The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas
Posts tagged 1905
The Trial of St. Raphael, Part 1
3 years ago
by Matthew Namee
in Saints
St. Raphael Hawaweeny
It’s a funny thing — slander, that is. Once it’s out there, you can’t take it back. Good men — saints — have been accused of the most heinous crimes imaginable, and been completely innocent. At the same time, bad men have been accused of the same crimes, and been guilty. Ultimately, as an historian, it’s difficult to determine innocence or guilt. We piece the story together based on the evidence that has survived, and we try to get a sense of the characters involved. In this case, the accused was Raphael Hawaweeny, the great Syrian Bishop of Brooklyn. I am quite confident that the charges against him were trumped-up, and that he did nothing wrong. But I base that conclusion not only on the evidence of the case itself, and not only on his subsequent acquittal in open court, but also on everything I know about him as a person. I trust him, because he proved himself, time and again, to be trustworthy. The accusations against him are completely out of character, and we know more than a little about his character.
This is a messy story, but it has to be told. To start, I’m going to turn to the capable reporters of three New York newspapers. We’ll begin with the New York Tribune (8/28/1905), the most straightforward version of the story:
Threats of murder have been sent in anonymous letters to several members of the Syrian colony of New-York as a result of a bitter controversy which has been carried on for weeks in the columns of two of the Syrian newspapers of the city. The Rev. Raphael Hawaweeney, of No. 320 Pacific-st., Brooklyn, who recently became the Bishop of the Orthodox Greek Church of the Syrians in Brooklyn, has been dragged into the controversy and accused of inciting a movement for bloodshed. He and his friends declare that he has preached only peace and has advised against violence.
A formal appeal to Police Commissioner McAdoo for protection has been made by Syrian merchants who have received threatening letters, and who have been arming themselves and avoiding going into the streets alone for fear of being murdered. In the appeal to Mr. McAdoo it is declared that Bishop Hawaweeney recently called a meeting of members of his church and asked them to defend him against attacks in one of the Syrian newspapers, telling them that he was to be regarded as a grand duke, to be defended by his people, and that, if necessary, some of them must be ready to lay down their lives for him. It is said in the appeal that some of the young men of his congregation laid their knives on a table in the church, in accordance with an Oriental custom, and swore that they would defend the bishop with the last drop of their blood.
Bishop Hawaweeny said yesterday to a Tribune reporter that nothing of the kind happened, but that he attended a meeting of his congregation to counsel the members against violence, telling them to pay no attention to the attacks on him, as he forgave all his enemies. The trouble, he said, grew out of a circular sent to the six Syrian newspapers of the city by a newly formed society of fifteen men, known as the Champagne Glasses Society, and in reality a drinking club, demanding that the editors and publishers stop publishing paid articles attacking business or social rivals. The circular led to a clash between “Al Hoda,” a daily Syrian paper, published by N.A. Mokazel, and “Meraat-ul-Gharb,” a weekly paper, edited by N.M. Diab. The latter declared in his paper that “Al Hoda” referred to the bishop in certain of its alleged slanderous articles. The bishop was asked by friends of “Al Hoda” to stop the controversy, but he said it was none of his business. N.N. Maloof, a Syrian merchant, had a talk with the bishop in an effort to patch up peace, and “Meraat-ul-Gharb” published an account of the conference, which led Mr. Maloof to insert some signed articles in “Al Hoda,” demanding an explanation from the bishop.
Talks with members of the Syrian colony yesterday disclosed the fact that the newspaper controversy had excited them greatly and had led to a religious fight in which Roman Catholics and members of the Orthodox Greek Church had become involved. Mr. Mokazel said he had been accused of publishing a book attacking the Virgin Mary. A book which he thought was harmless, written by his brother-in-law, was printed at the office of “Al Hoda,” he said, and it created some hostile comment. His life had been threatened in an anonymous letter. His character had been assailed by a friend of Bishop Hawaweeney in an article by published in a paper believed to be under the bishop’s control, he said, and the bishop had declined to stop the attack.
Syrians in the city said yesterday that some articles in “Al Hoda” and “Meraat-ul-Gharb” were indecent. They said they had forbidden the women of their families to read the papers as a result of the controversy.
Mokazel, the editor of Al Hoda, was a real piece of work. In an interview with the the New York Times (8/28/1905), he openly slandered St. Raphael, in one of those classic bits of slander-while-denying-that-you’re-slandering:
He [Raphael] asserts that his morality has been attacked. I say nothing about his private life — his wine, his card playing. I have not put it in my paper. I respect his church and wish my church to be respected. I am a Roman Catholic. I have heard that the Bishop has said he would crush me, do me bodily and moral injury. He has called together his congregation and appointed a committee of six desperate men to take vengeance upon me and others. Well, I am willing to die for the truth.
And Raphael denied the allegations:
I am a man of peace. I have nothing to do with newspapers. I have been dragged into this controversy without a move on my part. Mr. Mokarzel has attacked my character. But far from urging my congregation to vengeance, I went to their meeting to tell them they must forgive as I forgive and do no violence. Mr. Mokarzel respects nobody. This attack against me comes from a society of freelivers with whom he is in sympathy. They call themselves Jamiat-Al-Alodh, which means “Champagne Glass Club.” These ruffians they say I have hired are poor men whom I have helped to a living.
Likewise, he told the New York Sun (8/27/1905),
There is in New York a Turkish society known as Jamiat-Al-Akdh. The literal translation of that is “Champagne Glass Society.” Its members do not like me because I would not indorse [sic] certain ideas of theirs, and they attacked me in the columns of a newspaper called Al Hoda. On Wednesday of this week members of my congregation met in the basement of St. Nicholas Church, of which I am in charge, and expressed their indignation at the slurs cast upon me. There was no display of arms and no one vowed to avenge the wrongs that had been done me. I am surprised that any one should believe that I would countenance anything unchristian. It is absurd. I am the Bishop of the Orthodox Greek Church in America and my paths do not lead my into politics.
That all happened at the end of August, 1905. Three weeks later, there was an explosion.
Irvine’s ordination: another Episcopalian perspective
3 years ago
by Matthew Namee
in Early Converts
Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine, 1905
Very soon after his 1905 conversion to Orthodoxy, Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine wrote a letter to his archbishop, St. Tikhon, on “the Anglican Church’s claims.” It was, for Tikhon, a valuable document: a view of Anglicanism from one of its own, who had himself converted to Orthodoxy. Irvine, who retained a sincere affection for his old Church, was in the perfect position to outline the good and the bad of the Anglican Communion.
In 1906, Irvine published the letter as a small book, titled On the Anglican Church’s Claims. He contacted some of his old friends in the Episcopal Church, well-respected figures, to expand on specific aspects of Anglicanism, and their responses were included as appendices in the book. The preface was written by Rev. Daniel J. Odell, rector of the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation in Philadelphia. Odell, a longtime friend of Irvine, provides a perspective on Irvine’s ordination that differs markedly from the negative reaction of Bishop Grafton. I’m reprinting Odell’s preface in its entirety:
In view of the assembling of a council of the Holy Orthodox Russian Church for the recasting of its internal ecclesiastical affairs during the coming Autumn and the approaching Fourth Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops in 1909, it would seem pre-eminently fitting that the letter of the Reverend Dr. Irvine, “On the Anglican Church’s Historical Claims, Doctrines, Discipline, Worship, etc.,” written to his Grace, the Most Reverend Archbishop Tikhon of North America and Aleutian Islands, shortly after the reception of Dr. Irvine into the Priesthood of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church, should be reprinted; with the earnest hope that the cordial relations hitherto existing between the two Churches may be restored and, further, that something definite and explicit may be done by the Bishops of the respective Councils which, under the controlling guidance of the Holy Spirit, will make for righteousness and the reunion of Christendom.
The unhappy position of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as an integral part of the Anglican Communion, in allowing herself to be constantly and continuously classified with the Protestant bodies which have no Historical Episcopate, and scarcely ever, as she should, fearlessly asserting her Catholic and Apostolic heritage, has naturally permitted herself and the whole Anglican Communion to be grievously misunderstood by the Holy Eastern Church. And again, as Dr. Irvine most clearly points out, she has never zealously and unitedly “pressed her claims before the four Eastern Patriarchates” during the past “three hundred years.” The English Church and her daughter churches, with the Protestant Episcopal Church, after drifting along all these years, apparently content with herself in the self-depending knowledge of her own claims or, possibly in a spirit of indifference as to what others may think or say of these claims, finds herself to-day in the unique and notable position where she alone, amidst the entire religious world, Catholic and Protestant, acknowledges and maintains her historical claim of Catholic heritage and Apostolic continuity. She has been unjust to herself, and her Episcopate is to-day receiving the due reward of their own compromising weakness and failure in not safeguarding the Priesthood of their own Church, which looks to them for perpetuation and protection.
In ordaining Dr. Irvine to the Priesthood of the Holy Orthodox Church, his Grace, Archbishop Tikhon, acted, as he was morally and canonically bound to do, in strict obedience to the canonical and ancient usage of the Catholic Church, and the ordination has not been held sacreligious nor discourteous to the Anglican Church outside of one or more irresponsible Church newspapers and some individual ecclesiastics who wrote hastily and unfavorably of the action as doing harm to the cordial relations then obtaining between the Protestant Episcopal and Holy Orthodox Churches. Even the Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Tuttle, in his individual protest to the President of the Holy Synod, seems to have moved unadvisedly as judging the act of Archbishop Tikhon intrusive and tending to disturb ecclesiastical relations when, in fact, no inter-communion really existed at the time or had ever existed.
The act of Archbishop Tikhon in ordaining Dr. Irvine has fearlessly and clearly opened up all questions of difference between the Anglican and Holy Orthodox Churches and boldly brings the chief and leading issues straight before the Bishops of the Lambeth Conference and of the Holy Orthodox Russian Church.
The Roman Catholic Church denies, without condition, the truth of any such claims made by the Anglican Church, but has been irrefutably and successfully answered in the noted “Response of the Archbishops of England to the Apostolic Letter of Pope Leo XIII on Anglican Ordination,” dated February, A.D. 1897, and addressed to the whole body of Bishops of the Catholic Church. Yet it has not been followed up by any united organic action of the entire Anglican Church tending toward effectual inter-communion, and so long as the Anglican Bishops have not collectively and officially pressed her claims for recognition as “part of the Historical Catholic Church,” they cannot actively fault the Holy Eastern Church for not having full knowledge of her Catholic position; and until a conciliar and formal judgment and decision shall be given upon the facts at issue the Anglican and Holy Orthodox Churches will remain estranged and separated.
The opportunity for mutual investigation and explanation of all differences between the Anglican and Holy Orthodox Churches is greater to-day than ever, and he must appear blind who will not see the real bond of union now existing between the Churches made reasonably clear by the opportune and friendly letter of Dr. Irvine to Archbishop Tikhon on “the Anglican Church’s Historical Claims,” etc., in which he says:
“I would not do the Anglican Church a wrong. I would not any more than I would cut off this hand which holds the pen by which I communicate my thoughts to your Grace in black and white, withhold one truth or hide away one merit of which she glories. On the contrary, I trust my very frankness may be the cause of stirring up a spirit of interest on the part of the Holy Orthodox Church so that the Anglican claims may be fairly and quickly weighed and that the Saviour’s prayer so far as the Anglican Church and the Holy Orthodox at least are concerned, may be fulfilled — ‘that they all may be one.’”
God grant it, in His way and time,
DANIEL J. ODELL.
Rectory, Church of the Annunciation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Eastertide, 1906.
1905: The busiest year in American Orthodox history
3 years ago
by Matthew Namee
in Saints
The ordination of Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine, November 5, 1905. This sketch appeared in the Wilkes-Barre Times on November 9.
2009 has been an eventful year for American Orthodoxy — perhaps the most eventful in our history. But it’s got competition. The year 1905 may well have been even crazier. Here is a list of the major happenings of 1905, in no particular order:
- The headquarters of the Russian Mission were transferred from San Francisco to New York. Bishop Tikhon was elevated to Archbishop, and the Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska became the Archdiocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America.
- Archbishop Tikhon wrote his now-famous proposal for an American Church divided into ethnic jurisdictions, all under the authority of the Russian Archbishop.
- The first Orthodox seminary in America was founded, in Minneapolis.
- Bishop Raphael published the first issue of Al-Kalimat (The Word).
- Then-Bishop Tikhon received an honorary doctorate from Nashotah House, the famous Episcopalian seminary. Later that year, the degree would be rescinded.
- To ensure its independence from the Russians, Holy Trinity Greek church in New York City was legally incorporated — by an act of the New York State Legislature — as, “The Hellenic Eastern Orthodox Christian Church of New York.”
- Bishop Raphael consecrated the grounds of St. Tikhon’s Monastery, in South Canaan, PA.
- A fake bishop, Seraphim Ustvolsky, was operating in Canada.
- Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky, the dean of the Russian cathedral in New York, received a bomb threat, which turned out to be a hoax.
- The first Orthodox services were celebrated in Utah. Construction began on a Greek church in Salt Lake City a few months later, and by October, the church building was consecrated.
- Fr. Michael Andreades, an ethnic Greek who was educated in Russia, was ordained a priest by Abp Tikhon. He was one of a handful of Greek priests to serve in the Russian Mission.
- The first Orthodox parish was organized in Washington, DC (St. Sophia Greek church).
- The Russian statesman Sergei Witte came to the US to negotiate with the Japanese to end the Russo-Japanese War. Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky was present for the negotiations.
- Bishop Raphael was arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder. This crisis lasted for a couple of months, but in the end, Bishop Raphael was exonerated.
- Isabel Hapgood put the finishing touches on her English translation of the Service Book, which would be published the following year.
- Just in the month of October, Fr. Sebastian Dabovich 1) established the first Serbian church in Chicago, 2) was raised to the rank of archimandrite by St. Tikhon, and 3) laid the cornerstone for the first Orthodox church in Montana.
- Robert Morgan, a black Episcopal deacon, regularly attended the Greek church in Philadelphia.
- Ingram Nathaniel Irvine converted to Orthodoxy and was ordained a priest by Abp Tikhon. With his conversion, the “English Department” of the Russian Mission was created.
- Fr. Aftimios Ofiesh arrived in New York, beginning his colorful career in America.
And those are just the big events. An interesting book could be written, just on American Orthodoxy in 1905. Eventually, we’ll have articles on each of these events here at OrthodoxHistory.org. For now, though, it’s worth reflecting on a year that was, quite possibly, even more chaotic than our current one.
St. Tikhon’s Vision, 1905
3 years ago
St. Tikhon, flanked by his two vicars, Bishop Innocent and St. Raphael
In 1905, the Holy Synod of Russia was preparing for an All-Russian Council. In advance of this, the Synod asked all the diocesan hierarchs of the Russian Church to send in their opinions on various church reform issues. St. Tikhon was among the respondents, and a portion of his reply has become rather famous among American Orthodox Christians. There are a couple of translations of this section of Tikhon’s response; I’ll print one of them here:
The diocese of North America must be reorganized into an Exarchate of the Russian Church in North America. The diocese is not only multi-national; it is composed of several orthodox Churches, which keep the unity of faith, but preserve their peculiarities in canonical structure, in liturgical rules, in parish life. These particularities are dear to them and can perfectly be tolerated on the pan-orthodox scene. We do not consider that we have the right to suppress the national character of the churches here; on the contrary, we try to preserve this character and we confer on them the latitude to be guided by leaders of their own nationality. Thus, the Syrian Church here received a bishop of its own (the Most Rev. Raphael of Brooklyn), who is the second auxiliary to the diocesan bishop of the Aleutian Islands, but is almost independent in his own sphere (the bishop of Alaska having the same position). The Serbian parishes are now organized under one immediate head, who for the time beign is an archimandrite, but who can be elevated to the episcopacy in the nearest future. The Greeks also desire to have their own bishop and are trying to settle the matter with the Synod of Athens. In other words, in North America a whole Exarchate can easily be established, uniting all orthodox national Churches, which would have their own bishops under one Exarch, the Russian Archbishop. Each one of them is independent in his own sphere, but the common affairs of the American Church are decided in a Synod, presided by the Russian Archbishop. Through him a link is preserved between the American Church and the Church of Russia and a certain dependence of the former on the latter. It should be remembered however that life in the New World is different from that of the old; our Church must take this into consideration; a greater autonomy (and possibly autocephaly) should therefore be granted to the Church of America, as compared with the other Metropolitan sees of the Russian Church. The North American Exarchate would comprise: (1) the archdiocese of New York, with jurisdiction over all Russian Churches in the United States and Canada. (2) the diocese of Alaska, for the orthodox inhabitants of Alaska (Russians, Aleutians, Indians, Eskimos). (3) The diocese of Brooklyn (Syrian). (4) the diocese of Chicago (Serbian). (5) a Greek diocese.
That translation comes from St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, in 1975. There was, however, an earlier translation, commissioned by St. Tikhon himself. This earlier version appeared in the Vestnik (the official periodical of the Russian Mission), in March of 1906. There are some notable differences between the two translations. Among them:
- The 1906 version includes St. Tikhon’s full (and fascinating) response to the Holy Synod, which runs 22 pages. The 1975 version consists only of the section quoted above, thus lacking the context of St. Tikhon’s proposal.
- The 1906 version says that St. Raphael is “nominally the second vicar”; the 1975 version does not include the word “nominally.”
- The 1906 version does not include the parenthetical “(autocephaly)”, which the 1975 version has. On this point, the 1975 version appears to be more accurate; I am told by those who can read Russian that the original Russian text does include that parenthetical.
- The 1906 version, when it mentions a diocese (bishopric) for the Greeks, includes a question mark: “The bishopric (?) of the Greeks.” The 1975 version omits this question mark, which does in fact appear in the original Russian.
Otherwise, the two versions basically agree with each other, aside from the obvious differences in word choice in translation. I don’t know who translated either version — neither the 1906 nor the 1975 version credited anyone.
Needless to say, St. Tikhon’s vision was never fully realized. Fr. Sebastian Dabovich never became bishop for the Serbs, and the Greeks weren’t about to submit to Russian authority. And, as pragmatic as it might have been, St. Tikhon’s proposal was also completely uncanonical, predicated as it was upon overlapping episcopal territories that were a total violation of Orthodox ecclesiology. But St. Tikhon’s vision would inspire two later efforts to form a single American Orthodox jurisdiction — the “American Orthodox Catholic Church” in the 1920s/30s, and, in 1970, the OCA — and it is still hailed by many today as a viable solution to our present jurisdictional situation.
PODCAST NOTE: Today on the American Orthodox History podcast on Ancient Faith Radio, we’re airing Part 2 of my interview with Fr. John Erickson, on the subject of the Russian Mission. In this two-part interview, Fr. John gives us, among other things, the context to understand St. Tikhon’s vision.
The Russian Diocese in 1905
3 years ago
by Matthew Namee
in Uncategorized
Roman Catholic writer Andrew Shipman
In 1905, the Roman Catholic religious writer Andrew Shipman wrote an article on the Russian Church in America. It’s an enlightening piece, a snapshot of the Russian Mission taken by an intelligent outsider. Given that the Russian Mission is the subject of my latest podcast on Ancient Faith Radio, I thought this would be a good time to reprint part of Shipman’s article.
Much of the article isn’t actually Shipman; it’s Fr. John Nedzelnitsky, a Russian priest from Pittsburgh. Shipman translated an article by Nedzenitzky into English — an appeal to the Russian Holy Synod to elevate the North American Diocese to the status of an Exarchate. Given that the Russian Mission is the subject of my latest podcast on Ancient Faith Radio, I thought this would be a good time to reprint much of Shipman’s (and Nedzelnitsky’s) article here. (By the way, the article comes from the June 1905 issue of The Messenger, a Roman Catholic monthly.)
In the United States the Russian Orthodox Church has been established for a hundred years. At first it was confined to Alaska, — then known as Russian America, — then it came to San Francisco and along the Pacific coast. Then it flourished along the Atlantic coast and the adjoining States, and now has its chief and most splendid temple in the City of New York. The episcopal title has varied as the fortunes of the Church have waxed. First, it was “Bishop of the Kodiaks,” afterwards “Bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands,” (Bishop Innocent), then “Bishop of New Archangel” (Bishop Paul), then “Bishop of Aleutia and Alaska” (Bishops John, Nestor, Vladimir and Nicholas), and finally now it is “Bishop of Aleutia and North America” (Bishop Tikhon). The latter bishop has been provided with two vicar-bishops or auxiliary bishops, Bishop Innocent, “Bishop of Alaska,” and Bishop Raphael, “Bishop of Brooklyn.”
It is now proposed by the Russian Orthodox Church to form the United States into an Exarchate or at least an Archiepiscopal province. This is to be an ecclesiastical organization, the head of which will be subject directly to the Holy Governing Synod, but which in other respects will be completely autonomous, the bishops and clergy of which will be ruled by the Exarch.
To appreciate the significance of this, let us consider a moment the latest official figures of the Russian Orthodox Church in the United States. They are as follows for 1905:
- Russians from Russia – 1,706
- Russians (Ruthenians) from Galicia — 7,747
- Russians (Ruthenians) from Hungary — 4,676
- Bukovinians and Wallachians — 3,653
- Servians and other Slavs — 6,386
- Greeks — 731
- Syro-Arabians — 5,484
- Half-breeds — 2,124
- Indians — 2,281
- Aleutians — 2,272
- Esquimaux — 3,210
- Americans and others — 71
- TOTAL — 38,341
These figures show a slight increase over those for the preceding year. Among themre 772 persons who were formerly Uniate Greek Catholics.
I cannot better explain the purpose and scope of this movement to erect an Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church than by translating an article on that subject by the Reverend Archpriest John Nedzelnitzky, of the Russian Church of St. Michael, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After giving a short history of the Russian mission in America, he says:
“The American Orthodox diocese, after a century of its existence, has grown in the number of its members, both clergy and lay, and has become exalted in its significance in the eyes of those of other faiths, — such as the Episcopalians and the old Catholics of America, and it has so important a missionary purpose in spreading orthodoxy among the Uniates, the Slavs and other peoples of the new world, that in justice, both by reason of its purpose and by the merits of its bishops, it ought to have for its visible head in America an Exarch or at least one with the title of Archbishop. For this the following facts will speak:
“In the past year, 1903, the Holy Synod in Russia established in America a vicariate with the cathedral see at Sitka, and on February 24, 1904, the first vicar-bishop arrived in America. He was the Right Reverend Innocent, with the title of ‘Bishop of Alaska.’ On the first of February, 1904, the Holy Synod established a second vicariate for the Syro-Arabian missions, with the cathedral see in the city of Brooklyn, and on February 29th there was celebrated in New York the first Orthodox consecration of a bishop in America, when the Archimandrite Raphael was made Bishop of Brooklyn. There are therefore now America two vicariates and the ruling bishop, who continues to bear the title of ‘Bishop,’ the same as for a century past. There is nothing in the title to distinguish him from his vicars, and he is only differentiated from them by the powers exercised by him, although in reality it follows that a ruling bishop should be distinguished from assistant bishops even in title. For the effectiveness of an archbishop and two vicar-bishops in America, the Diocese of Aleutia ought to be placed first in rank of Orthodox dioceses, not only by the alphabet, but in reality. It ought to be an Exarchate like the Exarchate of Georgia, or at least an Archbishopric. If in Russia there is not a diocese where the ruling bishop with two vicars bears only the title of ‘Bishop,’ but is called ‘Archbishop,’ so it should be in the American Exarchate or Diocese of Aleutia and North America.”
Fr. Nedzelnitsky goes on for another paragraph, comparing the American Orthodox situation to that of the Roman Catholics, who had an Apostolic Delegate, 16 archbishops, and 85 bishops. He then asks,
“If the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church in America are ruled by archbishops, why then does not our Orthodox Church in America have even one archbishop, especially now, when the Holy Synod, having established two vicariates in America, has thereby extended the importance of the diocese of Aleutia and its head? And of course it will soon establish also a third vicariate, for the Servians in America, since the Servians, having erected their churches and parishes, wish to have a bishop of their own nationality.”
Nedzelnitsky then notes that the Episcopalian bishops oversee a relatively small number of parishioners — an average of 7,825 per bishop. He continues,
“Our Orthodox diocese in America is comparatively great in the number of its members, only there are now regular statistics, in view of the huge territory in America, of those scattered in towns and villages, where the Orthodox may live, the majority of them leading a nomadic form of life, such as factory hands (Russians, Servians and Ruthenians), and a few tradesmen (Syro-Arabians and Greeks) and the like.
“The official publications of the American government and of our diocesan organization in regard to the number of the Orthodox differ widely in view of the causes we point out. Dr. H.K. Carroll, late special agent of the United States Census Office, informs us that up to 1905 there were in the United States of America 40,000 Russian Orthodox (including probably also Ruthenians), 21,230 Greek Orthodox and 15,000 Syrian Orthodox. Therefore, according to the information of this government official, there are 76,230 Orthodox souls in the United States, but from his statistics there does not appear the quantity of Orthodox Servians, Bulgarians, Macedonians and Roumanians, who altogether amount to more than 10,000. Nor does this official reckon in the half-breeds, Indians Aleutian and Esquimaux, who comprise the Orthodox inhabitants of Alaska and its islands. And there are not a few of these last-named races! In Canada there dwell more than 5,000 Bukovinians and Wallachians. An official of the United States of course cannot count them in, for Canada belongs to England. Our missions, for instance, count only those Greeks who go to confession to Russian priests, and in America there are many purely Greek parishes which do not give us their statistical results, but all these really have common ground with us and our bishops, as they are one in faith with us. And in the eys of the Greeks the presence in America of an Orthodox Metropolitan or Archbishop-Exarch would have tremendous importance, as they, as well as the Syro-Arabians and Servians of Austrian territory are accustomed in Europe and in Asia to have many metropolitans, archbishops and bishops of their own.
Nedzelnitsky makes more arguments — that an exarchate would help combat imposter clergy, and that it is essential in drawing Uniates to Orthodoxy. Shipman then concludes his piece:
Thus far the archpriest. But other articles have appeared in the Russian Orthodox papers, showing the proposed foundation of an ecclesiastical seminary in Cleveland, Ohio, the laying out of an extensive school plan and other signs of progressive church work. The latest news in a statement in the daily papers that Bishop Tikhon, with his entire cathedral staff, is about to remove from San Francisco to New York, which latter will hereafter be his chief see city. The change is expected to be made in the month of May of this year, and if San Francisco thus becomes a vicariate with a new bishop, the American Exarchate may be an accomplished fact within a very short time.
St. Tikhon did move from San Francisco to New York City, and a seminary was indeed established (but in Minneapolis, rather than Cleveland). No bishop was assigned to San Francisco, though, and the dream of a full-fledged American Orthodox exarchate never really came to fruition.
Another interesting thing to note is the demographics of the Russian Mission, which I believe Shipman got from the Diocese itself. There were only 721 Greeks in the Russian Diocese, but according to Nedzelnitzky, there were over 21,000 in the country (and the next year’s Census of Religious Bodies would put the figure at more than 90,000).
Also, there were very few actual Russians in the Diocese — just 1,706, or less than 5% of the reported total. The biggest groups in the Diocese were actually the Ruthenians / Bukovinians / Wallachians (16,076 / 42%) and various types of Alaskan natives (9,887 / 26%).
