiling an Excel file with the names of thousands of American Orthodox clergy (mostly priests) and the parishes in which they served. The focus is on past, rather than contemporary, priests, but given that the data is already in a sortable format, I figured I could use it to answer Christopher’s question — what are the most common names of American Orthodox clergy?

2,069 clergy were included in the study. The actual file has more than that, but for a lot of historical clergy, I only have a last name, or a first initial — not enough to conduct a study like this. So, a little over two thousand made the final cut. Also, keep in mind that there are lots of spelling and linguistic variations on a given name. So Elijah, Ilyas, Ilie, and Ilja were all counted as, “Elias.” Every version of Demetrios / Dimitri was labeled, “Demetrios.” And so forth — you get the idea.

Here’s the top 10 list:

1. John (9.6%)
2. George (6.2)
3. Michael (5.0)
4. Nicholas (4.7)
5. Peter (3.7)
6. Constantine (3.6)
7. Basil (3.4)
8. Joseph (2.6)
9. Stephen (2.5)
10. Alexander (2.4)

So Mr. Orr was right on the money — he pegged the top four. The next eight, all between 1.6 and 2.2%, are Demetrios, Paul, Theodore, Andrew, Anthony, James/Jacob, Elias, and Gregory.

I then looked specifically at the three largest jurisdictions — Greek, OCA, and Antiochian. For the OCA, I focused only on the clergy of the Russian Archdiocese / Metropolia / territorial OCA; I didn’t include the OCA’s various ethnic dioceses. Here are the most common OCA names:

1. John (11.8)
2. Michael (5.7)
3. Joseph (5.1)
4. Nicholas (5.1)
5. Peter (5.0)
6. Basil (4.7)
7. Alexander (4.5)
8. Paul (3.9)
9. Vladimir (3.3)

Alexander is indeed a popular name for OCA clergy, but John is way ahead of the pack, with twice as many as the next most-common name.

As you would expect, George is wildly popular among the Antiochians:

1. George (12.1)
2. John (10.2)
3. Michael (7.9)
4. Anthony (4.9)
5. Elias (4.6)
6. Nicholas (3.9)

Also predictable was the popularity of the name Constantine among the Greeks:

1. George (9.o)
2. Michael (8.5)
3. Constantine (7.6)
4. Nicholas (5.8)
5. Demetrios (3.3)
6. Peter (3.0)

Eventually, it would be nice to do a more systematic study, looking at the names of all current SCOBA clergy. But I suspect that the overall conclusions would be similar — John, George, Michael, and Nicholas are by far the most common names for American Orthodox clergy.

Here’s a trivia question for you: What is the most common name for an Orthodox parish in the United States?

This isn’t really an historical question, and it’s opening what is not strictly an historical article. But, to answer the question: the most common parish name is “St. Nicholas,” followed closely by “St. George” and “Holy Trinity.”

If you’ve been Orthodox for very long, this little nugget shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. But I tend to find such information fascinating, and recently, I decided to systematically study the question of parish names and patrons. I took all the parishes, missions, and chapels in the United States, listed on the SCOBA website, and plugged them into a spreadsheet.

A few disclaimers, before we jump into the numbers: I didn’t include Canada, or monasteries, or any of the Moscow Patriarchate’s “representation” parishes. I’m sure I made some data entry errors, and of course, the numbers are only as good as SCOBA’s database, which I know isn’t perfectly up-to-date.

St. Nicholas Cathedral (ROCOR) in Seattle, at the time of its consecration in 1937

There were 1,842 parishes in the study. Here is a list of the 10 most common parish names:

1. St. Nicholas (142 parishes / 7.7%)
2. St. George (139 / 7.5)
3. Holy Trinity (136 / 7.4)
4. Dormition or Assumption or some other name for that feast (77 / 4.2)
5. St. John the Baptist (69 / 3.7)
6. Ss. Peter & Paul (66 / 3.6)
7. St. Michael (63 / 3.4)
8. Ss. Constantine & Helen (39 / 2.1)
9. Annunciation (39 / 2.1)
10. St. Andrew (37 / 2.0)

The top three — Nicholas, George, and Holy Trinity — represent 22.6% of all American Orthodox parishes. But while those are the most common parish names, they aren’t the most common parish patrons. Here’s that Top 10 list:

1. Theotokos (273 / 14.8)
2. Lord Jesus Christ (154 / 8.4)
3. St. Nicholas (142 / 7.7)
4. St. George (139 / 7.5)
5. Holy Trinity (136 / 7.4)
6. Ss. Peter & Paul, or just St. Peter or St. Paul (89 / 4.8)
7. One or more of the Archangels (76 / 4.1)
8. St. John the Baptist (69 / 3.7)
9. Three Hierarchs (Basil, John, or Gregory, or all three together) (44 / 2.4)
10. Ss. Constantine & Helen (39 / 2.1)

As you can imagine, the churches dedicated to Christ or his mother have a host of names and feast days. There are, for instance, 28 parishes named “Christ the Savior” (or, once in a while, “Christ the Redeemer”). Another 25 are named for one of the many wonderworking icons of the Theotokos. As you might expect, given the special Russian affection for such icons, most of these parishes are either OCA or ROCOR.

There was a good deal of variance among the different jurisdictions. Here are the most common patrons of OCA parishes:

1. Theotokos (12.6 %)
2. Lord Jesus Christ (11.7)
3. St. Nicholas (9.4)
4. Holy Trinity (6.0)
5. Ss. Peter & Paul (5.9)
6. St. John the Baptist (3.9)
7. St. Michael (3.6)

The five most common OCA patrons represented 45.7% of their parishes. This is nearly identical with the overall national average (45.8%). The Ukrainians, on the other hand, were far more top-heavy, at 63.4%:

1. Theotokos (19.8%)
2. Holy Trinity (15.8)
3. Ss. Peter & Paul (9.9)
4. St. Vladimir (or Volodymyr) (9.9)
5. St. Andrew (7.9)

Of course, the Ukrainian jurisdiction has far fewer churches than the OCA – 101 Ukrainian, 562 OCA, based on the SCOBA database — which means that a few parishes make a bigger difference. The Ukrainians are understandably devoted to St. Vladimir, with 10 of their parishes named in his honor. The OCA and ROCOR have a combined total of 715 parishes, compared to the Ukrainians’ 101; nevertheless, of the 20 American Orthodox churches named for St. Vladimir, 10 are Ukrainian, and only 5 OCA and 5 ROCOR.

Like the Ukrainians, 19.8% of Greek churches have the Theotokos as their patron. Here’s the Greek leaderboard, out of a total of 525 parishes:

1. Theotokos (19.8%)
2. Holy Trinity (11.4)
3. St. George (10.3)
4. St. Nicholas (6.9)
5. Lord Jesus Christ (6.1)
6. Ss. Constantine & Helen (5.9)
7. St. Demetrios (5.3)
8. St. John the Baptist (3.9)

Of the Greek parishes dedicated to the Theotokos, they are pretty evenly divided between the feast of the Annunciation (52 parishes) and that of the Dormition / Assumption (42). St. George is also very popular among the Greeks, but not as popular as he is among the Antiochians. Check out the Antiochian list (out of 250 parishes):

St. Raphael in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1911. He founded St. George Orthodox Church, one of 18 parishes named for St. George which St. Raphael established in his 20 years in America.

1. St. George (17.6%)
2. Lord Jesus Christ (8.4)
3. Theotokos (8.4)
4. St. Nicholas (5.2)
5. St. Michael (4.4)
6. St. Elias or Elijah (3.6)
7. St. Andrew (3.2)
8. St. John the Theologian (3.2)

That figure for St. George — 17.6% — is the highest mark for any saint in any jurisdiction, other than the Theotokos. There are more Antiochian churches named after St. George than are named for the Theotokos and Christ put together. Also, while Ss. Peter and Paul didn’t make it onto the above list, if you combine the Antiochian parishes named for one or both of those Apostles, they represent 6% of all Antiochian churches in the US.

The first Serbian Orthodox parish in America, in Jackson, California, was named for St. Sava. It was established by a young Fr. Sebastian Dabovich in 1894.

Among all the jurisdictions, the Serbs have the lowest percentage of parishes dedicated to the Theotokos — 4.1%. Here are the most common Serbian parish patrons:

1. St. George (14.8%)
2. St. Sava (13.9)
3. Lord Jesus Christ (7.4)
4. St. Michael (7.4)
5. Holy Trinity (6.6)

Nearly 29% of all Serbian parishes are named for either St. Sava or St. George. But the Carpatho-Russians have them beat: 32.5% of their 80 churches are dedicated to either St. John the Baptist or St. Nicholas. That’s the highest percentage of two saints (other than the Theotokos) in all of American Orthodoxy. Here’s the Carpatho-Russian list:

1. St. John the Baptist (16.3%)
2. St. Nicholas (16.3)
3. Theotokos (15.0)
4. St. Michael (11.3)
5. Lord Jesus Christ (8.8)

I haven’t mentioned the Romanian or Bulgarian Patriarchal jurisdiction, simply because, with only 25 and 22 parishes, respectively, the sample sizes are too small to mean much. The most common patron of a Romanian Patriarchal parish is the Theotokos, with four total churches. The most common patrons for Bulgarian parishes are Christ and the Theotokos, with three apiece.

As I’ve said before, parishes named for a particular icon of the Theotokos tend to be either ROCOR or OCA. There are also a lot of Slavic churches named for the Protection of the Theotokos. Churches named for her Nativity are usually OCA; on the other hand, the Greeks tend to like the feasts of her Annunciation and Dormition / Assumption.

Finally, I wondered, what American saints have been especially honored with parishes? Obviously, these parishes would be of recent vintage, and as new missions are established, these numbers are going to change quite a bit. But, so far, here are American saints with the most US parishes:

1. St. Herman (20 parishes)
2. St. Innocent (13)
3. St. Raphael (7)
4. St. John Maximovitch (5)
5. St. Tikhon (4)

Ss. Herman and Innocent were both canonized in the 1970s, so there has been plenty of time for parishes to be dedicated to their memory. St. Raphael, on the other hand, was glorified only a few years ago; that he is already the patron of seven churches is rather amazing.

Every ten years, from 1906 to 1936, the US Census Bureau compiled a Census of Religious Bodies. These censuses are gold mines of information on early American Orthodoxy. Also, unlike so many of the inflated numbers that you’re likely to see floating around, the census data is reliable. With its considerable resources, the Census Bureau was able not only to work with the jurisdictions themselves, but to contact individual parishes for precise information. The result is a thorough, well-researched, and generally unbiased collection of statistics and other information.

What can we learn from the censuses? Loads of things. For instance, we can track the growth of the various Orthodox groups and jurisdictions in the United States:

The Russian spike in 1916 was most likely caused by Uniate conversions. Overall, the Orthodox population grew from about 130,000 in 1906 to almost 350,000 thirty years later:

• 1906: 129,606
• 1916: 249,840
• 1926: 259,394
• 1936: 348,025

As you can see, the 1916-1926 period was rather stagnant; in fact, aside from the Albanians and Romanians, every jurisdiciton declined in that period. World War I probably had something to do with it, as well as the new immigration quotas imposed by the US government in 1924. It’s also likely that the various jurisdictional schisms of the 1920s – Russy-Antacky, Royalist-Venizelist, Metropolia-Living Church — affected the ability of the Census Bureau to collect data. (That is, there were probably more Orthodox than were reported in 1926.)

One of the things I’ve found most interesting about the census data are the gender ratios. In 1906, men represented 85% of all American Orthodox Christians. That is, for every woman, there were almost six men. Here are the percentages of women in each year:

• 1906: 15%
• 1916: 28%
• 1926: 40%
• 1936: 46%

By 1936, every group was between 42 and 51 percent female. For most of this period, the Greeks were the most overwhelmingly male jurisdiction (with female percentages from 1906-36 of 6, 17, 34, and 43 percent). Until ’36, the Syrians were the most balanced group, with 40% women in 1906, and 45, 49, and 47 percent in the years that followed.

The Serbian male population actually declined considerably from 1906-26, due most likely to the Balkan Wars and then World War I, but the female population (not just the percentage) increased dramatically:

• 1906: 2,228 women (14%)
• 1916: 3,301 women (23%)
• 1926: 6,421 women (47%)

The census also kept data on Sunday schools. In 1906, there were just 7 Sunday schools in all of American Orthodoxy. By 1916, there were 162 (of which 126 were Russian). The Russians actually closed a lot of their Sunday schools in the next decade (dropping to 90), but the Greeks and Romanians added a lot more, pushing the total number up to 198 by 1926. By 1936, there were 294 Orthodox Sunday schools in the United States, of which 129 were Greek and 101 were Russian.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s available in the censuses. In the future, we’ll continue to unpack the data.

To our New Calendar readers: Christ is born!

The following article was originally published on August 21, 2009. If you’re interested, you might check out the comments to that original posting. We’ll be back with brand-new material on Monday, December 28.

As you might expect, most American Orthodox parishes in 1916 used foreign languages. From that year’s Census of Religious Bodies, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, we find the following unsurprising information:

• Both of the Albanian parishes used exclusively Albanian.
• The four Bulgarian parishes used Bulgarian and Slavonic.
• The 87 Greek parishes used exclusively Greek.
• Both of the Romanian parishes used exclusively Romanian and Slavonic.
• 166 of the 169 Russian parishes used exclusively Slavonic. Of the other three, two used a combination of Slavonic and English, and one used exclusively English.
• 11 of the 12 Serbian parishes used exclusively Slavonic and/or Serbian. One Serbian parish used exclusively English.

In total, there were 276 parishes in the United States in 1916, not counting the Syrians. 272 of those 276 (98.55%) worshipped entirely in foreign languages, and just two used English only.

None of this should come as a surprise. The vast majority of American Orthodox Christians in 1916 were either immigrants, or the children of immigrants. And the vast majority of American Orthodox clergy were also immigrants, most of whom had been educated and ordained in the Old World.

Now we come to the Syrians… and as we’ve seen before, the Syrians are an outlier. This is what the 1916 Census has to say:

Of the 25 organizations, 13, with 4,361 members, reported services conducted in English only; and 12, with 7,230 members, reported services conducted in foreign languages alone or with English. Of these, 4 organizations, with 1,230 members, reported the use of Arabic alone or with English; 5, with 2,900 members, Arabic, Greek, and English; and 3, with 3,100 members, Arabic, Greek, Russian, and English. In 1906 all the organizations then represented reported the Syro-Arabic language only.

This is stunning. Ten years earlier, in 1906, the Syrians were like everybody else, worshipping exclusively in their native tongue. In 1916, everybody else was pretty much the same — 98.55% foreign. But in just a decade, the Syrians had changed dramatically. By 1916, at least 21 of the 25 Syrian parishes (84%) used at least some English in their church services, and over half (13 of 25) were entirely in English.

How on earth did this happen? I don’t have a clear answer; however, there is one clue. In 1905, an Episcopal priest named Ingram Irvine converted to Orthodoxy. He was ordained by Ss. Tikhon and Raphael, took the name “Fr. Nathaniel,” and for about two years, he served in the Russian Mission. His purpose was “English work.” He wrote articles in English, published a couple of small books, and conducted an English-language Vespers service on Sunday nights. He also helped St. Tikhon with English-language administrative work, and advised him on Anglican-Orthodox relations.

Irvine is one of my favorite figures in American Orthodox history, and we’ll talk about him in great detail in the future, but for now, it’s enough to know that he transferred to St. Raphael’s jurisdiction after St. Tikhon returned to Russia in 1907. And Irvine’s transfer also meant the transfer of the “English work.” Now, his English articles appeared in the otherwise all-Arabic Al Kalimat (The Word). He made it his special mission to reach out to the English-speaking children of Arabic immigrants to America. He taught Sunday School, ghostwrote letters for St. Raphael, and generally promoted the use of English in the Syrian Mission. He did this at the direction and with the encouragement of St. Raphael; when St. Raphael died in 1915, Irvine wrote, “With Bishop Raphael’s death ended the initiatory Chapter of English Orthodox Church work in America.”[*]

I don’t think Irvine alone was responsible for the great proliferation of English in the Syrian Mission in the years 1906-1916, but he must have played a major role. Just thinking out loud, another factor may have been the weaker national identification with Orthodoxy among the Syrians. What I mean is this: to be a Russian, a Greek, or a Serb was to be Orthodox. National identity and religious affiliation were intimately intertwined, to the point that they were one and the same. But it was not so among the Syrians. They came, not from their own nation-state, but from the Ottoman Empire. And they also came from a region of great religious pluralism — back in Syria, they lived alongside Melkites, Maronites, Muslims, and Druze. In other words, while Slavonic, Greek, and Serbian culture (and language) was closely identified with Orthodoxy, the same could not be said of Syro-Arab culture and language. And it’s possible (though I can’t prove it) that this distinction was a major factor in the spread of English among the Syrians, while the rest of American Orthodoxy was still firmly attached to foreign languages.

Finally, Fr. John Erickson offered this comment upon seeing the language data:

In light of the very large number of parishes St Raphael’s Syrian mission that used only English or predominantly English, another question that might be interesting to explore would be the extent to which, in the years immediately following, the “Antacky” advocated the use of Arabic or otherwise resorted to identity politics.

At present, I don’t have any idea whether the Russy-Antacky divide involved language, but it is a question I will have to explore (and if anyone wants to help, please let me know!)
____________________________________________________________
[*] Ingram N.W. Irvine (Fr. Nathaniel), “Bishop Raphael, In His Relation to the English Work of the Archdiocese of North America,” Russian Orthodox American Messenger 19:5 (March 15, 1915), 72.

There is an argument, made by many, that the first autocephalous Church to expand into a new territory “gets” that territory. I call it the flag-planting theory, because it reminds me of 15th century European explorers who reached the shores of undiscovered (for them) lands, stuck a flag in the sand, and claimed that piece of earth for their nation.

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.

As you might expect, most American Orthodox parishes in 1916 used foreign languages. From that year’s Census of Religious Bodies, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, we find the following unsurprising information:

• Both of the Albanian parishes used exclusively Albanian.
• The four Bulgarian parishes used Bulgarian and Slavonic.
• The 87 Greek parishes used exclusively Greek.
• Both of the Romanian parishes used exclusively Romanian and Slavonic.
• 166 of the 169 Russian parishes used exclusively Slavonic. Of the other three, two used a combination of Slavonic and English, and one used exclusively English.
• 11 of the 12 Serbian parishes used exclusively Slavonic and/or Serbian. One Serbian parish used exclusively English.

In total, there were 276 parishes in the United States in 1916, not counting the Syrians. 272 of those 276 (98.55%) worshipped entirely in foreign languages, and just two used English only.

None of this should come as a surprise. The vast majority of American Orthodox Christians in 1916 were either immigrants, or the children of immigrants. And the vast majority of American Orthodox clergy were also immigrants, most of whom had been educated and ordained in the Old World.

Now we come to the Syrians… and as we’ve seen before, the Syrians are an outlier. This is what the 1916 Census has to say:

Of the 25 organizations, 13, with 4,361 members, reported services conducted in English only; and 12, with 7,230 members, reported services conducted in foreign languages alone or with English. Of these, 4 organizations, with 1,230 members, reported the use of Arabic alone or with English; 5, with 2,900 members, Arabic, Greek, and English; and 3, with 3,100 members, Arabic, Greek, Russian, and English. In 1906 all the organizations then represented reported the Syro-Arabic language only.

This is stunning. Ten years earlier, in 1906, the Syrians were like everybody else, worshipping exclusively in their native tongue. In 1916, everybody else was pretty much the same — 98.55% foreign. But in just a decade, the Syrians had changed dramatically. By 1916, at least 21 of the 25 Syrian parishes (84%) used at least some English in their church services, and over half (13 of 25) were entirely in English.

How on earth did this happen? I don’t have a clear answer; however, there is one clue. In 1905, an Episcopal priest named Ingram Irvine converted to Orthodoxy. He was ordained by Ss. Tikhon and Raphael, took the name “Fr. Nathaniel,” and for about two years, he served in the Russian Mission. His purpose was “English work.” He wrote articles in English, published a couple of small books, and conducted an English-language Vespers service on Sunday nights. He also helped St. Tikhon with English-language administrative work, and advised him on Anglican-Orthodox relations.

Irvine is one of my favorite figures in American Orthodox history, and we’ll talk about him in great detail in the future, but for now, it’s enough to know that he transferred to St. Raphael’s jurisdiction after St. Tikhon returned to Russia in 1907. And Irvine’s transfer also meant the transfer of the “English work.” Now, his English articles appeared in the otherwise all-Arabic Al Kalimat (The Word). He made it his special mission to reach out to the English-speaking children of Arabic immigrants to America. He taught Sunday School, ghostwrote letters for St. Raphael, and generally promoted the use of English in the Syrian Mission. He did this at the direction and with the encouragement of St. Raphael; when St. Raphael died in 1915, Irvine wrote, “With Bishop Raphael’s death ended the initiatory Chapter of English Orthodox Church work in America.”[*]

I don’t think Irvine alone was responsible for the great proliferation of English in the Syrian Mission in the years 1906-1916, but he must have played a major role. Just thinking out loud, another factor may have been the weaker national identification with Orthodoxy among the Syrians. What I mean is this: to be a Russian, a Greek, or a Serb was to be Orthodox. National identity and religious affiliation were intimately intertwined, to the point that they were one and the same. But it was not so among the Syrians. They came, not from their own nation-state, but from the Ottoman Empire. And they also came from a region of great religious pluralism — back in Syria, they lived alongside Melkites, Maronites, Muslims, and Druze. In other words, while Slavonic, Greek, and Serbian culture (and language) was closely identified with Orthodoxy, the same could not be said of Syro-Arab culture and language. And it’s possible (though I can’t prove it) that this distinction was a major factor in the spread of English among the Syrians, while the rest of American Orthodoxy was still firmly attached to foreign languages.

Finally, Fr. John Erickson offered this comment upon seeing the language data:

In light of the very large number of parishes St Raphael’s Syrian mission that used only English or predominantly English, another question that might be interesting to explore would be the extent to which, in the years immediately following, the “Antacky” advocated the use of Arabic or otherwise resorted to identity politics.

At present, I don’t have any idea whether the Russy-Antacky divide involved language, but it is a question I will have to explore (and if anyone wants to help, please let me know!)
____________________________________________________________
[*] Ingram N.W. Irvine (Fr. Nathaniel), “Bishop Raphael, In His Relation to the English Work of the Archdiocese of North America,” Russian Orthodox American Messenger 19:5 (March 15, 1915), 72.

St. Raphael of Brooklyn, 1914

Back in June, I wrote a post on parish priest stability in the 1910s, and I found that the Syrians under St. Raphael had a higher clergy retention percentage than any other American Orthodox group. Way higher. Of the 14 Syrian parishes that had resident priests in 1911, 10 of them had the same pastor four years later. That’s 71.4%. Here’s how the various ethnic groups break down:

71.4% Syrian (10/14)
42.9% Serbian (3/7)
20.3% Russian (15/74)
27.5% Greek (11/40)

The Syrians were stable in almost every measurable way. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census of Religious Bodies, conducted in 1906 and 1916, the Syrians had the most balanced male-to-female ratio of any group. Here are the percentages of women in 1916 (median includes smaller groups such as Romanians, Bulgarians, and Albanians):

44.5% Syrian
37.5% Russian
28.5% median
23.1% Serbian
16.6% Greek

The Syrians also had the highest ratio of priests per capita. Here is the number of parishioners per priest for each group:

386 Syrian
493 Serbian
623 Russian
755 median
1164 Greek

How about parishioners per church edifice?

446 Syrian
608 Russian
946 median
1430 Serbian
2032 Greek

I’m probably beating a dead horse at this point, but here are the Sunday School student-teacher ratios:

17 Syrian
40 Greek
41 median
45 Russian
59 Serbian

The Syrians were becoming more established, too. Here is the percentage growth in the number of church edifices from 1906 to 1916:

1200% Syrian
257% Russian
211% median
103% Greek
25% Serbian

Bottom line, by any method I can think of to measure stability, the Syrians under St. Raphael were the most stable Orthodox group in America. This makes me curious to learn more about how exactly he functioned as a bishop. The statistics alone suggest that he was doing something right.

Matthew has previously provided for us some tidbits on the ambiguous canonical status of St. Raphael of Brooklyn (Antioch? Moscow? Both? How?)—see especially his post on St. Raphael’s consecration as well as listening to the relevant parts in his “The Myth of Past Unity” lecture.

Here’s another data point that I just discovered indicating that the impression of at least the Episcopalian observers to the situation in 1913 saw it as ambiguous, as well:

These Orthodox, about 33 per cent of the Syrians in New England, are all apparently under Bishop Raphael. This Syrian Bishop derives his authority from the Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, but is closely connected with the Russian Archbishop in New York.

On a relatively unrelated point, it was also interesting to note how spread out the Syrians were by 1913:

Louise S. Houghton in the Survey says: “During the years 1899-1907, in which Syrians have been differentiated from other Turkish subjects, 41,404 Syrians have been admitted to the United States. Although 100,000 is the usual estimate of the Syrian population of this country, 70,000 is that of the best informed Syrians.” This was in the year 1911, and the number now may well be 80,000.

Alaska is credited with 20; California has 8,000; Montana, 200; Nevada, 700; South Dakota, 200; North Dakota, 1,000. Among the most helpful colonies are the; farm settlements in Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Washington, the largest being in North Dakota.

The largest colonies are in the cities. New York has 5,000; Lawrence, 6,000; Boston, 5,000; San Francisco, 2,500; Worcester, 2,000; Philadelphia, 1,500; Pittsburgh, 1,500; Providence, 1,500; Chicago, 1,200; Springfield, Mass., 1,000; Los Angeles, Cleveland, and St. Louis have each 800; Albany has 600. Buffalo, Toledo, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, all have nearly 250 each. Milwaukee and Troy have each 150, and Duluth 56.

These cities representing twelve out of fifty-two states and territories, include about two fifths of the entire Syrian population. The others are scattered among the smaller towns and villages of these and the remaining thirty-nine states and territories. For instance the 200 in South Dakota are divided between Deadwood, Aberdeen, Sioux City, Lead, and Sioux Falls, with a number living on outlying farms. There are 200 in New Mexico, nearly all isolated farmers. There are no Syrians in Baltimore, and a few only in Washington (well-to-do), and in Buffalo a few in a small colony in the outskirts of the city. Dr. H. K. Carroll reports, for the year 1912, 24 organized churches with 43,000 members.[*]

St. Raphael certainly had his work cut out for him.

The whole report is worth reading and includes lots of interesting statistics.

[*]Parker, Rt. Rev. Edward Melville, et al (for the Episcopal Church, Missionary Dept. of New England). The people of the Eastern Orthodox churches, the separated churches of the east, and other Slavs; report of the commission (1913), pp. 34-35

Readers may be interested to read the following two columns from 2005, written by Theophilus Eardwine and appearing on the OrthodoxyToday website. Both are notable in that they deny the commonly held notion that pre-1921 Orthodoxy in America was united under the Russian Archdiocese, something that in 2005 was unthinkable in many circles. The first column is a response to a 2005 article by the now-retired Bp. Nikolai (Soraich) of Sitka, while the second is a more generally addressed column.

• Sobornost: Uniting Orthodoxy in America, February 19, 2005

• De-Mythologizing American Orthodox History, July 22, 2005

The second column is incorrect in at least one point: Germanos Shehadi was not sent to the U.S. by the Antiochian synod in Damascus, but was here on his own recognizance, eventually staying against the express wishes of the synod.

I’ve conducted a little study on parish stability during the 1910s, with some slightly surprising results. I began with a list of the Orthodox parishes that had resident priests in 1911. For each of these, I checked to see whether the same priest was serving the parish four years later, in 1915. My results aren’t perfect; I couldn’t find data for a few parishes, so the percentages for the Greeks and Russians may be off a couple points.

Anyway, 135 American Orthodox parishes had resident priests in 1911:

74 Russian (not counting Alaska)

40 Greek

14 Syrian

7 Serbian

Four years later, in 1915, only 39 of those parishes had the same priest (28.9%). The percentages for each group break down as follows:

20.3% Russian (15/74)

27.5% Greek (11/40)

71.4% Syrian (10/14)

42.9% Serbian (3/7)

A few thoughts. I was somewhat surprised by the high turnover rate (with 7 out of every 10 parishes getting a new priest within four years). I have no idea what the numbers are today, but 70% seems pretty high.

The most striking thing, to me, is the retention percentage for the Syrians, with 10 of the 14 parishes retaining their priests. This is not a fluke: the Syrians under St Raphael were by far the most stable Orthodox ethnic group, by virtually any measure you choose. I’ll unpack that thought in future posts.

Another interesting fact is that the Russian churches were actually the least stable of all. I fully expected the Russians to be the most stable (since they were the most well-established, with a bishop and so forth), with the Greeks the most unstable (because of the trustee control of parishes and the lack of a resident bishop).

In response to this information, Fr John Erickson commented,

I’m not too surprised at the relatively high turnover of Russian priests during the period in question.  I believe that at this point many still “signed on” for a relatively brief “tour of duty” in the North American mission, after which they would return to Russia, where their material circumstances were better.  To determine whether this surmise is correct, one would have to determine whether or not the movement of priests was largely “internal” to the archdiocese.  The greater stability among the other ethnic groups may be attributable, at least in part, to differences in immigration patterns: Once a priest came from the Old World he was more likely to stay permanently in the U.S.

This prompted me to look at the 59 Russian parishes which changed priests from 1911-1915. How many of those priests remained in the U.S., and how many returned to Russia?

I have been able to confirm that 44 of those 59 priests remained in the Russian Mission in America in 1915. That is, about 75% were transferred internally, rather than back to Russia. (The number may actually be higher, but I was only able to confirm those 44.)

That doesn’t mean that the Russian priests weren’t doing “tours of duty.” But with most of them touring the U.S., I have to wonder, why would the bishop bother moving 80% of his priests in a four-year period?

Anyway, much more to come. Stay tuned.