In honor of the 30th anniversary of the passing of Bob Marley, who finished his life as a member of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (his baptism was just six months before his death), we’re reposting this piece we posted last year featuring the program from his funeral in Jamaica. Memory eternal!

Bob Marley's Funeral program

Journey To Orthodoxy yesterday ran a piece about the conversion of reggae artist Bob Marley to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (a non-Chalcedonian church very similar to but not currently in communion with the [Eastern] Orthodox Church). It’s worth a read. We thought it might also be of interest to see this primary source document pictured above which also witnesses to his 1980 baptism—at which he took the name Berhane Selassie (“Light of the Trinity”)—and subsequent burial in 1981 by the Ethiopian Orthodox in Jamaica.

The image we found is a little small, so here’s the full text for those whose eyes (zoom capability) might not be quite up to the task:

Addition for the 30th anniversary: Below is some footage from his funeral and the events surrounding it. Ethiopian Orthodox clergy are visible at several points.

30 Year Anniversary of Bob Marley’s Death is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Bob Marley's Funeral program

Journey To Orthodoxy yesterday ran a piece about the conversion of reggae artist Bob Marley to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (a non-Chalcedonian church very similar to but not currently in communion with the [Eastern] Orthodox Church). It’s worth a read. We thought it might also be of interest to see this primary source document pictured above which also witnesses to his 1980 baptism—at which he took the name Berhane Selassie (“Light of the Trinity”)—and subsequent burial in 1981 by the Ethiopian Orthodox in Jamaica.

The image we found is a little small, so here’s the full text for those whose eyes (zoom capability) might not be quite up to the task:

Source of the Week: Bob Marley’s funeral program is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Syrian-owned store in downtown Kingston, Jamaica, in the early 1900s

It is well known that, at the turn of the last century, thousands of Syrians/Lebanese made the trip across the Atlantic to New York. What is less well known, at least here in the US, is that many Syrian emigrants went to other parts of the New World, including South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. A lot of these travelers found their way to Jamaica, which, to this day, has a sizeable Syrian contingent.

Unlike the Syrians in the US, however, these Syro-Jamaicans didn’t obtain a permanent Orthodox priest, or establish a functioning Orthodox community. They stuck together as an ethnic group, but in terms of their religion, they eventually became absorbed into the existing Anglican church of Jamaica.

That said, the Syro-Jamaicans did receive occasional pastoral visits from Orthodox clergy. In 1913-14, Fr. Raphael Morgan, the first black Orthodox priest in America (who was serving under the Church of Greece at the time), visited Jamaica and served the Divine Liturgy (aboard a Russian ship) for the Syrians he met. But he wasn’t the first Orthodox clergyman to visit Jamaica. Three years earlier, in August of 1910, a priest named Fr. Antonio Michael came to the island. Here is an account of his visit, from the Kingston Gleaner (8/4/1910):

It will be remembered that during last year the [Anglican] Archbishop addressed a meeting of Syrians on the Rectory Lawn. Since that time many of the Syrians have been worshiping with us regularly. A step towards closer fellowship was taken on July 17th, when the Rector, taking advantage of the visit to Jamaica of a priest of the Greek Orthodox Church, arranged a special service for Syrians. The priest in question, Father Antonio Michael came with authority from the Patriarch of Antioch to visit the Syrians scattered through these Islands.

Having inspected the Patriarch’s letter the Rector invited Father Antonio to celebrate the Holy Eucharist at the Altar of the Kingston Parish Church. The invitation was accepted and accordingly on Sunday we were privileged to witness a fine illustration of the friendly relations which exist between the Anglican and the Greek Orthodox Church.

At 8 a.m. the Rector celebrated and Father Antonio sat in the Sanctuary in his robes. At 9 a.m. Father Antonio celebrated for the Syrians in the presence of a large congregation of Jamaicans, following the Eastern rite, the Rector being present within the Sanctuary. The services lasted altogether two hours and a half, but many remained to the end, though the Syrians’ service being in Arabic was difficult to follow for those not acquainted with the language. To those who knew something of the Eastern rite it was full of interest. At the close of the service Father Antonio commended the Syrians to the pastoral care of the Rector.

Father Antonio concluded his address on the Gospel for the day in these words:

“May you live together in peace and love. I raise my heart and hands to God Almighty asking Him to be with every one of you. May He prosper you in all your undertakings. May He bless the Island of Jamaica and grant to His Majesty King George V. strength, wisdom and length of days; to His Excellency the Governor and to all associated with him in the Government of this Island, knowledge and understanding. I pray that our Heavenly Father may keep and bless the Archbishop and the Ministers of the Holy Church especially Mr. Ripley who has allowed me to have this service to-day. O God, guard Thy children from all dangers ghostly [spiritually] and bodily. May they grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and finally of His great mercy obtain everlasting life. Amen.”

Clearly, Fr. Antonio did not plan to remain in Jamaica, and he saw nothing wrong with commending the Orthodox people there to the care of the Anglican clergy. As I said, the next Orthodox priest (that I’m aware of) to visit Jamaica was Fr. Raphael Morgan. While he was under the Church of Greece, most of the other Orthodox clergymen to visit Jamaica in the early 20th century were Antiochians. However, no permanent priest was ever assigned to for the Syrian community, and today, the descendants of those Syrians are predominantly Anglican.

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As I’ve probably said a hundred times now, America is a frontier region for Orthodoxy. This was especially the case at the turn of the last century, when the chaotic nature of the American Orthodox scene provided ample opportunity for imposter priests to make a good living on unwitting Orthodox immigrants. I’m sure we’ll discuss various examples of this phenomenon in the future. Today, I’m going to talk about two fundraising “monks” from, apparently, Kurdistan.

This report appeared in a number of newspapers (including the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post) on November 6, 1900:

Two priests of the Greek Church, Fathers Simeon and Joseph Nathan, from the Monastery of Oyos Caralambos, of Kurdistan, were ordered deported by the immigration authorities today. They are said to have come to this country by commission of Bishop Laveneu, the head of their order, to raise funds for the Church. Having very little money they were excluded as likely to become public charges. They said that they had passports from the authorities in Greece.

Frs. Simeon and Joseph appear to have been non-Chalcedonians of some sort or another. From later reports, it seems that they had previously visited India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Japan. They then reached the Pacific Coast of the US, where they met the Episcopal Bishop of Olympia, Washington. They traveled across the country (stopping in St. Paul, Minnesota, among other places), and eventually found their way to New York City. They claimed to be raising money for an orphanage. From the Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica, 10/30/1902):

It seems that they church to which they belong was destroyed at the time of the Armenian massacres by the Turks and their mission is to raise funds to establish a new church, and also an orphanage in connection with it, for the support of fifty orphans whose parents perished in that terrible affair.

After being deported from the US, these “Chaldeans” went to Haiti, and in the fall of 1902, they came to Jamaica. The Gleaner newspaper encouraged readers to contribute money, pointing out that the fundraisers had a letter of recommendation from (among others) the Anglican Archbishop of the West Indies. This effort appears to have been successful, and even the Acting Governor of Jamaica made a donation. After leaving Jamaica in November 1902, the “Chaldean agents” went to Colon and collected still more money.

It was only after they were long gone that the Gleaner received a letter of warning from Anglican representatives in Persia. From the December 5, 1902 issue of the newspaper:

We ask your permission to warn your readers against all persons coming from this country to England for begging purposes, whether they call themselves Assyrians, Chaldeans, Nestorians, Armenians, or by any other name. Many of the most worthless of these Christians have learnt to travel to Europe to beg nominally, in most cases, for some school or other institution, but in reality for themselves. Many persons in England have been deceived by them, even those universally known to be most astute, and the amount of money that has been wasted in this way is most lamentable.

The letter went on to comment that these fraudulent fundraisers displayed “a wonderful versatility in their religion. They will one day be Baptists, the next Anglican, the third Roman Catholics, and the fourth Orthodox Easterns. No religion comes amiss to them, if they can make money by it.”

Many years later, in 1914, other Chaldean fundraisers — or perhaps the same ones — surfaced in America. St. Raphael Hawaweeny found it necessary to publish this notice in the Russian Archdiocese’s Vestnik magazine:

For a long time already, various “collectors” with counterfeit documents, written in various languages, are traveling around North America… They claim to be Syrian or Orthodox Syrian-Arabs while they are Chaldeans and Nestorians by religion… Many times I warned my Syrian compatriots… now I found out that those “collectors” act among the Russian clergy… so I warn you… that those who do not have the papers with my signature and seal are tricksters. Raphael, Bishop of Brooklyn.

[I found this in Fr. Andrew Kostadis' 1999 St. Vladimir's Seminary thesis, Pictures of Missionary Life, page 39. The ellipses are in Kostadis' text.]

We’ll probably never know the true origins of these Chaldeans, or what became of them. But they were just two of many fake, or at least unauthorized, individuals who claimed to be Orthodox clergymen in America.

Fraudulent “Chaldean” fundraisers in America is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

The translation was done using Google Translate with a little cleaning afterward. A few pf the phrases made sense neither to Google nor to me, but I tried my best with my rudimentary French. Corrections are welcome. This article was originally spotted by Matthew Namee.

A CONQUEST OF THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE

The Church of Constantinople recorded last summer a resounding conquest, which has made local headlines for days in the newspapers and halls of the capital. An American clergyman, a native of the English Antilles [the West Indies], a negro of the finest black, the Reverend Robert Morgan, after a few weeks of living on the shores of the Golden Horn, has had the singular grace of seeing the light of Tabor and being admitted into Orthodoxy. His [prior] baptism worthless, like all unbelievers who live outside the Orthodox Church, the said negro, a robust fellow of about thirty-five years, was plunged three times from head to toe in the font of purification, and came out white, one of the flock of the great Church of Christ. After which, the neophyte, wishing to obtain the sacred order of priesthood that he was only supposed to have before, was ordained priest by Mgr. Joachim Phouropolos, a Metropolitan expelled from Monastir [present day Bitola, FYROM - edited thanks to comment!], who recited the prayers of the Pontifical in English. Since then, the ex-Reverend Morgan, now become Father Josias Morgan, said Mass in the Byzantine rite in the English language [emphasis in original].

This is how this this actually happened. It is understandable that this is of public interest in Constantinople, which really lacks entertainment.

I saw Father Josias, and one summer morning I mounted with him the green and sunny shores of the Bosphorus. At the pier of the Chirket, with the wide sleeves of his rasso, in his kamilafki all brand new, and with his booming voice, he attracted the attention of all, to the delight of the Greeks, proud of their booty, and to the great amusement of young Ottoman officers accustomed to seeing people of color in the company of Turkish women. Having gone to see an Englishman of my acquaintance, I told him of my meeting. I now literally transcribe the brief dialogue that ensued between us:

- “M. G…, I saw this morning, one of your compatriots.”

- “Where was this?”

- “On the boat Chirket.”

- “Where is he from?”

- “I think he is from Jamaica.”

- “Introduce him to me, so I may make his acquaintance,” said my friend who has long lived in this island.

- “I will do so, but I must warn you that he is a negro.”

- “Oh! Well, don’t introduce me.”

- “I should add he became a Greek priest.”

- “A Greek priest! You are confused and this must be a sorcerer.”

- “I’ve never seen a negro sorcerer, but I know enough of the dress of Orthodox priests such that there is no error on my part.”

- “You’re right, after all; this does not surprise me.”

- “What! I am surprised by this very much.”

- “The negroes are very religious.”

- “Really?”

- “Indeed, yes, they have so much religion that they change it every week.”

My friend was wrong. Many weeks have passed since our conversation, and Father Josias remained faithful to the Orthodox Church. He left Constantinople for Philadelphia in the United States in the first days of November, carrying 28 Turkish lira (a lira is worth about 23 francs) which was given by the holy synod for his travel expenses.

What will he do in his country? Certainly, [he will] found an Orthodox church of negroes. But what else? That’s what we know, and in fact, the first goal was good enough [et d'ailleurs le premier but suffit - edited thanks to Facebook comment!]. It seems, however, that the Reverend Morgan had intended, embracing Orthodoxy, to be consecrated bishop. The Holy Synod declined, and I think it was wrong. The ordination of a bishop of color would have rendered invaluable services.

Firstly, being an American and a member of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, said Morgan would have exercised jurisdiction over all the Greeks settled in America. Hence a great advantage would be obtained by the Phanar over the Church of Athens. At the same time, the latter took their revenge. Indeed, if the Greeks of America continue to ask for a bishop, they will want a white [one], of course. They are a people of such a taste and wit as never to accept a negro bishop, even were he the eunuch of Queen Candace [of Ethiopia]. From the day they would have imposed Morgan as Bishop on them, they would have returned to the motherland; which contrasts with Athens on the question of emigration, which furnished to Cabinet Theotokis ten thousand conscripts who lack the necessary annual [pay] [et fournissait au Cabinet Theotokis les dix mille conscrits nécessaires qui lui manquent annuellement].

It is really unfortunate that the Church of Constantinople had not thought of all these advantages and has left the negro Morgan unconsecrated as bishop.

Update: It should be noted that the posting of this historical article should in no way be construed as an endorsement of the opinions expressed therein.

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It’s been a while since we talked about Robert Josias Morgan, the black Episcopal deacon who became an Orthodox priest in 1907, taking the name “Fr. Raphael.” In the past, I’ve mentioned that, prior to his conversion to Orthodoxy, Morgan visited Russia in 1904. Upon his departure, he wrote a letter, which was reprinted in the October/November 1904 English supplement to the Vestnik (Russian Orthodox American Messenger), the official publication of the Russian Archdiocese in America. Here is the text of that letter:

I, Robert Josias Morgan, a legally consecrated cleric of the American Episcopal Church, find it necessary to make it publicly known, that I am not a Bishop, as it was announced in some magazines and daily papers…

… I am not a Bishop, but a legally consecrated deacon.  I came to Russia in no way to represent anything, and I was not sent by anybody.  I came as a simple tourist, chiefly with the object to see the churches and the monasteries of this country, to enjoy the ritual and the service of the holy Orthodox Church, about which I heard so much abroad.  And I am perfectly satisfied with everything I saw and witnessed.

The piety and the fear of God amongst the Russian clergy, both superior and lower, and of the lay people in general are too great to be spoken of.  I like Russia, and as to the people I have simply grown to love them for their gentleness, their politeness, their amiability and kindness.  It would seem as if the Christian religion penetrated the whole life of the people.  This can be observed both in the private home life and the social life.  You have but to go to Church in this country, and you immediately see, that there is nothing too valuable for the people to be offered to God.  Note how they pray, how patiently they stand through the long Church services…

Now, having spent here about a month, I leave your country with a feeling of profound gratitude and take back to North America all the good impressions I received here.  And when there I shall speak boldly and loudly about the brotherly feelings entertained here in the bosom of the holy Orthodox Church towards its Anglican sister of North America, and about the prayers which are offered here daily for the union of all the Catholic Christendom.

My constant humble prayer is for the union of all Churches, and especially the union of the Anglican faith with the Orthodox Church of Russia.  I solicited the Metropolitans and the Bishops to grant me their blessing in regard to this prayer and obtained it.  Now I pray daily and eagerly for a better mutual understanding between the character and their union.  God grant a blessing to this cause and a hearing to our prayers and supplications.  Let us solicit the prayers of the Saints.  Let us seek the intercession of the holy Mother of God.  Virgin Mary, pray for us!

In conclusion I must say, that my stay in Russia did me personally much good: I feel now firmer and stronger spiritually than I did before I came.

God bless the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of this country!  God bless the Emperor and all the reigning family!  God grant them a long life, peace and prosperity!

            I am sincerely yours in God and in the name of Mary,

                        Robert Josias Morgan.

Years later, he told the Kingston Gleaner (7/22/1913) that he had visited Russia on two occasions, and both times was “received and entertained at the Great Monasteries of the Russian Orthodox Church in Odessa, St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kieff. He was also present at the anniversary service of the Coronation of the present Czar [Nicholas II] and at the Requiem High Mass said for the repose of the soul of the late Emperor [Alexander III], at which time, as special guest at the Kremlin Palace, his photographs appeared in the leading journals and magazines of Russia, Europe and other countries.”

As I’ve noted elsewhere, it’s odd that Morgan didn’t join the Russian Church in America, but instead traveled all the way to Constantinople for ordination, and affiliated himself with the Greek churches. In Morgan’s day, the Greeks had no resident bishop in America, whereas the Russians had three. The Russians had a multiethnic diocese with seminary and a monastery, and very close relations with the Episcopalians. They also had just received Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine, who began promoting the use of English in church services. The Greeks, meanwhile, were much less organized, had no national structure or institutions, and were almost exclusively focused on Greek immigrants. In Philadelphia, where Morgan was based, the Russians had a parish, and one of the priests there was Fr. Sebastian Dabovich, an American-born Serb who spoke perfect English and was friends with Fr. Irvine. And yet, Morgan went with the Greeks and not the Russians.

Originally, I had thought that perhaps Morgan had developed a good relationship with the Greek priest in Philadelphia, Fr. Demetrios Petrides, who wrote a letter of recommendation to the Ecumenical Patriarchate on Morgan’s behalf in 1907. Petrides was an outstanding priest and was very involved in dialogue with the Episcopalians, which might have drawn Morgan to him. But Morgan started attending the Philadelphia Greek church before Petrides even came to America, so that can’t have been the reason.

There must have been some reason why Morgan joined the Greeks and not the Russians, but I can’t come up with it. It’s one of the many mysteries of Morgan’s life.

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On today’s episode of the American Orthodox History podcast, we’re running a lecture I gave at the Brotherhood of St Moses the Black conference in Indianapolis at the end of May. The subject is Fr Raphael Morgan, the first black Orthodox priest in America. The text of the lecture is below. Also, later this year, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly will be publishing a paper I wrote on Fr Raphael.

I’m here today to speak about one of the most interesting figures in the history of American Orthodoxy. But rather than simply telling you his life story in chronological order, I thought I might first tell you how I initially encountered him.

Several years ago, I was poking around in the St. Vladimir’s Seminary library, looking for material on Fr. Ingram Irvine, an early American convert to Orthodoxy. I was paging through some old English-language sections of the Russian Orthodox American Messenger, which was the magazine of the Russian Church in America. In one of these issues – the October/November, 1904 issue, to be exact – I noticed a letter by a man named Robert Josias Morgan. This man, Morgan, was apparently an Episcopal deacon who had recently visited Russia and wrote a letter talking about how much he enjoyed his trip. I thought little of it at the time, but fortunately, I did make a photocopy, figuring that it might be useful in the future. And then I promptly forgot all about Robert Josias Morgan.

Not too long after this, I was searching an online newspaper archive, looking for digitized articles on St. Raphael of Brooklyn. I was searching for “Raphael” and “Orthodox Church,” or something like that, and I came up with a bunch of results from a Jamaican newspaper in 1913. I clicked on the first one, and on my screen appeared a remarkable sight. On the front cover of the paper was a photo of a black man, dressed in black clothing, and wearing a clerical collar and a pectoral cross. Beneath the photo, the headline read, “Priest’s Visit – Father Raphael of Greek Orthodox Church.”

Needless to say, I was shocked. Who was this priest? What was his story? And why hadn’t I ever heard about him before? It’s taken me quite some time to piece together the details of Fr. Raphael’s life, and even now, there are huge gaps. One non-Orthodox writer, commenting on Fr. Raphael in the 1970s, wrote, “The Morgan story is so utterly improbable that one tends to dismiss it as a hoax.” But I promise you, this is not a hoax.

Robert Josias Morgan was born in Jamaica in the 1860s or early 1870s; in other words, during or just after the American Civil War. I can’t pin it down any more precisely than that. He never met his father, who died when Robert was still in the womb. At an early age, Morgan embarked on an amazing and inexplicable life of travel. I have no idea how he financed all these journeys. First he went to Panama and Honduras, then to the United States. For a while he was a missionary in Germany, of all places. He made multiple visits to England. At some point, he became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and then later joined the Church of England. He went to Sierra Leone in Africa, where he studied Greek and Latin at an Anglican school. He was made a lay reader, and he worked as a missionary in Liberia for a number of years.

Eventually, he made another visit to America and then returned to England, where he studied to become an Episcopal deacon. He then returned to America and was ordained a deacon in 1895. He served all over the place – Delaware, Charleston, Richmond, Nashville, Philadelphia.

At some point around the turn of the 20th century, Morgan began to question his Anglican faith. For three years, he studied Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodoxy, trying to determine which was the true Church. As one early profile puts it, “It was his final conviction that the Holy Greek Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church is the pillar and ground of truth.” But he didn’t become Orthodox right away. He went on that trip to Russia that I mentioned earlier, visiting churches and monasteries. He was present at the anniversary service for Tsar Nicholas II’s coronation, and he also attended the memorial service for Tsar Alexander III. Morgan was treated as a special guest of the Kremlin, and his picture reportedly appeared in various Russian periodicals. In his letter after the trip, he wrote, “I came as a simple tourist, chiefly with the object to see the churches and monasteries of this country, to hear the ritual and the service of the holy Orthodox Church, about which I heard so much abroad. And I am perfectly satisfied with everything I saw and witnessed.” Morgan continued his travels, visiting Turkey, Cyprus, and the Holy Land.

But he still didn’t become Orthodox. He spent another three years studying with Greek priests in America, preparing for baptism. Now, here’s an obvious question – why did Morgan join up with the Greeks, rather than the Russians? Remember, this is the very beginning of the 20th century. The Greeks in America were quite disorganized. There were no bishops, no seminaries, no real national structure of any kind. Practically speaking, most parishes functioned as little autonomous units, exclusively serving Greek immigrants. Contrast this with the Russians – they had a bishop, St. Tikhon, who was well-known among the Anglicans. Right around this time, in 1904, the Russians established their first seminary, in Minneapolis. Generally speaking, the Russians were pretty well-organized. And again, right around this time, in 1905, Ingram Irvine, the former Episcopal priest, converted to Orthodoxy in the Russian church. The obvious thing for Morgan to do would have been to join the Russians. But he didn’t, and I don’t know why. Maybe he just got to know the Greeks in Philadelphia and liked them. In any event, he was in Philadelphia, and he was affiliated with the Greek church there.

In January 1906, Morgan was present at the Christmas liturgy of the Greek church in Philadelphia. (Remember, this was before the New Calendar, so the Greeks celebrated Christmas on January 7.) Anyway, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported the next day that “Rev. R.J. Morgan of the American Catholic Church, an off-shoot of the Protestant Episcopal Church, assisted.” The following summer, in 1907, Morgan sailed to Istanbul. He was armed with two letters. One was from the Philadelphia Greek priest, Fr. Demetrios Petrides, who recommended that Morgan be baptized and then ordained an Orthodox priest. There was also a letter from the Philadelphia Greek community, which supported Morgan’s ordination and also said that if he failed to establish a black Orthodox parish, he was welcome to serve as their assistant pastor. So Morgan arrived in Istanbul, and he was interviewed by Metropolitan Joachim of Pelagoneia, one of the few bishops of the Patriarchate who knew English. Metropolitan Joachim recommended that Morgan be baptized, chrismated, ordained, and then sent back to America to “carry the light of the Orthodox faith among his racial brothers.” And so, in August, Morgan was baptized in front of three thousand people, and on the Feast of the Dormition, he was ordained a priest. He took the name “Father Raphael” in place of Robert. The Ecumenical Patriarchate sent him back to America with vestments, liturgical books, a cross, and twenty pounds sterling. He was given the right to hear confessions, but the Holy Synod denied his request for an antimension and Holy Chrism.

As soon as Fr. Raphael arrived back in America, he baptized his wife and children. Now, here’s something odd. He baptized his family right after his return, probably in the fall of 1907. But in 1911, he made a trip to Greece, and on the passenger manifest he is listed as single. Furthermore, the 1913 Jamaican newspaper article says that he “is known in the world as Robert Josias Morgan.” A couple years later, in the book Who’s Who of the Colored Race, it says that “the family name Morgan has been dropped and should never be used in addressing him.” It certainly sounds like he became a monk at some point. And here’s another thing – in numerous articles in the teens, Morgan is called the “founder and superior” of a religious fraternity known as the “Order of the Cross of Golgotha.” I have no idea what this order was. I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere else, but in any event, you don’t usually hear married priests referred to as “superiors” of religious orders. Until recently, my suspicion was the Morgan’s wife had died. But several months ago, I discovered that Morgan’s wife had actually filed for a divorce in 1909, citing “cruelty” and “failure to support the couple’s children.” I don’t know exactly what that means. It does seem like, in the wake of this, Morgan went to Greece and was tonsured a monk. He was permitted to continue serving as a priest, and his wife remarried and retained custody of their son Cyril. The divorce documents still survive in the Delaware County, Pennsylvania court archives, and right now I’m trying to get copies of those documents, but the court is being rather difficult. Hopefully, I will eventually have copies and will be able to shed some more light on this period of Fr. Raphael’s life.

Anyway, moving on… Fr. Raphael appears to have made the Philadelphia Greek parish his base of operations. He went to Jamaica in 1913 and stayed there for several months, into 1914. He toured the island, giving lectures on his travels, the Holy Land, and so forth. The most interesting event took place in December 1913 – a Russian warship stopped in Jamaica, and Fr. Raphael served the Divine Liturgy with the Russian priest aboard the ship. A number of Syrian-Jamaicans attended, and Fr. Raphael used English for their benefit. The next day, the newspaper reported, “Father Raphael states that he is now in communication with the Syrian Orthodox Bishop of Brooklyn with regard to the Syrians here, and hopes that ‘ere long something will be done in regard to their spiritual welfare.” Of course, the Syrian Orthodox Bishop of Brooklyn was St. Raphael Hawaweeny. I don’t know if anything came of this communication. St. Raphael became ill in 1914 and died in February 1915, so it’s possible that he was never able to do anything for the Syrians in Jamaica. Eventually, many of those Syrians and their descendants became Anglicans.

Still, it’s notable that Fr. Raphael and St. Raphael were in contact with one another. Fr. Raphael was a priest of the Greek church, but he had no problem cooperating with the other Orthodox in America. In fact, there’s evidence that he had at least some sort of contact with the Russian cathedral in New York City. On that passenger manifest from 1911, when he was returning to America from Greece, Fr. Raphael listed his destination as the Russian cathedral in New York City. Again, I have no clue why he was going there or what happened, but clearly there was some kind of interaction.

The last thing I’ve been able to find about Fr. Raphael is from 1916. He was still in Philadelphia, and he and about a dozen other Jamaican-Americans wrote a letter to the editors of the leading newspapers in Jamaica. They were complaining about Marcus Garvey, who was on a lecture tour of America. This is pretty interesting. You may have heard of Marcus Garvey… He was a black nationalist and a part of the back-to-Africa movement in that period. He found the Universal Negro Improvement Association, and his lectures in America were stirring up racial tensions. Garvey was apparently portraying race relations in Jamaica in a very unfavorable light. Fr. Raphael and his friends were not happy about this. In their letter, they wrote, “We, having attended his lectures, found them to be pernicious, misleading, and derogatory to the prestige of the Government and the people [of Jamaica].” Garvey actually wrote a response, published in a Jamaican paper. He said that Fr. Raphael’s letter was “a concoction and a gross fabrication” written as part of a conspiracy against him.

And that’s it. After the exchange with Marcus Garvey, Fr. Raphael seems to have disappeared. Paul Manolis, a Greek Orthodox historian, interviewed several elderly Greeks from Philadelphia in the late 1970s. One of them said that she remembered sitting on Fr. Raphael’s knee and being fed bananas. She also said that Fr. Raphael’s daughter attended Oxford; I have no idea whether this is true. One man said that Fr. Raphael spoke “broken Greek” and used English when serving the Liturgy. Finally, a man named George Liacouras told Paul Manolis that he remembered Fr. Raphael “leaving to go to Jerusalem never again to return after serving a few years with Father Petrides.”

There are so many unanswered questions. Did Fr. Raphael die in the late teens, or did he really move to Jerusalem, or perhaps return to Jamaica or Africa? Did he remain Orthodox? And did he ever succeed in his mission to convert his fellow blacks to Orthodoxy? At first glance, his mission seems to have been a failure. Except for Fr. Raphael’s own family, there’s no evidence that he converted anyone at all.

The story would end there, but… Well, it doesn’t. Not quite. It’s possible that Fr. Raphael was indirectly responsible for the conversion of thousands of Africans to Orthodoxy. Here’s how.

The website of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia includes a list of pastors. And lo and behold, Robert Josias Morgan is listed as being the rector of the parish for a short time in 1901. But he was just a deacon – how could he have been a rector? The only explanation I can think of is that it was an interim position – the previous rector left, and Morgan filled in until a permanent priest could be found. He was probably the parish deacon already, so it would have been natural for him to fill in for a few months. The previous rector was an Episcopal priest named George Alexander McGuire. Presumably, Morgan and McGuire knew each other. They were both black men from the Caribbean, and both were ordained at about the same time. They both served in Richmond, and afterwards, both served in Philadelphia. It’s logical to think that they knew each other.

Okay, so why is this a big deal? Who was George Alexander McGuire? Well, I’ll tell you. Many years later, in 1920, George McGuire became a close associate of Marcus Garvey – the same Marcus Garvey whom Fr. Raphael had written against just a few years before. And then, in 1921, George McGuire was made a bishop by a certain Archbishop Joseph Vilatte of the American Catholic Church. You may remember that I mentioned earlier that prior to becoming Orthodox, Fr. Raphael was very briefly a member of the same American Catholic Church. Vilatte was sort of a rogue bishop. I guess you’d call him an “Old Catholic,” but he was a schismatic mishmash of Episcopalian and Roman Catholic. For several years, he was on friendly terms with the Orthodox. And as I said, Fr. Raphael was briefly in his church back in 1906. And then, in 1921, Vilatte consecrated George McGuire.

And what did George McGuire do now that he was a bishop? Why, he founded a group called the “African Orthodox Church”! It wasn’t Orthodox, really. It did adopt a lot of the trappings and language of Orthodoxy, but it wasn’t in communion with any of the world’s Orthodox Churches, and it was closely associated with the black nationalist movement. It was “Orthodox” in name only. However, the African Orthodox Church eventually spread to Africa itself. And after World War II, the branch of the African Orthodox Church in Africa joined the Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. Much of the flowering of Orthodoxy in Africa today, in places like Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, can be traced to that original movement.

It’s sort of a mystery why George McGuire created an African Orthodox Church. After all, he was an Episcopal priest. Why would he want to become “Orthodox”? It is very, very likely – and I’m not the first person to suggest this – but it’s very likely that McGuire got the idea to become Orthodox from Fr. Raphael Morgan. He certainly knew about Fr. Raphael, and he almost certainly knew Fr. Raphael personally. Who knows – it’s possible that Fr. Raphael even tried to evangelize McGuire, thus planting the seed for McGuire to seek Orthodoxy.

And so now we do come to the end of our story. It seems like there are nothing but questions about Fr. Raphael. How did he manage to travel around the world so many times? How did he find out about Orthodoxy? Why did he join the Greeks in America rather than the Russians? Did he ever succeed in directly converting anyone to the faith? What was his Order of the Cross of Golgotha, and what happened to his wife and kids? And what happened to him? Did he really go to Jerusalem, as that old Philadelphia Greek man suggested, or did something else happen?

I can’t answer any of these questions. If you think you can shed more light on the story of Fr. Raphael, please let me know. I’d love to learn more about this fascinating man.

Before we close, I’d like to reflect for a moment on what Fr. Raphael’s story means for us today.

The most obvious message of his life, at least in my opinion, is that the Orthodox faith is for everyone. It’s not just for “cradle” Orthodox, people who were born into the faith. It’s not even just for the people you’d obviously think of as converts. I’m sure it seemed totally unlikely that a black Jamaican man would become an Orthodox priest one hundred years ago. As far as I can tell, nobody reached out to him, tried to share the faith with him. He sought it out himself, and when he found it, he recognized it as a pearl of great price.

On the one hand, by his conversion, he continues to bear witness even today to the truth of the Orthodox faith. And on the other hand, he admonishes us to recognize that the Orthodox faith is for the whole world, not just the cradle Orthodox, not just those converts who have been fortunate enough to find Orthodoxy, and not just those friends and acquaintances of ours with whom we can conveniently share our faith. We must, as the Church, be open at all times to all people. Fr. Raphael Morgan is an exemplary reminder of this important truth.

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