Most Honored Sir — I want to know if it is a crime to wear a beard? I suppose that this may appear to be a foolish question to you, but to me it means a great deal. I am the pastor of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church on Pacific street, Brooklyn, and my profession calls for the wearing of a beard. When I got out on the street the boys and young men mistake me for a Jewish rabbi and insult and assault me.

They often throw decayed vegetables at me. If I were a rabbi, would that be an excuse for loafers to assault and insult me? I am a citizen and as such should be protected from assault.

I have borne the insults and assaults patiently up to last Saturday night, when an incident occured that made me lose all patience. I was alighting from a car at Seventy-third street and Thirteenth avenue, Brooklyn, when a little loafer hit me with a decayed vegetable, which I believe was a more than ripe tomato. This exhausted my patience. I went for the lad, who, luckily for him, escaped.

Hoping that you will do what you can for me and gain for me the protection I deserve, I am sir,

Very respectfully,

BASIL M. KERBAWY.

The mayor didn’t take long to reply. On April 12, 1911, he wrote to Kerbawy,

Reverend and Dear Sir: Your letter informing me that as you walk about the city visiting the homes of your parishioners people apply opprobrious names to you, and throw empty cans and rubbish at you, and otherwise assault you, on account of your beard, is at hand. You ask me, “Is it a crime in the City of New York to wear a beard”? No, it is not. I wear one myself and nobody ever takes any notice of it. How is it they take notice of your beard? Have you trimmed it in some particular way, contrary to the Scriptures? For you know the Scriptures say, “Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.”

Yes, if they assault you, and throw cans at you, you have a right to defend yourself to the last extremity; but if you find it necessary I will have a detective go around with you for a few days until we arrest some of those who are wronging you. Are you certain that it is your beard which is the cause of the trouble?

Kerbawy actually took the mayor up on his offer of a detective. From the New York World (via the Washington Post, 4/28/1911):

The clergyman will be a striking figure with his tall, shiny hat and ruddy face almost hidden by the luxuriance of his black beard. It is not of such a length, being very neat in its trimming, but it is so abundant that only mere patches of the priest’s red cheeks show above it. Softly behind Father Kerbawy will tread a sleuth ready to promptly pounce upon the first person long the way who shies sticks, stones, objurgation, tomato, or even a spitball at the worthy priest.

Kerbawy’s reply to the mayor? “It was very kind of the mayor to give such prompt attention to my case. I shall probably write to let him know that my whiskers are trimmed in full accordance with the Scriptures.”

(Alas, I don’t have a good picture of Kerbawy, so I can’t show you his beard, which one newspaper described as being of the “lace curtain” variety. I’ve said it before, but if newspapers today wrote like they did a century ago, they wouldn’t be a dying industry.)

St. Raphael upon his arrival to America in 1895

Of course, Kerbawy’s bishop was St. Raphael Hawaweeny, who, in 1895, had arrived in America with a bushy beard and a rather wild head of hair (see above).

St. Raphael Hawaweeny and Archdeacon (later Bishop) Emmanuel Abo-Hatab, 1913

But, as we saw on Monday, Raphael soon changed his appearance, cutting his hair, trimming his beard, and, outside of the church, trading his cassock for a suit and collar. In 1904, he told the New York Sun (5/22/1904), “I do not wish to attract attention by any peculiarities. There is no reason why I should be so extreme.” By the end of his life, St. Raphael looked like any other respectable gentleman a hundred years ago.

Fr. Joseph Stephanko with his wife Anna

In the early 20th century, beardless faces were much more common among Russian priests than among their Greek counterparts, who tended to have full beards until around the 1920s. But not all the Russians were thrilled with clean-shaven clergymen. Fr. Joseph Stephanko, pastor of Ss. Peter & Paul Church in Passaic, New Jersey, dared to pick up a razor in 1913. A Russian-language newspaper in Jersey City accused Stephanko of “making void the Orthodox faith because he shaved himself.” The priest responded by filing a $25,000 libel suit against the paper (New York Times, 8/20/1914). A couple of years later, he was awarded $1,000 — a fraction of his original demand, but still a healthy chunk of change in the 1910s.

Tags: 1895, 1904, 1911, 1913, 1914, Antiochian, Basil Kerbawy, civil authorities, clergy appearance, Joseph Stephanko, New York, newspapers, primary sources, Russian, St Raphael, William Gaynor

Fr. Sebastian Dabovich oversaw the foundation of the first Orthodox place of worship in Portland, Oregon.

Orthodoxy has been in Portland, Oregon for well over a century, and its history is of particular interest to me, as my in-laws live in the city, and I have visited there many times. Today, we’re going to look at the beginnings of organized parish life in Portland.

According to Brigit Farley, there are records of some sort of Orthodox religious activity in Portland dating to at least 1881. That year, Fr. Vladimir Vechtomov, the rector of the San Francisco cathedral, visited Portland to bury a Russian woman. That said, organized church life didn’t begin until the 1890s. In November of 1892, 29-year-old Fr. Sebastian Dabovich baptized two Greek children, in what the Oregonian (11/7/1892) called “the first ceremony of the kind that ever took place in this city.” The service was held in the St. Charles Hotel, the first brick hotel in all of Portland. The paper went on,

The Greek colony in this city only comprises about 20 members, but they are very active in church matters. They are at present contemplating the building of a church on the East side, and have purchased half a block of land at Twentieth and East Morrison streets. The structure will cost $5000, of which $1000 has already been raised. The Russian government contributes about $400,000 annually to the support of the Greek church in North America, and part of this fund will be available for the construction of a church in Portland. The bishop, of San Francisco, will furnish the chancel, pictures and other fixtures for the church, and will be present at the laying of the cornerstone.

I’m not sure how many actual Orthodox Christians were in Portland. The article says that the city’s Greek colony had only 20 people, but there were surely Orthodox of other nationalities, and there were also Greeks in neighboring communities. In fact, I’ve found evidence that at least one member of the Dabovich family was living in Portland at the time. In any event, Fr. Sebastian was convinced that Portland was the right place for an Orthodox chapel.

In March of 1894, Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, accompanied by Dabovich and Fr. Alexander Pustynsky, paid a visit to Portland. It was his first stop in the city, but he actually wasn’t the first Orthodox bishop to set foot in Portland. In 1890, Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky had spent a night in Portland while en route from Alaska to San Francisco, but there’s no evidence that he interacted with the small Orthodox population of the city.

Anyway, Bp Nicholas made another visit in June, on his way to Seattle. Then, in July and August, Fr. Sebastian Dabovich spent three weeks in Portland, raising money for the chapel. Instrumental in this was an Alaskan Creole named Chernov, who was living in the city and apparently had some means. By August 15, construction had begun at East 20th and Morrison. The chapel’s name would be “Holy Trinity Greek Russian Mission.” Dabovich was telling the locals not just that it was an Orthodox chapel, but that it was a part of the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

With things going smoothly in Portland, Dabovich then left for Seattle, where he hoped to replicate his success. The pattern repeated itself the following spring: Dabovich visited Portland to dedicate the new chapel in March, and then traveled to Seattle to perform the same service. The two communities, Portland and Seattle, would be closely linked years to come. The Russian diocese never assigned a priest to the Portland chapel, so it operated as a sort of dependency of St. Spiridon Church in Seattle.

It’s often said that the current OCA parish in Portland, St. Nicholas, is identical with this original Holy Trinity chapel, which was founded in the 1890s. This isn’t really accurate… By the early 1900s, the original chapel had fallen into disrepair, and the Greeks organized their own parish in 1908. There wouldn’t be a Russian church in the city until 1927, when St. Nicholas Church was founded.

Tags: 1881, 1890, 1892, 1894, 1895, America, Greek, newspapers, Nicholas Ziorov, parishes, Portland, primary sources, Russian, Seattle, Sebastian Dabovich, Vladimir Sokolovsky, Vladimir Vechtomov

Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago, 1906

Sometimes, we historians deal with big, important issues. Other times, we obsess over minutae. Today is one of the latter occasions.

Chicago’s OCA cathedral, known for the past century as Holy Trinity, had a lot of names in its early years. It’s a pretty convoluted history, and I am attempting to unravel it. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

The parish was formally founded as St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church on May 18, 1892, and it was originally located at #20 North Peoria. By the next spring, the church had moved to #13 South Center Avenue, and in May, we find the first reference to the parish as St. Vladimir Russian Orthodox Church. It’s possible that the name was changed along with the location.

Most of the time, the newspapers didn’t bother to refer to the parish name at all, instead just calling it the “Russian Church,” or something like that. But it was clearly just “St. Vladimir” into 1895. Then, on November 23, a new name appears: St. Ivan Russian Orthodox Church.

But the parish didn’t just become “St. Ivan.” In the years that followed, both names were used in the newspapers. “St. Vladimir” tends to be the dominant name, but “St. Ivan” pops up a number of times as well. It’s a bit of a mystery. The priest of the church was, of course, Fr. John (Ivan) Kochurov, so it’s possible that his own name got mixed up with that of the parish. But “St. Ivan” appeared numerous times, in multiple newspapers, over a period of several years, so it hardly seems like a simple error. Perhaps some of our readers associated with Holy Trinity Cathedral could shed some light on this.

In any event, in 1902, the parish broke ground for a new cathedral on Leavitt Street. While the new structure was being built, the community continued to be called, “St. Vladimir,” but once the move was complete, the name was changed one final time, to Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral.

Another interesting wrinkle is the persistence of the original name, ”St. Nicholas.” While the parish was never called that after 1892 or so, the it did have a “Brotherhood of St. Nicholas.” I’ve found references to this brotherhood in 1899 and again in 1902, but I don’t know exactly what its function was.

Tags: 1892, 1893, 1895, 1902, Chicago, newspapers, OCA, parishes, primary sources, Russian, St John Kochurov

Fr. Basil A. Bouroff, 1895

Yesterday, I wrote about St. John Kochurov’s arrival in Chicago, which followed on the heels of Fr. B.A. Bouroff’s expulsion by Bishop Nicholas, on the grounds that Bouroff had taken classes at the University of Chicago. But who was this Fr. Bouroff, and what was his story?

As it turns out, the September 2, 1895 issue of the Chicago Tribune — which is my main source of biographical information on Fr. Ambrose Vretta — also gives some valuable background on Fr. Bouroff. From the Tribune:

… In the meantime Bishop Nicolaus appointed the Rev. Ambrose Wretta, D.D., as pastor of the Russian colony in Chicago and the mission at Streator, Ill. He requested the Holy Synod at St. Petersburg to send an assistant to Dr. Wretta as teacher for the Russian children and Superintendent for the Sunday-schools to be established. The synod at once acted on his suggestion and the present Superintendent, Mr. Basil A. Beuroff, a graduate of the Imperial Theological Seminary of St. Petersburg, and for many years stationed in London at the Russian Church establishment there, was ordered to Chicago.

This article is recounting events that took place a few years earlier, so it’s not clear how long Bouroff was in Chicago, or when he became a priest. But just two months after this article was written, Bouroff was out, and Fr. John Kochurov was in.

Why was Fr. Basil Bouroff’s attendance at the University of Chicago such a problem? In the comments to yesterday’s article, Isa Almisry said,

For one thing, it could be the school’s Protestant connections: the Old University of Chicago had been founded as a Baptist College by Stephan A. Douglas. He had offered its facilities to the Presbyterian Church, but the Baptist were the ones who managed to raise the funds, and its board’s rules required a Baptist majority. Rockfeller, a Baptist, incorporated the new (present) University as a secular school, but the co-founder, William Rainey Harper, was another Baptist whose field was OT, in particular Hebrew studies. In 1895 the University was less than 4 years old, and had the Old University had failed less than a decade before. Given the prior failure and the Protestant connections, and how Fr. Bjerring ended, it could have been more of a gamble than Bishop Nicolai was willing to tolerate.

It’s also possible that Bouroff was simply becoming too immersed in academia to adequately fulfill his priestly duties. In 1900, he was still a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and he published a book called, The Impending Crisis: Conditions Resulting from a Concentration of Wealth in the United States. Here’s a contemporary summary of the book:

The book consists largely of compilations of facts concerning the distribution of wealth in America and as such will constitute a valuable book of reference. These are summarized and arranged in various forms to make them more vivid but there is little that is new either in matter or manner of presentation.

Bouroff seems to have been a Progressive. In a 1905 article, “Freedom of the Press in Russia,” he concluded,

Moreover, as a result of the recent rescript giving religious liberty to all, the freedom of the press is greatly extended. New dailies and periodicals are now rapidly established. It is quite natural that the clerical censorship has fallen of itself, and organs of publication for various non-orthodox religious communities are expected soon to take existence in Russia. Now Russia begins to live a natural life in the sense of progress which can never be smothered. But the great work of her progress is just beginning, and how great a role the Russian press must play in it can be easily imagined. The Russian press now is the most interesting press in the world.

Finally, I found a couple of tantalizing snippets on Google Books, from the 1924 book Greater Love Hath No Man, by Alexander Marshall. Unfortunately, Google won’t let you view the whole text, but I was able to make out a couple of sections:

BASIL BOUROFF was born and brought up in the city of Rostock [i.e. Rostov], on the river Don, Southern Russia. At the age of fifteen he was awakened by the Holy Spirit to an apprehension of his guilt and peril. [...]

When Basil Bouroff learned that salvation was not of works, and could not be procured by the observance of forms or ceremonies, he began to think that help might be obtained in the Scriptures. [...]

At this point, all we can do is make an educated guess based on bits and pieces of information. Fr. Basil Bouroff, the assistant priest of the Russian church in Chicago, apparently began attending the brand-new University of Chicago (which had Protestant connections), and also became involved in the Progressive political movement of the day. It seems quite likely that Bouroff eventually became a Protestant himself, especially given the language of the Greater Love Hath No Man snippets quoted above.

Tags: 1895, Basil Bouroff, Chicago, newspapers, Nicholas Ziorov, primary sources, Russian, St John Kochurov

This past weekend, those of us on the New Calendar celebrated the feast day of St. John Kochurov, the Russian New Martyr and former priest of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago. With that in mind, I thought I’d talk a bit about St. John’s arrival in Chicago.

John Kochurov was just 24 years old when he became a priest, in the summer of 1895. The ordination took place in Russia, but it was done by the visiting Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, the head of the Russian Mission in America, and Fr. John was to accompany Bishop Nicholas back to the United States. They arrived in November, just as Fr. Raphael Hawaweeny was getting settled in Brooklyn.

The young Fr. John was entering a bit of a sticky situation. From the Chicago Tribune (11/25/1895):

Nicholaei of St. Petersburg, Archbishop of All America, held solemn mass in the Greek [that is, Orthodox] Church, at No. 13 South Center avenue, yesterday morning for the installation of Father Kochureff as assistant priest of the parish. He was assisted by the local priest, Father Kazantsier, and assistant, and two pages from St. Petersburg. The vacancy of assistant priest was caused by a difference of opinion between Archbishop Nicholaei and R.A. Bouroff, late assistant pastor, who has come under the displeasure of his superiors by attendance at the University of Chicago.

Nearly 100 persons were crowded into the little room reserved for the congregation of the Greek Church in Chicago. It is the front room of a ground flat in a modest three-story building erected for a dwelling. The chancel occupies an adjoining front room. The service is more elaborate than that of the Roman Church, and differs radically in much of the ceremony, being conducted behind a high chancel screen, sometimes with the single entrance closed. All the appointments of the altar and chancel are different. The service is unique in many ways.

A pretty standard description of vestments, candles, etc. follows. Then, we read,

There is a division in the Greek congregation owing to the retirement of Assistant Priest Bouroff. It is said that a wing of the congregation is at outs with the authorities because of loyalty to the younger priest, who persists in carrying on his studies at President Harper’s institution. These members credit Archbishop Nicholaei with having caused the exile of more students to Siberia than any man in Russia. On this account it is easy to believe, they declare, that the Bishop of All America will never forgive the independence of ex-Assistant Pastor Bouroff.

About a dozen clergy from all over the country came to Chicago for Bishop Nicholas’ visit; these included Fr. Alexis Toth of Wilkes-Barre, Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky of New York, Fr. Anatolii Kamenskii of Sitka (the future bishop and confessor), and Fr. Theodore Pashkovsky of Jackson, CA (the future Metropolitan Theophilus).

Several things, right off the bat: Bishop Nicholas was not actually an archbishop, and his title was “Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska,” not “Bishop of All America.” Other newspapers give various names for the other Chicago priest; the most accurate rendition is probably “Fr. Pavel Kazanski.” Also, the Chicago Inter Ocean says that the parish is called “St. Ivan.” Originally it was “St. Nicholas,” and this was soon changed to “St. Vladimir” and later “Holy Trinity.” I’m not sure if, at some point, “St. Ivan” was used, or if this was a reporter’s mistake.

In the Tribune article quoted above, Fr. John Kochurov is named as the assistant priest, with Fr. Pavel Kazanski as the parish rector (having apparently replaced Fr. Ambrose Vretta, who was transferred to Seattle). However, I’ve found several reports from 1896 which put it the other way round, with Kochurov as the rector and Kazanski as his assistant. It’s possible that the earlier Tribune article got it wrong; certainly, it would be odd to have a formal “installation” for an assistant priest. Most probably, Kazanski held down the fort until Kochurov arrived, at which point the former became the latter’s assitant.

In any event, the most interesting part of this story is the Fr. Bouroff, who was apparently removed from his post for daring to attend the University of Chicago. I know some of our readers here have connections to that institution; perhaps there is something in the school’s archives which could shed more light on this episode?

Of course, for the Chicago parish, everything worked out fine in the end. Kochurov would prove to be a dedicated and exemplary pastor, and he would lead the community for more than a decade. It’s interesting; recently, we discussed the fact that Fr. Evtikhy Balanovitch, in New York, got into trouble and was replaced by a saint, Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky. Here, at exactly the same time, Fr. Bouroff got into trouble and was replaced by another saint, Fr. John Kochurov.

Tags: 1895, America, Basil Bouroff, Chicago, newspapers, Nicholas Ziorov, primary sources, Russian, Saints, St Alexander Hotovitzky, St John Kochurov

Since the closing of Fr. Nicholas Bjerring’s chapel in 1883, New York City had been without a Russian Orthodox place of worship. Greek churches were founded in the city in 1892 and ‘94, and by 1895, there were Russian parishes in Minnesota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Finally, in April of 1895, the Russian Mission returned to New York with the founding of St. Nicholas Church.

St. Nicholas began in the former home of one of the parish trustees, at 207 East 18th Street. The main floor housed the chapel; the priest, Fr. Evtikhy Balanovitch, lived upstairs with his family; and a Sunday School and reading room occupied the basement. (Before long, the parish moved around the corner, to 233 2nd Ave.)

But despite these modest beginnings, from the start, the parish had some impressive characteristics. Its iconostasis had previously been owned by the Russian army, and was used in the field during battles in the Balkans. A 12-person choir was led by Eugenie Lineff, a former opera singer.

Photo of Barbara MacGahan, 1893

The church trustees included some famous people — the Russian ambassador and consul general, and, most significantly, Barbara MacGahan, a famous journalist. Despite her surname, Mrs. MacGahan was actually a native Russian, and it was her strong desire for a Russian church in New York that ultimately led to the creation of the parish. These founders had been part of a New York Slavonic organization called the Virgin Mary Brotherhood, and they were the ones who petitioned the Holy Synod to establish a church.

Another impetus that led to the founding of St. Nicholas was the presence, in Brooklyn, of a sizeable number of Uniates, who, presumably, would be attracted to a nearby Orthodox church. It’s not clear whether these Uniates did, in fact, join the new parish.

The first priest of St. Nicholas was the aforementioned Fr. Evtikhy Balanovitch. He was apparently from Austria, and only in recent years became associated with the Russian Church. (In fact, in one place he’s referred to as a “recent convert,” which makes me wonder if he wasn’t originally a Uniate.) The New York Times describes him in this way:

[He] is a man of striking appearance. Of immense frame, clear complexion, and with locks hanging far down his back, he had the appearance of a prophet of old.

Balanovitch was an educated man, with a Doctorate of Divinity from the Theological Academy in St. Petersburg. He must not have been terribly practical, though, as he quickly made enemies with the founder of the parish, Barbara MacGahan.

From the New York Times (1/11/1896), we learn that, during a meeting of the church trustees on November 17, 1895, Balanovitch called MacGahan (a journalist) some sort of name — a name which, according to the Times, “meant that Mrs. MacGahan’s pen is at the disposal of the highest bidder, and that consequently no value could be placed on her statements as a newspaper correspondent and magazine writer.” St. Raphael Hawaweeny, the newly-arrived Syrian priest, was present at the meeting, and didn’t know what the word meant. Confused, he asked somebody, and that person told MacGahan, and MacGahan promptly filed a lawsuit against Balanovitch.

MacGahan soon dropped the suit. On December 1, Balanovitch had agreed to resign as pastor and leave the country. MacGahan determined that Balanovitch himself wasn’t entirely to blame — “the whole trouble had been brought on him by outside parties,” MacGahan’s lawyer said, explaining that others within the new parish had incited the priest to make enemies with MacGahan. Mrs. MacGahan herself told the Times that, while Balanovitch “is a man of good intentions, he is easily led by others.”

These unfortunate events would have a happy ending, at least for the parish of St. Nicholas. Later in 1896, Balanovitch’s replacement — St. Alexander Hotovitzky — arrived in New York.

Tags: 1895, 1896, Barbara MacGahan, Evtikhy Balanovitch, New York, newspapers, parishes, primary sources, Russian, St Alexander Hotovitzky, St Raphael

Fr. Ambrose Vretta, 1895

In the past, I’ve mentioned the Russian Mission’s practice of employing “client clergy” — non-Russian priests with ties to Russia, who served multiethnic or non-Russian parishes in America. St. Raphael and Fr. Sebastian Dabovich are perhaps the most famous examples, but there were many more. One of the earliest of these client clergy was Fr. Ambrose Vretta, who has the distinction of being the first pastor of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago and St. Spiridon’s Cathedral in Seattle.

Vretta (or Wretta) was originally from Macedonia. He was born in 1859, attended the Imperial Medical College in Istanbul, and then toured Europe and studied in Rome. He then returned to his homeland, but, according to the Chicago Tribune (9/2/1895), “he found the systematic persecution to which he was subjected by the Turkish Government too much for comfort.” So he left for Orthodox Russia, where he was warmly received. It wasn’t long before he had developed close ties with the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg (probably Metropolitan Isidore). At some point along the way he was ordained a priest; I assume this happened in Russia, but I can’t be sure. Vretta may have encountered a young Jovan (later Fr. Sebastian) Dabovich, who studied in St. Petersburg in the late 1880s.

When the newly-consecrated Bishop Nicholas Ziorov was assigned to America in 1892, the 33-year-old Vretta came along with him. His first assignment was Chicago, where a significant Orthodox community existed. For several years, the Orthodox of the city had been trying to organize a parish, but for various reasons, they hadn’t been successful. (We’ve discussed that a bit in the past, and will talk about it in great detail in the near future.)

On May 17, 1892, the first Russian Orthodox church was founded in Chicago (although, it should be noted, there were hardly any actual Russians, with much of the congregation being Serbian). This came only weeks after the first Greek parish was organized in the city. Vretta was present at that initial meeting, and he remained at the parish for the next three years. During that time, he also assumed responsibility for a new Orthodox parish in Streator, Illinois.

One of the most notable aspects of Vretta’s tenure in Chicago was the warm relationship between the Russian and Greek churches: although the Orthodox community of the city had split into two parishes, there doesn’t seem to have been any rivalry. Vretta concelebrated with the Greek priest, Fr. Panagiotis Peter Phiambolis, on numerous occasions. When the Greek Archbishop Dionysius of Zante visited Chicago for the World’s Fair, the Vretta went over to the Greek church for services. When the Russian Bishop Nicholas came to town, it was Phiambolis’ turn to visit the Russian church. In 1894, a special service was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Orthodoxy in North America, and both Vretta and Phiambolis were present. Later that year, Tsar Alexander III died, and for the memorial, Vretta went over to the Greek church, which was simultaneously dedicating its new building.

Vretta was transferred to Seattle shortly after that, in November 1895. Up to that point, the fledgling Orthodox community of Seattle had never had a resident priest. Fr. Sebastian Dabovich had been holding services on Saturdays, but Vretta was the first full-time pastor of the new St. Spiridon’s Church. He didn’t confine himself to working in Seattle, though. In the spring of 1896, Vretta and his young reader Vladimir Alexandrov traveled to Montana, where they celebrated the first-ever Orthodox services in the state. In her fascinating paper, “Circuit Riders to the Slavs and Greeks”, Brigit Farley tells this story:

[Vretta] began in Anaconda, where he administered the sacraments of marriage and chrismation to several Serbian Orthodox believers. The priest moved on to Butte, where he learned of an Orthodox miner named Mike Gamble, who wished to see a priest in order to receive Communion. Fr. Vretta finally located Gamble after a long climb up the side of a mountain, during which he had only the assistance of dogs and a sled for his baggage. After his meeting with the miner, he reported, he managed to convince two Uniates to accept union with the Orthodox church.

In December of 1896, Vretta was transferred from Seattle… And I’m not sure where he went. He was only 37 years old, so he presumably had a long career ahead of him, but I can’t find him on any later lists of clergy (and I’ve got lists for 1906, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, and 1918). He doesn’t seem like the type of priest — non-Russian, literate, mission-minded — who would be sent to Russia; in fact, he’s exactly the sort of priest that was being sent from Russia to America.

It’s possible, I suppose, that he remained with Bishop Nicholas. In 1898, Bishop Nicholas was transferred to a diocese in Russia; perhaps Vretta joined him (?). If anyone out there has more information about Vretta, particularly his whereabouts after 1896, please email me at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com.

Tags: 1892, 1895, 1896, Ambrose Vretta, America, Brigit Farley, Chicago, Missions, Montana, newspapers, Nicholas Ziorov, primary sources, Russian, Seattle, Sebastian Dabovich, Vladimir Alexandrov

St. John of Kronstadt, 1894

A couple of weeks ago, we reprinted St. Alexander Hotovitzky’s 1904 account of his meeting with St. John of Kronstadt. Nearly a decade earlier, the famous translator Isabel Hapgood wrote her own profile of St. John — then known as Fr. John Sergieff, pastor of St. Andrew’s Church in Kronstadt. The article appeared in The Independent on August 8, 1895. I’m reprinting it here in full:

Father John, of Kronstadt, who prayed with the late Emperor of Russia on his deathbed and comforted his sorrowing family, is one of the most famous men in Russia, in a quiet and peculiar way. So famous is he that Olelz Joann — Father Joann, is no more likely to be mistaken for indicating any other Priest John out of the multitudes who bear that name, than is the man himself, after one sight of him, to be mistaken for any other priest. For the last ten years, at least, he has held a unique place in Russian society and Russian hearts. I had something of an experience with him precisely in one of the directions which have rendered him famous and beloved. I confess that I do not yet quite know what to make of it. One day, in an Imperial summer resort about sixteen miles from St. Petersburg, I saw a large crowd assembled in front of a house and gazing with rapt eagerness at the door and at a carriage drawn up before it. Crowds thus gazing are not usual in Russia, except when royalty is expected. But I knew that that house belonged to a merchant, and that royalty would hardly be calling there; moreover, the private equipage, the handsome, did not bear the stamp of even the plainest imperial turnout. On inquiry, I found that “Father Joann, of Kronstadt,” was visiting a sick person in the house, and that the people were patiently waiting for a glimpse of him. They were too eager to tell me more, and I was too busy to lie in wait for “an ordinary priest,” as I put it to myself. However, I began to ask questions. I heard a very great deal, but was puzzled by the attempt to make even a small part of it fit in with the photographs of the man which I saw everywhere, and to which hitherto I had paid no attention. The pictures represented a man apparently about forty years of age, with long, smooth hair, and none of the waving locks, graceful beard or picturesqueness possessed by many Russian priests. His eyes arrested my attention; they seemed to be light in color, and peculiar in expression. That was all.

What did I hear of him? What did I not hear! And from people of every rank and degree of intelligence. Princesses and countesses assured me that he performed miracles of healing, by a mere touch, that he read one’s past at a glance, and foretold the future. Princes and counts — I mention titles by way of labeling ranks and prejudices broadly — declared that he had a way of picking out skeptical and hardened young men in a large company, which he saw for the first time, and not only winning their hearts with a few gentle words, but sending them home repentant and reformed. People in the artistic and literary class hesitated to condemn him, even when they believed in little else. Sisters of Charity, semi-religious, servants, peasants, all devoutly believed in any power which might be ascribed to the man; and many members of all these classes had personal experiences with him to relate in confirmation of their beliefs, or cures, partial or complete, which they had witnessed, to allege in proof. It was regarded as an immense honor to be singled out in a company and addressed by Father Joann; and a friend of mine told me, in open triumph, that he had once walked up to her and kissed her with a holy kiss. It meant some sort of blessing, but precisely what she had not decided. Not another priest in Russia could have kissed a woman of the highest society in company like that and escaped the natural consequences, much less have been thanked for such a flagrant breach of propriety in general, and in particular, of the propriety which regards the whole priestly class as inferior, a thing apart, not to be invited to dinner with one’s first-class friends and the like.

The plain facts, as I eventually sifted them out, were these: Father Joann is a man about twenty years older than he looks. He is a parish priest in Kronstadt, the fortified island about twenty miles from St. Petersburg, where the river Neva enters the Gulf of Finland, and almost opposite the Imperial summer resort, Peterhoff. Whether his wife (all parish priests must be married before they are ordained), weary of his eccentricities and carelessness of material interests, really separated from him, as rumor declared, I do not know. His ways with money were — and probably are still — enough to vex a saint. Whatever any one gives him “in Christ’s name, for the poor,” he takes, and thrusts into his pocket without looking at it. Equally without looking at it, he hands over the whole, be it a fat roll of bankbills, or a few bits of silver, to the next person who begs of him; and his own little stipend goes in the same way. Result — an undeserving, plausible scamp may get a thousand rubles from Father Joann, and a worthy sufferer may get next to nothing. This is regarded by Father Joann’s admirers as saintly; but a little mathematics and discrimination would not interfere with the essential quality of his nimbus, as I ventured to remark occasionally, getting plenty of frowns for my hardness of heart.

Several weeks after my first knowledge of Father Joann had prompted my interest, as I have described, I was driving from Oranienbaum palace to the wharf to take the steamer for Kronstadt, when I met a very ordinary looking merchant’s wife in a carriage with a priest, also ordinary, I thought — until he looked at me. I was startled — why, I could not tell. I asked, on the steamer, if Father Joann had just come over, and found that the strange priest was really the man in search of whom my trip to Kronstadt in great part had been undertaken, as the forts are inaccessible to visitors, the docks are soon seen, and the town itself is uninteresting. His absence was short, however, and I went to early mass to see him officiate. That is considered a rare sight and a privilege, and always attracts great crowds. He was very quiet, very impressive, very “intense.” His peculiar eyes, and manner of floating about rather than walking, would have riveted my attention had I never heard about him. The throngs which were waiting for a word with him, and his habit of slipping away to avoid people, suggested to me the advisability of seeking him at his hospital. It is due to Father Joann to say, that his Faith Cure hospital was established by his admirers, not by him, as he lays no claim to miraculous powers. At the hospital I was received by a young priest, who declared that there were no patients on hand; that Father Joann never came there unless someone needed him; but that he might happen to come in at any minute if I were ill, and that he was going to St. Petersburg by the next boat. I have omitted to state that, altho nominally attached to the parish in Kronstadt, Father Joann is in such great demand that he is, on the whole, more rarely to be found there than elsewhere; and that when his coming is expected he can take his choice from among the aristocratic carriages whose owners throng to the wharf, in the hope that they might be thus honored.

The young priest was decidedly uppish, and I was retreating in great doubt and displeasure when a nun entered to beg for her convent. She was one of the lay sisters, with “reform” petticoats nearly on a level with her knees, and stout, masculine boots meeting them, who swarm all about churches, shops, markets and places where money abounds. The young priest made short work with her persuasive whine, and gave me a delicious glimpse of his character.

“See here, you,” said he; “didn’t you come here begging before? I know your face. Get out!”

She whined on; but he, cleaning his finger nails the while, raised his brows superciliously, and repeated:

“Get out of here this moment, I tell you.”

“And won’t you even give me your blessing?”

He fairly flung a blessing at her, pushed his hand against her lips for the regulation kiss of gratitude, jerked it away, and went on with his nails. His behavior convinced me that Father Joann really was not in the house, or immediately expected, to witness such proceedings; and I departed without reluctance, tho greatly disappointed.

I sought Father Joann no more. It seemed hopeless. But many months later, I met him in a railway carriage quite unexpectedly, and recognized him at once. His clear, brilliant blue eyes were very searching, but gentle, and in nowise alarming seen thus at short range. He looked through me for a moment, then grasped one of my hands firmly in his, and softly patted me on the shoulder with the other, in an unconventional manner which must have aroused the envy of all the Russians who beheld the scene. After standing thus for what seemed to me a long time under the scrutiny of those eyes, he tightened his clasp on my hand and said: “You will have strength; yes, you will have strength!” Then he blessed me — a voluntary blessing from him is regarded as an honor and prophetic of good fortune — gently refused the handkiss due him, and clasped both my hands instead. That is a fair and characteristic specimen of a favorable interview with Father Joann, and of his prophecies. Like the prophecies of the Delphic oracle, one has to live through the fate before it is possible to interpret it. Now, so far as my own case is concerned, I can believe that his prophecy has come true, if I choose so to believe. Events have taken place since in which I have required much strength, and in which I have, most unquestionably, had all that Father Joann or the Delphic oracle could have demanded. But, to tell the truth, before guaranteeing the prophetic powers of Father Joann, I should require some sort of proof that he foresaw precisely that complicated set of circumstances, and foretold the strength precisely in that connection and in no other. Of course, that is just the point which never can be proved; but I am content with having had such a sight of this singular individual.

You might wonder, why am I reprinting these articles about St. John of Kronstadt — who, after all, never left Russia — on a website devoted to the history of Orthodoxy in the Americas?

It is difficult, a century later, to understand the fame of St. John. He was the most famous Orthodox priest in the world, and in the West, he might have been the most famous Orthodox clergyman, period — patriarchs included. How to illustrate this… Of course, he was covered by all the big papers – the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post. But it went beyond that. In 1891, the Idaho Avalanche devoted nearly a full column on its front page to a description of St. John. Papers in Wisconsin, Oregon, Ohio, and Georgia wrote about his miracles. The Iowa City Citizen reported that a blind man received his sight at St. John’s funeral. The Boston Globe called him Russia’s “uncrowned pope.” His diary, My Life in Christ, was translated into English and distributed in America. For many Americans, Father Ioann, or Ivan, or John, simply was Orthodoxy. No comparable figure exists today; probably, no comparable figure could exist. The American press reported on St. John like you would expect them to report on a superhero. We will never see the like again.

And then, of course, there are the obvious connections between St. John and American Orthodoxy. St. Alexander Hotovitzky, the leading priest in the Russian Mission, had a personal audience with him. And before she had ever laid eyes on St. Tikhon, Isabel Hapgood had shaken hands with St. John. The great priest was a regular subject in the official magazine of the Russian Mission. And St. John himself took a personal interest in American Orthodoxy, sending money to support the building of St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City. (If you visit there, they have a great icon of the saints of the cathedral — founders Tikhon and Alexander; those who served there: Raphael, John of Chicago, and Alexis Toth; and their financial benefactors Tsar Nicholas II and St. John of Kronstadt.)

Although he never set foot on American soil, one might reasonably number St. John among the saints of North America. And because of his importance, we’ll have much more to come on his life, from an American perspective.

Tags: 1895, America, Episcopalians, Isabel Hapgood, newspapers, primary sources, Russian, St John of Kronstadt

The 1890s witnessed the initial proliferation of Orthodox churches in the contiguous United States, and most of those early parishes are still with us today — both Greek churches in New York City, the Greek and Russian churches in Chicago, St. Alexis Toth’s parishes in Minneapolis and Wilkes-Barre. But one early effort didn’t make it to the 21st century; in fact, it didn’t even make it to the 20th. The first Orthodox church in Baltimore, Maryland — founded in 1893 — died in infancy. It’s a story that’s easily forgotten.

Today, Baltimore has a thriving Greek cathedral, Annunciation. It also happens to have perhaps the preeminent Orthodox parish historian in America, Nicholas Prevas. Prevas has written several books on the Greek Orthodox community in Baltimore; most recently, he authored the outstanding House of God… Gateway to Heaven. In that book, Prevas writes the following about the first church in Baltimore:

In Baltimore, the first meaningful attempt to fill the religious void came in or about 1895. The first Greek Orthodox place of worship was established at Bond and Gough Streets through the financial support of Christos Tsembelis (Sempeles) and his five brothers, George, Nicholas, Peter, Sarantos, and Theodore, who were prospering confectioners at 427 Colvin Street near the Belair Market. One of the brothers, George Sempeles, would later have the distinction of being elected the first parish council president.

This event was consistent with the fact that the Greek Orthodox Church in America originated from the actions of the immigrants themselves, and not by the directive of the church authorities in Athens or Constantinople — the latter being the world center of Orthodoxy. Living in a new land, religion played an important factor in uniting the Greek immigrants. A missionary priest, Reverend Theodoros Papaconstantinou, was brought to Baltimore to conduct services, and for the first time Greek Orthodox chanting was heard in the city. Unfortunately, the timing of the venture was not right. The small number of Greeks, unable to keep up with the expense of maintaining a house of worship, soon abandoned this attempt. It would be another decade before regular church services would be conducted in Baltimore.

This early Baltimore parish was actually organized in the latter part of 1893. On December 18, 1893, the Baltimore Sun reported that the community, named for St. John the Baptist, had been formed a few weeks earlier. After spending those initial weeks worshipping in a parishioner’s house, the community moved to an “improvised chapel” at 403 South Bond Street. The priest, according to the Sun, was “Rev. Constantinus Pappagorgu, of Athens.”

At the Divine Liturgy the day before, 51 people were present: 50 men and one woman. There were, said the paper, around 200 Greeks in the city. A week later, two children were baptized — the first documented Orthodox baptisms in Baltimore.

The Baltimore parish was only a year and a half younger than the Greek churches in New York and Chicago, but both of those communities took an interest in the goings-on in Baltimore. On January 6, 1894, the Sun reported that the Chicago Greek parish had promised to send $1,000 to Baltimore; for its part, the New York congregation would contribute $500.

The priest of St. John the Baptist church, listed in the papers as “Constantinus Pappagorgu,” appears to be listed on this Port of New York passenger manifest (3rd line from the top). From the manifest, we learn that Constantine Papageorgios, a clergyman from Greece, came to America on December 26, 1892. He was 45 years old, and his initial destination was New York. He didn’t bring a wife or children, which suggests that he might have been a monastic priest. I’m not sure what he did for most of 1893, but he appeared in Baltimore in the autumn of that year to start a Greek church. And I don’t know what happened to him after the parish closed; my best guess is that he returned to Greece.

St. John the Baptist church first appears in the newspapers in December 1893, and it’s gone after January 1894. A year later — January 14, 1895 — the following notice appeared in the Sun:

The Greek Catholics of Baltimore yesterday celebrated the beginning of their new year. There was no public celebration of the event as there is no Greek Catholic Church in Baltimore. About a year ago the Greek Catholic congregation on South Bond street, which was organized by John Mitchell, of 1630 Thames street, was disbanded for want of support.

Eleven years later, Evangelismos (Annunciation) Greek Orthodox Church was formed in Baltimore.

Tags: 1893, 1894, 1895, America, Baltimore, Greek, newspapers, Nicholas Prevas, parishes, primary sources

Archimandrite Raphael upon his arrival in America

St Raphael—then an archimandrite—arrived in New York City on November 14, 1895. He made quite a first impression, not only on his Syrian Orthodox flock, but on the New York media. On November 19, the following appeared in the New York Sun:

It was a pleasure to listen to the strains of the Arabic language, as sounded by the Archimandrite Raphael in the sermon which he delivered on Sunday last in the Orthodox Greek Church, for the edification of the Christian Arabians and Syrians here resident. What a majestic and refulgent language is the Arabic! How appropriate it is for spiritual exaltation, for holy rapture, for prayer! No wonder that the Moslem believes that it is the language spoken by Allah, the diction of Paradise, the speech of Adam and of the houria [sic].

We should like often to hear the Arabic of Archimandrite Raphael, now stationed for duty in New York.

Tags: 1895, Antiochian, language, New York, newspapers, primary sources, Saints, St Raphael