The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas
Posts tagged Antiochian
The First Antiochian Chapel in America
01 year ago
Fr. Christopher Jabara, 1894
In the life of St. Raphael Hawaweeny published by Antakya Press (page 24, to be precise), there’s a reference to an early Syrian/Antiochian chapel in New York, dating to 1893. The story goes that a visiting Antiochian priest, Archimandrite Christopher Jabara, established the chapel at Cedar and Washington Streets in New York City. Unbeknownst to the local Syrians, however, Jabara espoused a radical, heretical theology, rejecting the Holy Trinity and calling for the unification of all religions — and especially a merger of Orthodoxy with Islam. Jabara was a speaker at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, and his talks were reported in the New York newspapers. Jabara was “compelled to leave the country” and eventually died in Egypt. To read more about Jabara, check out this article I wrote two years ago.
I haven’t been able to find much of anything about that original Syrian chapel, but I did recently stumble upon the following note in the June 12, 1893 issue of the New York Sun:
The members of the Syrian Orthodox Greek Church who have been worshipping in the Greek chapel in Fifty-third street have now a chapel of their own on the top floor of the building at the northeast corner of Cedar and West streets. The chapel was dedicated yesterday morning at 10 o’clock. The service, which was in Greek, Arabic, and Russian, was conducted by Archimandrite Christophoros Jebarah, assisted by two priests from the Russian war ships now in the harbor. The Russian Vice-Admiral and a party of Russian sailors attended the service.
Jabara’s own weirdness aside, this is a really fine example of early inter-Orthodox cooperation. At the time, the only Orthodox church in New York was Greek, so that’s where all the Orthodox went — regardless of ethnicity. (Other sources tell us that the local Russians also attended the Greek church.) And when the Syrians opened their own chapel, the visiting Russian clergy and sailors came out for the dedication. Orthodoxy was small and new in early 1890s America, and the Orthodox, of necessity, had to work together. Of course, once the necessity passed, the Orthodox were content to break up into their respective ethnic groups.
Anyway, the Syrian chapel failed pretty quickly. It’s clear that Jabara wasn’t the right man to lead the church, but two years later, the right man, Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny, arrived on the scene, leading the Syrians until his death two decades later.
This article was written by Matthew Namee.
The first New Calendar Christmas for the Antiochians in America
111 year ago
by Matthew Namee
in Westernization
It’s almost Christmas for those of us on the New Calendar, but of course, our Old Calendar brethren will have to wait an additional 13 days. Originally, of course, all Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas on the same day, because we all followed the same calendar. In 1923, an Inter-Orthodox Congress met at Constantinople under the presidency of the infamous Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis and voted to adopt the New Calendar. Over time, a lot of the world’s Orthodox Churches went along with the switch, but many refused and continue to use the Old Calendar. Hence the current discrepancy.
The thing many people don’t realize is that not every Orthodox Church that uses the New Calendar adopted it in 1923. According to Dr. Lewis Patsavos of Holy Cross, the latest Church to make the switch was Bulgaria, which did so in 1968.
Another thing people don’t realize is that some Orthodox in America were already following the New Calendar prior to its official 1923 endorsement. A couple of years ago, I wrote about how a Greek community in Columbia, SC arbitrarily adopted the New Calendar in 1914. That group didn’t have a priest or a formal church, but even earlier, in 1900, a Syrian colony in Fort Wayne, IN celebrated Christmas on the New Calendar’s December 25, and they were joined by a visiting priest from New York. (Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 12/25/1900.) I’m not sure, but it’s possible that the priest was St. Raphael Hawaweeny. If it wasn’t him, it must have been one of his subordinates.
On the flip side, the Antiochian Archdiocese didn’t celebrate a New Calendar Christmas until 1940. The New York Times (1/6/1941) reported, “Departing from an ancient custom, the Syrian Orthodox Antiochian Church, which formerly followed the Julian calendar, celebrated Christmas on Dec. 25 this year…” That’s a full 17 years after the 1923 Inter-Orthodox Congress. And — someone correct me if I’m wrong here — the OCA waited until 1982 to switch calendars.
Anyway, to all of our New Calendar readers, we wish you a joyous Christmas. To our Old Calendar readers, happy St. Herman’s day!
This article was written by Matthew Namee.
UPDATE: In the comments below, William Kosar has pinned down when the Metropolia/OCA began making the switch from the Old to the New Calendar. William writes, “After a little research, it was at the Thirteenth Sobor of November 14-16, 1967 that the decision was made permitting parishes, upon approval of their diocesan bishop, to use the new calendar.” The 1982 date that I cited seems to refer to when then-Bishop Herman Swaiko of Eastern PA forced all the parishes in his diocese to adopt the New Calendar. Up to that point, it appears that parishes could choose. See the comments for more on how the process of choosing worked.
Greek Catholic — not Orthodox — monk in America in 1850
01 year ago
by Matthew Namee
in Firsts
Last week, I wrote about a priest from Lebanon who visited the United States in 1850. In an update to that post, I reprinted an 1850 Syracuse newspaper article claiming that the priest was an “impostor” who was raising money through dishonesty. That Syracuse newspaper referred to another article in the Puritan Recorder. Well, I’ve now tracked down that original article, which appeared in the Puritan Recorder on July 20, 1850. Here’s the full text:
The Syrian Monk, Flavianus
Some months since a Papal monk, named Flavianus, from the convent of Kurkafen, on Mount Lebanon, Syria, accompanied by a Syrian youth named Nasif Shedoody, who acts as interpreter to the Monk, went to America to solicit aid for a convent, and for other purposes connected with the Papal-Greek sect in Syria. We have been informed that our names have been used in connection with this affair, and that the acquaintance of the interpreter with the members of our Mission, has been made the means of introducing the monk and his project to the favorable notice of some of our friends. We, therefore, deem it necessary to notify our friends in this public manner, that the project has never met with countenance from us, and that we remonstrated with the interpreter when he called upon us for letters of introduction to our friends. We declared to him our conviction, that no money could be obtained in the United States for such an object, except by fraud; — because Papists could find many ways, in which money could tell upon their cause more powerfully than were it to be given to increase the funds of one of the many well endowed convents on Lebanon; and Protestants of every name would decline giving a farthing, if they knew the character of Lebanon convents, and the doctrines and character of the sect for whom their aims were sought. We know that Papal convents, a Papal church, or even Papal schools, and a thoroughly Papal press, and a people not needy, would not commend themselves to other than Papists; and that a knowledge of the mode of which the funds of the Greek Catholic sect have been squandered, would destroy the confidence of their co-religionists everywhere. Indeed, the whole project was opposed violently by many of their own sect, including the Bishop of the Diocese, to which Monk Flavianus belongs.
Feeling an interest in the young man, who was once a pupil in one of our schools, we warned him against engaging in a scheme, which could succeed nowhere except by false pretenses and culpable concealment. But he satisfied his conscience by the plea, that he found it difficult to obtain other occupation which would give him a comfortable livelihood that he should be able to see foreign lands without cost to himself; and that, being the mere mouth-piece of the Monk, he should not be responsible for the nature of the communications made to the American public.
Our object in this notice is simply to prevent our names being used for the furtherance of the scheme in question. In our opinion, the case does not present a proper object of charity, nor is it one which we can commend, for any reason, to any portion of the citizens of the United States. Those who give to it cannot be sure that what they bestow will be expended according to their desires, even if all of it should reach the individuals who originated the object.
G.B. Whiting, C.V.A. Van Dyck, H.A. De Forest, S.H. Calhoun
Beirut, Syria, May 3d, 1850.
So this guy wasn’t Orthodox — he was Arab Greek Catholic (probably Melkite, but possibly Maronite). And, from the sound of this letter, he may have been only a monk, and not a priest.
That said, I do now think he was the same “Greek priest” who was reportedly trying to start a parish in New York in late 1849. The Orthodox in New York were reported to be Russians and Greeks (not the types you’d expect to follow an Arab Greek Catholic priest), but the Puritan Recorder letter accuses Fr. Flavianus of being dishonest, so he may well have led the New York Orthodox to believe that he was from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch.
We’ll keep researching this story, because, even if Fr. Flavianus and his interpreter weren’t Orthodox, there seems to have been a sizeable Orthodox community in New York in 1850.
This article was written by Matthew Namee.
Orthodox priests in America in 1849-50
11 year ago
by Matthew Namee
in Firsts
Earlier today, I posted this note from the January 1850 issue of the Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America:
Efforts are now making in New York to form a congregation of Greek Christians. We observe an announcement that a priest of that denomination, with an interpreter, is now in New York, and will doubtless take charge of the movement.
I’ve tracked down a bit more on this intriguing story. The December 8, 1849 issue of the North American and United States Gazette (published out of Philadelphia) reported, “Efforts are making in New York to form a congregation of Greek Christians, from the many Greeks, Russians, etc., now in that metropolis. One has lately been formed in London.”
Three days later, the same newspaper published this:
We have already noticed the efforts now making in New York to form a congregation of Greek Christians. We observe an announcement that a priest of that denomination, with an interpreter, is now in New York, and will doubtless take charge of the movement.
Obviously, the 1850 Presbyterian source quoted above got its information from the Gazette; that, or they both got it from some third source.
Finally, on February 14, 1850, the Gazette published this:
There are now in Harrisburg, Pa., the Rev. Flabianos, a priest of the Greek Catholic church, from near Mount Lebanon, and Nasseef Shedady, from Beyroot, in Syria, his private secretary and interpreter, who speaks our language quite fluently. Their object is to secure aid for their brethren in Syria, who are suffering very much, and are in a state of destitution, in consequence of the wars between the Mahometans and Druses, by which the country has been devastated.
Okay. It’s not clear whether this Rev. Flabianos of Mount Lebanon is the same priest who was in New York in December 1850. Also, I’m not certain whether Rev. Flabianos was Orthodox or Maronite. Given the references to both Greeks and Russians in New York, it’s clear that the New York priest — whoever he was — was indeed Orthodox. It seems unlikely, although certainly not impossible, that two Orthodox priests happened to visit the United States in the winter of 1849-50.
Anyway, this story remains very, very cloudy, but we’ve now got multiple sources and at least some specifics. I’ll continue researching this one.
This article was written by Matthew Namee.
UPDATE: I just found an article from later in 1850 which seems to refer to the same visitors from Lebanon. From the Syracuse Daily Standard, 8/8/1850:
For several days past a couple of singularly dressed personages have been parading our streets, attracting considerable attention by their strange appearance. It is generally understood that they were soliciting aid for a convent in Syria and one of them represents himself to be a monk from the Greek convent of Kurkafen on Mount Lebanon, accompanied by his interpreter. The Puritan Recorder declares them to be impostors, and publishes a somewhat lengthy article signed by four missionaries at Beirut, Syria, warning the people of the U. States against their impositions. According to this article they belong to the Greek Catholic Church, a sect of which but little is known in this country, and are not entitled to the countenance of either Protestants or Roman Catholics. It is intimated that their sole object in visiting this country is to see foreign lands without any cost to themselves, and those who make donations cannot be sure that what they bestow will ever reach the object for which it is solicited.
Sounds kind of like the Bulgarian Monk, doesn’t it? But he came along a quarter century later.
Anyway, this article makes me skeptical that this priest from Mount Lebanon is the same person as the priest who was trying to start a multiethnic church in New York in December 1849. At this point, I think we’re dealing with two unrelated clergymen who happened to visit America at the same time.
An update on Fr. Moses Abihider
01 year ago
by Matthew Namee
in Uncategorized
Recently, I wrote a brief article on Fr. Moses Abihider, a Syrian/Antiochian priest from the early 20th century who was buried alongside St. Raphael Hawaweeny. Shortly after that, a reader named Robert Klancko emailed me with more information. Mr. Klancko’s wife is a relative of the Abihider family, and, among other things, he told me the following:
- Fr. Moses had a stunning total of 17 children, of whom at least nine survived to adulthood. That sounds like a horrendous child mortality rate, but the death of children was a tragically common reality for most families a century ago.
- Fr. Moses’ youngest son was Aftimios Abihider, named for his godfather Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh. This is the same Aftimios Abihider who later published the biography of Ofiesh, written by Ofiesh’s widow. It’s not clear exactly what the relationship was between Ofiesh and Fr. Moses, but the two must have been close.
- Mr. Klancko related the story that one of the Farah brothers of Texas — owners of the then-famed Farah pants company (comparable to Dockers) — heard that Fr. Moses had six daughters. This Farah went to visit the Abihiders and was grilled by Fr. Moses. Satisfied of the suitor’s worthiness, Fr. Moses called in one of his daughters and said, “Come meet your husband. Get ready; you will be married next Saturday.” The marriage was, says Mr. Klancko, a success. (Incidentally, my mother’s aunt Virginia was also married to a Farah. Before her death, she founded the Virginia H. Farah Foundation, a private Orthodox foundation.)
- Although all of Fr. Moses’ children are now deceased, numerous other relatives survive in different parts of the country.
I’m grateful to Mr. Klancko for his help. As I learn more about Fr. Moses, I’ll post further updates.
This article was written by Matthew Namee.
