Sketch of Archbishop Dionysius Latas of Zante, published in the New York Tribune (8/1/1893)

In 1893, the World’s Fair was held in Chicago. In conjunction with the Fair, something called the “World’s Parliament of Religions” was held from September 11-27. This was a remarkable gathering, which brought together not only Christian leaders of various denominations, but people of every religious stripe — Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. It seems to have been more of a spectacle than anything substantive, although, as we’ve discussed previously, the crazy Antiochian archimandrite Christopher Jabara thought that perhaps the Parliament could come up with a brand-new, global religion. His hopes were unfulfilled.

Anyway, besides Jabara, at least two other Orthodox leaders gave speeches at the Parliament — Fr. Panagiotis Phiambolis of Chicago’s new Greek church, and Archbishop Dionysius Latas of Zante (Zakynthos). Latas was by far the most significant Orthodox figure at the gathering, and from the time of his arrival in America, he was a media sensation. He also happens to have been the first non-Russian Orthodox hierarch to set foot in the New World. This is the first of several articles that will chronicle his visit to America.

Latas arrived in America at the end of July, and on August 1, the New York newspapers ran stories about him. Here’s a brief biography, from the New York Tribune:

Dionysius Latas was born in Zante in 1836. At an early age he attended the Greek Seminary in Jerusalem, where he remained for ten years, afterward spending four years at the University of Athens. Later he studied for a year in the University of Strasburg, before the annexation to Germany, and three years at the universities of Berlin, Leipsic and other German universities, and then spent some time in England. From 1870 to 1884 he was the eloquent preacher of Athens, when he became Archbishop.

Latas was thus about 57 when he came to the United States. He was accompanied by his deacon, Homer Peratis, and one of their first stops was the new Greek church in New York. “I preached yesterday in the little Greek church in this city,” Latas told the New York Times (8/1/1893), “and it reminded me of the little churches I preached in years ago when I was an Archimandriti.”

Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but Latas was a very, very popular preacher when he was an archimandrite in Athens. I have a letter from a Protestant visitor to Athens in 1870 — so, just at the outset of Latas’ preaching career. This letter, written by a certan Rev. Dr. Goodwin of First Congregational Church in Chicago, was published in the New York Evangelist (7/21/1870), and provides a glimpse into the sort of figure the young (34-year-old) Latas was:

The chief sensation of Athens just now is a priest named Dionysius Latos, and among the mummeries dinning the ear on every side during these festivities, it was refreshing to find one service that was an exception. This young priest was originally one of the candle-snuffers, a lad of no education, and with no apparent gifts, except a fine rich voice. Promoted because of this to assist in the chorals, he somehow obtained leave to talk or preach, and astonished every one, and greatly captivated the people by his eloquence. He speedily acquired a wide notoriety, and won many friends. Among them was a rich Athenian, who proposed to him to spend three years in the schools of Germany and France, at his expense. He accepted the offer, spent time in diligent application, and has just returned, and is creating the highest enthusiasm.

I went on Friday morning to hear him preach, and found the church literally packed. And the Greek churches having no seats, admit of such a crowding as is entirely unknown to American audiences. There was no getting near the main entrance, the throng extending into the street. I found a side door, however, to the women’s gallery, and there at last succeeded, by climbing upon a pile of boards, in getting a view of the preacher and his congregation. Below me was a sea of men’s faces, all upturned toward a man of fine intellectual features, and searching dark eyes, and who in the black gown and round brimless hat or high stiff fez of a Greek priest, stood in a pulpit projecting from one of the columns near the middle of the church.

I was impressed at once with the earnestness of the preacher’s face and manner. There was that in the kindling of the eye, the tone of the voice, and the sweep of the hand even, that witnessed unmistakably to the preacher’s deep conviction of the truth and importance of his words. One could not look and listen without a conscious sympathy in response It would have been no common privilege to hear the language of Socrates and Demosthenes spoken, and that in their own Athens, with the distinctness and grace and fervor which marked the speaker’s utterance. Certainly there was a rhythm and music and richness about it that I had never imagined, and that seemed to thrill and move the people somewhat as did the great orators in those earlier days.

But when in the course of a fervent passage my ears caught in Greek the words, “Ye men of Athens,” and then following the whole discourse of Paul from Mars Hill, in the very words he used, and under the very shadow of the spot where he stood, I felt as if centuries were suddenly rolled back, and not a Greek priest, but a greater than he, and a greater than Demosthenes or Plato were there before me, preaching in this wonderful language Christ and Him crucified. I could only now and then understand a word, but caught enough to divine that the theme of the discourse was the love of God as revealed in the life and death of Jesus Christ.

The preacher continued for a full hour and a half, closing with many quotations of Scripture and with much impassioned eloquence, and the people stood eager to the end. It is believed here by those who know Latos intimately, that he is in every respect heartily in sympathy with evangelical religion. And the hope is warmly cherished that he will prove to the Greek Church in Athens far more than Pere Hyacinthe to the Latin Church in Paris — a fearless and mighty apostle of the truth, that cannot be cajoled from his purpose by flatteries, nor silenced by threats.

Latas was a genuine sensation, and as a bishop, he remained a prominent figure in the Church of Greece. He spoke out against anti-Semitism, advocated (as did so many in those days) dialogue with the Episcopalians, and was skeptical that any sort of union would happen with Rome. When he came to the United States, he was warmly welcomed by the various Episcopalian bishops that he encountered. Immediately upon his arrival, he was invited by Bishop Henry Potter to join him at Saratoga Springs. We’ll pick up the Latas story there.

Tags: 1893, Chicago, Dionysius Latas, Episcopalians, Greek, New York, newspapers, Parliament of Religions, primary sources

The funeral of St. Raphael Hawaweeny, Brooklyn, 1915

This past Saturday was February 27, the 95th anniversary of the death of St. Raphael Hawaweeny, the great Syrian Bishop of Brooklyn. His death set off more than a week of commemorations in the Syrian Orthodox community. Telegrams immediately went out to Syrian parishes all over the country. In fact, the news spread so quickly that the Kearney Daily Hub was able to run a notice in time for its evening publication, the very day of St. Raphael’s death. “Rev. [Nicola] Yanney was in receipt of a telegram this afternoon announcing the death of Bishop Raphael, head of the Syrian church,” the paper reported.

Yanney and his fellow Syrian clergy had to make hasty arrangements to travel to Brooklyn for the funeral, and the visiting Antiochian Metropolitan Germanos Shehadi rushed back from Montreal. The Russian Bishop Alexander Nemolovsky hurried to Brooklyn to serve a Divine Liturgy. A solemn procession escorted St. Raphael’s body from his home to the cathedral, where it would lay in state until the funeral on March 7. In the meantime, clergy began a round-the-clock reading of the Bible, never leaving the saint’s body unattended. The community sprung into action, convincing the Board of Health to grant them special permission to bury their bishop in a crypt within his cathedral.

It must have been a painful and poignant time and place to be an Orthodox Christian. Bishop Raphael’s orphaned flock would splinter in the years to come, but at the beginning of March, 1915, they were completely united by the death of their beloved bishop.

Tags: 1915, Alexander Nemolovsky, Antiochian, early unity, Germanos Shehadi, New York, newspapers, Nicola Yanney, parishes, primary sources, Saints, St Raphael

Fr. Nicholas Bjerring in his New York chapel

On the morning of Sunday, February 9, 1873 — that is, 137 years ago today — a crowd assembled in Holy Trinity Russo-Greek Chapel in New York City. The priest, Fr. Nicholas Bjerring, gave an address on “Unbelief and the Indifference in Religion.” The whole speech was printed in the next day’s New York Times. It is one of the few full Bjerring homilies that has survived, and it is reprinted below in full:

The subject about which, by the grace of God, I intend to speak to-day, is the perversion of this age in which the enemies of God and of man confuse the minds, corrupt the morals, undermine religion, and, rending asunder all bonds, seek to overthrow Divine and human order. It is the spiritual blindness of so many who attack Christianity, preach vice under the name of virtue, allow themselves everything with lawless audacity, proudly disregarding every authority, mislead the innocent, who poison the spirits and murder the souls. It is the deadly unbelief and the religious indifference which denies everything Divine and holy, the indifference, which is lukewarm and cold toward all that is good — this it is that troubles my heart and fills my soul with pain.

The greatest evil in the world is unbelief, the apostacy from God. This apostacy from God is the continual source of corruption. This is a law of the eternal justice. For the man who falls from God and recognizes infidelity is nothing more holy; for him ceases everything that religion highly esteems — family, property, father-land. A nation in which skepticism gains the dominion is sure to meet perdition. Unbelief undermines all foundations of society, till finally regarding neither divine nor human authority it seeks seeks to upset everything existing. Thus teaches the history of all times.

Was it not during the rule of the Commune in Paris, as if there the angel of the Apocalypse had opened the abyss from which ascends scorpions? Was it not the lot of the Prince of Darkness to plunder and murder; was it not a picture of unspeakable misery, which there unfolded itself under the red, blood-steeped banner? God permitted for a short time of t his unlimited rule, in order to remind the nations again into what abyss apostacy from God does lead, and how everywhere, at all times, the truth of the law of eternal justice does stand, that unbelief is the source of all evil, and the end of corruption. “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” This eternal truth appears very clearly, when one considers more closely the watchwords and phrases of unbelief, and compares with them the deeds which were seen as the last consequences of the same in the days of the Parisian Commune.

The devil is only the ape of God; he knows no other inducements to allure to his kingdom than the promises which the Lord has made to His believers, only that he explains them in his way, and thus turns the divine truth into a lie. Man was created in the image of God, and “ye shall be as God,” were the words of the first temptation of the serpent, but it led, through sin, to corruption. To the Son of God was promised dominion over the world, and the devil endeavored to seduce Him through the promise of “all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory.” The same value have the promises of the Internationalists and the communists. They incite men to their service through all that which God has named as the prize in His service.

“Liberty” is the first watchword that resounds from the ranks of these enemies of order and government, and the glorious liberty of the children of God is also the reward of those who follow the Gospel. But the evangelical liberty is freedom from slavery of sin, from the power of death; it is the sonship of God. The liberty at which the Internationalists aim is the despising [of] the commandments of God, the self-willed separating from His ordinances upon earth, as Church authority, family — these all are instituted to bring man into the service of God, or to preserve him in the same.

“Equality” proclaims the Internationale to its adherents eager after unjust good and enjoyment, and agreeably falls the word upon the ear of the envious multitude. The equality of men is also the doctrine of Christianity. All men are equal before God; all were created alike in His image; to all has appeared the same salvation. The equality of the Commune is the claim alike to the enjoyments of the world, possession, power, and the gratification of the passions. The desire after this equality is the opposite of the commandment, “Thou shalt not covet.” The motives are envy, disloyalty, and indolence, and the way to satisfaction is the putting aside of every authoritative order, the plundering of those who hold possessions, and the emancipation of the flesh.

“Fraternity” is the third word upon the red flag — the beautiful battle-cry also of the Christian. The children of God are brethren, and are to be of one mind and soul, and to communicate among themselves that there be none among them that lacketh. The common love of man becomes among Christians brotherly love, and the standing salutation of the Apostle, “Beloved brethren,” is the language of every Christian heart. But what does the Commune understand by “fraternity”? The answer was given to the world in the howling of rage and murder, of petroleurs and petroleuses, even the names of which point to crime, because only the Commune had invented them.

The abuse of those words shows us that words in themselves are dead, and receive life only by the spirit that enters into them. “Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!” Only Christianity gives us the true meaning of these words, and never have the greatest philosophers of the world so highly spoken about the relations of men to each other as Christ has taught and His Church proclaims. The Christian Church with her doctrines and sacraments is, in this respect, to become the leader. She is the medium whereby the Divine life is communicated to each human being, in order to complete the Divine image in him and to unite him most intimately with God. Continually must we cherish the desire to be more and more in unity with the eternal, infinite Deity; and this bond of men with God will then also unite mankind into one family, and make them beloved children of God. That is the meaning of liberty, equality, and fraternity, in the Christian sense.

If we look around us, we cannot fail at the same time to perceive how religious indifference in so many families has also disturbed the Christian life. That faithful, pious mind, that strong trust in God, that content, experienced in former times, have severally disappeared. Acquisition, gain, employment are often the first items in the home, but the last is religion. Prayer has disappeared — nothing more is known of a lifting up of the soul to God. The cares of the body reign over all — religious indifference rules the home. Business flourishes, the master of the house is esteemed, the lady of the house is courted by society, but are we not deceived? The good fortune of such a family is only in appearance, and treacherous, because it is without a foundation. How will it be there when the plays of misfortune and sadness appear? How will it be there when the blessings of this world forsake such a house, for God’s blessing was never sought? Even if the children are so educated as to understand how to acquire with skill the goods of this world, can they endure the trials which life imposes upon them? Will they approve themselves in the hour of temptation, when sin with her seductions approaches near; when the excitement of vice decked with flowers misguides them, when the advantage of chrime blinds them? Surely not.

On the contrary, the certain end of an education without religion and the fear of God, will be that they do not approve themselves. And suppose it were not so; suppose God suffered such a family and their children’s good fortune until the end in the full enjoyment of earthly goods, because their whole heart was attached to them, yet this end must be at the last. Then such a family shall know by experience that they have sowed to the earth, also reaped only from the earth, for heaven they have done nothing, and shall also receive nothing. How often one meets in families a lukewarmness which stifles all Christian life. The faith is dead, the will without power; cold and indolent is the exercise of religion, the life spirit is vanished away. But the exterior practice of religion is nothing without a union with the inner, spiritual. The spirit giveth life, but the flesh profiteth nothing.

However many lights may be burning here in this chapel, and however beautiful the robes of the clergy appear, that will be of no avail either to me or to those that are present, if we are not converted unto repentance. Let us above all not forget prayer, this bond which joins in a mystical manner mankind to God, and the Saviour, who for us all died on the cross, will, let us hope, have mercy on us. For we are all bought with the blood of Christ; we are all to attain to the possession and the vision of God, to drink of the well-spring of eternal love and bliss. May we not forget this final object, but when we celebrate upon our terrestrial pilgrimage the Christian mysteries may we, looking for that heavenly home and spirit, exclaim: “O God, grant us that we may yet be filled with the enjoyment of thy Divinity, whose presence we here celebrate in the reception of thy body and blood.” Amen.

Tags: 1873, converts, New York, newspapers, Nicholas Bjerring, primary sources

L to R: Future Metropolitan Germanos Polyzoides, Bp Alexander Demoglou, Met Platon Rozhdestvensky, Patriarch-elect Meletios Metaxakis, Abp Alexander Nemolovsky, Bp Aftimios Ofiesh, and Archdeacon Vsevolod Andronoff

Back in July, Fr. Andrew wrote about the above photo, which depicts a gathering of American Orthodox bishops in the early 1920s: Greeks Meletios and Alexander, Russians Platon and Alexander, and Syrian Aftimios. At the time of Fr. Andrew’s original post, no one knew exactly when this photo was taken, or what occasion brought all these hierarchs together. Fr. Andrew wrote, 

This photograph was found in the archives of the Library of Congress. As yet, there have been no official documents that have surfaced detailing what this 1921 meeting must have entailed. It might have been only a courtesy call, with a photo op at the end. 

Fr. Andrew went on to observe that, based on the photo, the other bishops appear to have regarded Metaxakis as “first in seniority among them.” To read the rest of Fr. Andrew’s post, click here. 

Why am I bringing all this up again? Becasue I believe I now know when and where this photo was taken, and why all these bishops were in the same place. On December 9, 1921, Abp Meletios Metaxakis was elected Patriarch of Constantinople. He was in New York at the time, having been deposed from his previous position as Archbishop of Athens. With Bp Alexander Demoglou, Metaxakis had come to the US to organize the Greek-American churches into a unified archdiocese. The New York Times (12/10/1921) announced that one of Metaxakis’ first acts as Patriarch would be to appoint Alexander as bishop of North and South America. 

The Times also reported, “This morning at 10 o’clock the Most Rev. Alexander, Archbishop of the Aleutian Islands and North America for the Russian Church, will formally call upon the Patriarch-elect and officially present the felicitations of the 100,000 Russians who are in the Western Hemisphere, who are his spiritual subjects.” 

The Russian goodwill towards Metaxakis’ election was not limited to Abp Alexander Nemolovsky. Archimandrite Patrick Mythen, the powerful convert priest, hastily organized a special ceremony. December 19 was the St. Nicholas day, the patronal feast of the Russian cathedral in New York. Invitations were sent out, in the names of both Met Platon and Abp Alexander. Besides the two Russian and two Greek bishops, the guest list included the Syrian Bp Aftimios and four Episcopalian hierarchs. Representatives of the new African Orthodox Church were also present, as well as the “Hungarian prelate [...] Bishop Stephan of Pittsburgh.” I think this was Bp Stephen Dzubay, a former Uniate who converted to Orthodoxy in 1916 and became the Russian Archdiocese’s Bishop of Pittsburgh. (Dzubay returned to Roman Catholicism in 1924.) 

After the Divine Liturgy, there was a buffet luncheon for the clergy at the neighboring parish house. The above photo must have been taken during or after this luncheon. Here is another, nearly identical photo, which appeared in the New York Evening Telegram on December 20, 1921: 

This photo, of the December 19, 1921 gathering of Orthodox bishops, appeared in the New York Evening Telegram the following day.

Comparing the two photos, it’s quite clear that they were taken at the same event, probably within moments of one another. The Evening Telegram photo doesn’t include the non-bishops, Polyzoides and Andronoff, but it’s possible that they were just cropped out before publication.

The event itself, the pan-Orthodox liturgy, is evidence of the rather friendly (or at least cordial) relations between the Greek and Russian hierarchy in 1921. Speaking to the Evening Telegram (12/19/1921), Fr. Patrick Mythen expressed what must have been on the minds of the Russian bishops as well: that Metaxakis’ election as Ecumenical Patriarch marked the first time since the fall of Constantinople that the Patriarch was elected without the consent of the Turkish sultan. He would thus be “politically free and will rule the Church as a priest and not as a politician.” Mythen meant that Metaxakis would not be bound to the Turkish state, but I’m sure many today would find his words ironic, Metaxakis being the controversial Church politican that he was.

Tags: 1921, Aftimios Ofiesh, Alexander Demoglou, Alexander Nemolovsky, America, Episcopalians, Germanos Polyzoides, Greek, Meletios Metaxakis, New York, newspapers, Patrick Mythen, Platon Rozhdestvensky, primary sources, Russian Metropolia, Stephen Dzubay, Vsevelod Andronoff

For a while now, I have been meaning to write about the first all-English Orthodox parish in America, founded in New York City in 1920. Today, I’m going to give a brief introduction to that parish, and the main characters involved. This is hardly the whole story; it really is just an introduction.

To start — well, you know about Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine, who converted to Orthodoxy in 1905. (If you don’t know about Irvine, you can read our earlier posts about him, or listen to two podcasts I did on Ancient Faith Radio.)

So Irvine converted in 1905, and he remained an Orthodox priest until his death, in January 1921. During that time, in both the Russian and Syrian Missions, he was a strong advocate of the use of English in American Orthodox worship. He felt that, for Orthodoxy to survive and thrive in America, it was imperative that it, to some extent, “Americanize.” (This is the term that was used at the time.)

For most of Irvine’s Orthodox career, there were not many converts. Irvine spent a lot of his time working with Orthodox young people, and interacting with Episcopalians, but he didn’t actually bring a lot of people into the Church. Late in his life, however, things started to change. An Episcopal priest named James Grattan Mythen converted to Orthodoxy in 1920. He was immediately ordained a priest by Abp Alexander Nemolovsky, and he took the name, “Fr. Patrick.”

Mythen would prove to be the first of a surprisingly large number of convert priests to enter the Russian Archdiocese in the early 1920s. Irvine was quite old by this point, in his early 70s at a time when most people didn’t live past 60. He was not really capable, physically, of running his own church. But Mythen was young — just 37 at the time of his conversion — and he became the leader of a group of convert clergy.

Within a very short period of time, Mythen was joined by the following men:

• Dr. Geoffrey A. Lang, ordained Fr. Stephen
• Robert F. Hill, ordained Fr. Antony
• Fr. Paul Ihmsen
• Dr. George Gelsinger, ordained Fr. Michael
• Royce M. Burden, ordained Fr. Boris
• Arthur W. Johnson, ordained Fr. Kyrill
• Sgt. William H. Schneider, ordained Fr. A. (not sure what it stood for)

Irvine didn’t know all of these men; several of them came along after he had already died. And Irvine doesn’t seem to have been the main person driving this enterprise; Mythen was. Abp Alexander put an enormous amount of trust in Mythen. For a while, in the early 1920s and before Metropolitan Platon took over the Russian Archdiocese, Mythen basically ran the whole Archdiocesan operation, even signing ordination certificates (a task properly done by a bishop). Needless to say, Mythen supplanted the aging (and then deceased) Irvine as the leader of the English Department of the Russian Archdiocese.

And in 1920, the newly-converted-and-ordained Mythen became the rector of the “American Orthodox Catholic Church of the Transfiguration,” the first all-English, all-convert parish in history. The church was located at St. Vladimir’s Immigrant Home, 233 East 17th Street in New York City. The first services were held on July 18, 1920. This is part of an article from the New York Times (7/17/1920):

In the establishment of this English-speaking church by the Russian hierarchy the efforts of fifteen years of the Rev. Dr. Ingram N.W. Irvine, a canon of the local Russian Cathedral, have been realized.

Archbishop Tikhon, who was head of the Russian Church in America for several years, favored such a move, but he was recalled to Russia before he could organize such a branch. Appeal was then made to Archbishop Nemoloski, who agreed that an English mission would fill a need. Abbot Patrick (James Gratton Mithen), who came here from England three months ago, was designated as rector of the new branch. Dr. Irvine will be the associate rector. He and Abbot Patrick are major canons.

The other two members of the staff are minor canons. The first vicar is Canon Stephen, who came to America with Canon Patrick, and the second vicar is Canon Paul, who was ordained a priest of the Russian Church in Pittsburgh by Bishop Stephen of the Uno-Russian Diocese of Pittsburgh. He is a brother of Max Ihmsen, a newspaper editor. Dr. Irvine is Professor of the English Department in the Russian Seminary, Tenafly, N.J., and Canon Paul is his assistant.

A few things… One, I find the whole “canon,” “vicar,” language to be slightly amusing, borrowed as it is from the Episcopal Church. Is a “major canon” supposed to be an archpriest, in this context? I don’t know. I’m not aware of Irvine having ever been raised to archpriest, but it is possible.

Two, while Mythen did travel from England to the US, he was only in England for a few months. We’ll talk about his life in a separate post in the future, but he was born in Baltimore and was an American citizen. Like Irvine, Mythen was of Irish ancestry, but was an Anglican clergyman. He was very involved in politics and art — he was a vocal proponent of women’s suffrage and of Irish independence, and he moonlighted as a playwright. One of his allies in the Irish independence movement was Geoffrey Lang (aka Fr. Stephen), who, along with Mythen, helped run a group called Protestant Friends of Irish Freedom.

Fr. Paul Ihmsen — I’m not certain, but I think his given name was Charles. His brother Max, the newspaper editor, was a major figure in the newspaper industry of the early 20th century. He was a protégé of William Randolph Hearst, with titles ranging from “political manager” to “henchman.” He then went to California and ran the Los Angeles Examiner, and on the side, he became a pioneering apple farmer. The Ihmsens came from an old, prominent German family from Pittsburgh.

Another priest in these early years was Fr. Antony (Robert) Hill, who happens to be the second black priest in American Orthodox history, after Fr. Raphael Morgan. Hill was Orthodox for a very short time; he soon joined the upstart “African Orthodox Church,” about which, more in the future.

The other clergy I mentioned above — Gelsinger, Burden, etc. — came along later, after the Church of the Transfiguration had closed. And close it did, very soon — the New York Times has advertisements for the church through November 1920, but nothing afterwards. The church’s few months of existence were eventful, though. Two prominent literary figures, T. Everett Harre and Reginald Wright Kauffman (both, apparently, friends of Mythen), converted to Orthodoxy. In August, Irvine was apparently poisoned, allegedly by Bolshevik sympathizers. And in September, Abp Alexander raised Mythen (who was unmarried) to the rank of archimandrite. We will discuss all of these events, and the history of the broader English-speaking mission, in future articles.

Tags: 1920, Alexander Nemolovsky, America, American Orthodox Catholic Church, Antony Hill, converts, language, Nathaniel Irvine, New York, newspapers, parishes, Patrick Mythen, primary sources, Stephen Lang

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.

Tags: 1905, Antiochian, civil authorities, New York, newspapers, primary sources, Saints, St Raphael

On December 22, I wrote about the tragic death of Fr. Misael Karydis, longtime pastor of the Greek church in New Orleans. You’ll want to read that article first, to follow what I’m talking about today.

After I published that piece, I unconvered several more reports on Karydis’ death, from the New York Sun, Tribune, and Evening World. Those newspapers make it apparent that Karydis’ death was a suicide.

The Sun (6/7/1901) spoke with Captain Nicholas Theodore, the oldest member of the New Orleans parish. Here is what Theodore said:

Ever since Sunday I had known that something was going to happen. I was sitting out in the yard when Father Misael came running to the gate. He said he wanted to see me quick. His shirt was open in the front and his face was very pale. A lot of little boys were following him and calling him Santa Claus. I told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and made them stop. Then the father came in and talked to me.

He was pale and trembling all over. He did not look right. I don’t think he was quite right in his head. He had been working so hard and for so long on some kind of a thing to make a bicycle go that he was tired out. “I am tired of living,” he told me. “My father is dead in Bulgaria and I want to go there. I think I will kill myself.”

I told him that he ought not to talk of suicide, but that he should think of his congregation and the people for whom he had worked so long, and did my best to quiet him.

According to the Sun, the invention was less a flying machine than a kind of motorcycle: “a bicycle that would be a sort of automobile, the rider only guiding it. He made several applications for a patent, but could never perfect the invention.” Of course, it’s entirely possible — likely, even – that Karydis was working on multiple inventions.

Karydis came to New York and visited Demetrius Botassi, the Greek consul. Botassi was the son-in-law of Nicolas Benachi, the founder of the New Orleans church. Karydis told Botassi that he was on his way to Bulgaria, to claim an inheritance. Considering his statement to Capt. Theodore — “My father is dead in Bulgaria and I want to go there” — it seems likely that the elder Karydis had just died, and that the inheritance was from him. It could be, then, that something in Karydis snapped when he learned of the death of his father.

Then again, it could be something else. From the Sun: “Not long before he died at the Hudson street hospital here the priest told Policeman Durr that he had been accused of an assault on a boy in New Orleans.”

Karydis checked into the Eastern Hotel in the morning, and spent most of the day in the hotel’s cafe. A little after 4:00 PM, he went to his room and ordered some dinner. According to the World, when the waiter brought the food, he saw Karydis sitting at a table, writing something. Soon thereafter, a shot was heard. The hotel staff broke down the door to Karydis’ room, and saw that the priest was wounded. The newspapers differ on where the wound was — the Times and Tribune say that Karydis was wounded in his right side, but the World says that he was shot “over the heart,” which sounds more plausible. Karydis reportedly told the hotel manager, “Let me finish my work. I want to die.”

He did die, a few minutes before 11:00 PM. May God have mercy on his soul.

Tags: 1901, Demetrius Botassi, Greek, Misael Karydis, New Orleans, New York, newspapers, parishes, primary sources

Only known surviving photo from St Raphael's consecration service, published in the Syracuse Telegram on March 17, 1904.

St Raphael was consecrated Bishop of Brooklyn on March 13, 1904, by St Tikhon and Bishop Innocent of Alaska (not to be confused with the earlier St Innocent). What follows is a little article I wrote on the consecration. My plan is to include the article in a book I hope to publish on the early history of American Orthodoxy.

The first thing to know about Bishop Raphael’s consecration is the crowd – the enormous, crushing crowd. Two thousand people – some worshippers, some sightseers – were crammed like sardines into the cathedral on Brooklyn’s Pacific Street. Throw in a generous portion of incense and hundreds of burning candles, and the place was one hot, dense mass of humanity. “There were half-smothered cries of women and children,” one newspaper reported.[i] As you might expect, at least three women fainted and had to be carried out of the building.[ii]

Adding to the chaos were the newspaper photographers, one of whom chose to take a picture at the moment of consecration. From the New York Sun: “[T]he photograph fiend, who apparently respects religion no more than any other material for a subject, startled the congregation and the clergy by exploding a flashlight cartridge. The building was soon filled with smoke, making the rest of the ceremony very indistinct for some time.”[iii]

Anyway, it was quite a ceremony. No less than four canonized saints participated – Raphael, Tikhon, Alexis Toth, and Alexander Hotovitzky. Afterwards, there was a big dinner, attended by a lot of people (between 150 and 500; the newspapers don’t agree, though I’m inclined to believe the smaller figure). It was a fast day, but that didn’t stop the feasters from having an impressive menu. From the New York Tribune: “The menu was vegetables, oysters and lobsters, Damascus artichokes, fried fish, lettuce salad, peas a la Syriene, cabbages a la Turque; desserts, mishabbak, cornstarch; fruits, apples and oranges; Turkish coffee.”[iv] Presumably no one left hungry.

As far as the general public was concerned, the consecration was a decidedly Russian affair. The newspapers referred to it as being at the Tsar’s orders, and at the celebratory dinner, the Tsar was toasted and the Russian national anthem was sung. One of the first public acts of the new Bishop Raphael was to visit the Russian ambassador in Washington.[v]

These facts did not please the local Greeks one bit. They saw it as an act of Russian imperial expansion, and it contributed to the growing Greek fear that Russian Church aimed to spread its influence across Orthodoxy worldwide. The Greek consul in New York chose not to attend the consecration, and his absence itself made headlines.[vi] A few weeks later, on Holy Friday, Bishop Tikhon tried to visit Holy Trinity, one of the Greek churches in New York. Fr. John Erickson writes, “He was barred from entering by its angry trustees, who feared a Russian takeover of their parish properties.”[vii]

The Greeks may not have been happy with the consecration, but the Episcopalians certainly were. Bishop Tikhon invited his good friend, the Episcopal Bishop Charles Grafton of Fond-du-Lac, Wisconsin to attend. That fact alone means little; non-Orthodox religious leaders are often invited to witness such events. But Grafton’s invitation was different, at least in the eyes of the Episcopalians themselves. Supposedly, Bishop Tikhon’s invitation included a request that Grafton actually participate in the ceremony as the third consecrator, along with Tikhon and Innocent![viii] In reality, it is highly unlikely that Tikhon actually intended for Grafton to be one of the consecrators. Such an act would require full communion between the Orthodox and the Episcopalians, and, as later events would prove, Tikhon was unwilling to unilaterally declare such a union. He had great respect for the Episcopalians and Grafton in particular, and he may even have privately believed in the legitimacy of their holy orders, but he by no means would have permitted Grafton to actually participate in the service.

In any case, Grafton proved unable to come due to illness, but a delegation of other Episcopalians came in his stead. Some of Grafton’s representatives were allowed to stand in the altar itself during the ceremony, just as was Bishop Tikhon and his delegation at the “Fond-du-Lac Circus” a few years earlier.

Of course, Raphael’s consecration meant the most to his own Syrian flock. They now had a bishop, and officially, they were now a vicariate of the Russian Diocese. Unofficially, though, things were much less clear. While making clear that Raphael was a bishop of the Russian Church, Patriarch Meletios of Antioch felt it his “most important duty” to bestow his blessing on the consecration, and he said that he and the rest of the Antiochian Holy Synod “still consider him as a member of our body.”[ix] For his part, Bishop Tikhon, while also affirming Raphael’s membership in the Russian Church, stated his “certitude” that Raphael “would never break the most intimate spiritual ties with his mother Church of Antioch,” and he asked the Patriarch to guide and advise the new bishop.[x]

Bishop Raphael himself was rather ambiguous when he spoke to his flock about his jurisdictional allegiance. He said that his consecration was “by the order and permission of Melatois [sic], the Patriarch of Antioch”[xi] and that “Patriarch Melatois [sic] counted the new parish of Brooklyn, New York, as one of the parishes of Antioch.” He went on to say that Patriarch Meletios declared that he “had instituted the new diocese as one of the dioceses pertaining to the See of Antioch and thus it is in actuality, notwithstanding its nominal allegiance to the Russian Holy Synod.”[xii]

After Raphael’s death, such ambiguities would become points of serious contention among his orphaned flock. But in 1904, they were of little significance; the important fact was that the Syro-Arabs now had their own bishop, who would prove to be among the greatest American Orthodoxy has yet seen.

[ii] “New Bishop of Greek Church Consecrated,” New York Times (March 14, 1904), 9. Also cf. “Third Russian Bishop,” Washington Post (March 14, 1904), 1.

[iii] “New Bishop Consecrated,” New York Sun (March 14, 1904), 10. Also cf. “Ordain Raphael Bishop,” New York Tribune (March 14, 1904), 3.

[iv] New York Tribune (March 14, 1904).

[v] Cf. “Social and Personal,” Washington Post (March 17, 1904), 7 and “In Society,” Washington Times (March 17, 1904), 6.

[vi] Cf. “Greeks Angry at the Czar,” New York Sun (March 15, 1904), 12 and “Fear Russian Rule of Church,” New York Tribune (March 15, 1904), 6.

[vii] Erickson, Orthodox Christians in America, 73.

[viii] C. Lewis Leicester, “What Might Have Been,” The Christian East 13:2 (Summer 1932), 79-80. Quoted in Andre G. Issa, The Life of Raphael Hawaweeny, Bishop of Brooklyn: 1860-1915 (unpublished M.Div. thesis, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, May 1991), 46.

[ix] Patriarch Meletios to Bishop Tikhon (March 11/24, 1904), translated from the Russian by Fr. John Meyendorff in “Notes and Comments: The Patriarch of Antioch and North America in 1904,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 33:1 (1989), 83-86.

[x] Bishop Tikhon to Patriarch Meletios (April 1904), reprinted in Issa, 49-50.

[xi] Al-Kalimat (The Word) 1, 2, reprinted in “Hanna et al v. Malick et al, 223 Mich. 100, 193 N.W. 798 (June 4, 1923), Northwestern Reporter 193, 802.

[xii] Al-Kalimat 3, 95-96, reprinted in “Hanna v. Malick.” An alternate translation renders this statement, “And so it is indeed, though in name it belongs to the Russian Holy Synod.” Issa, 62.

Tags: 1904, America, Antiochian, Charles Grafton, early unity, Episcopalians, New York, newspapers, primary sources, Russian, Saints, St Raphael, St Tikhon

Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in New Orleans. I believe the priest in the photo is Fr. Misael Karydis, who served the community from 1881 to 1901.

Archimandrite Misael Karydis spent twenty years as the priest in New Orleans, from 1881 until 1901. Two decades at a single parish is a long time, especially in the early years of American Orthodox history. Before Karydis, only one priest (that I know of) had ever served such a lengthy tenure — Hieromonk Nikolai Militov, who spent 22 years (1845-67) as pastor of the Russian church in Kenai, Alaska. Then came Karydis’ long stretch in New Orleans, followed by Fr. Theoklytos Triantafilides (Galveston, 1896-1916) and Fr. George Maloof (Boston Syrian church, 1900-1920).

Karydis was an odd character. In 1888, he got into a fistfight with a Greek writer for a French newspaper. From the New Orleans Daily Picayune (8/24/1888): “A conversation was entered into and soon assumed the attitude of a heated debate. The language used by the reverend gentleman [Fr. Misael] was not very polite, and Mr. Nicolopulo reminded him of his insolence. Without more ado Misael struck Nicolopulo in the face…”

Despite the fact that Karydis, and not Mr. Nicolopulo, had done the striking, the police arrested Nicolopulo for assault and battery. Eventually, Nicolopulo was released, and the newspaper criticized the poor judgment of the officers.

Supposedly, Karydis had some mental problems. Here is a report out of New Orleans, published in the New York Times (6/6/1901):

The Rev. Michael Jevizoylon Karidis is pastor of Holy Trinity Church, on the corner of Dorgenois and Hospital Streets, here [in New Orleans]. His congregation is composed of Greeks. He came here from Bulgaria twenty years ago, and is supposed to have had some means. About eight years ago he showed signs of mental unbalance, and since then has been engaged in constructing a flying machine.

Last Sunday he donned a stovepipe hat for the first time in his life, and with a small grip left his house, announcing that he was going to collect some money that had been left to him.

He traveled to New York City. On the morning of June 5, 1901, he checked into the Eastern Hotel under the name, “Victor Misalel.” At 4:30 in the afternoon, a hotel porter heard a gunshot and rushed to Karydis’ room. From the Times:

The door was broken open and the man’s body was found lying on the bed, with a bullet wound in his right side.

The would-be suicide was removed by Dr. Johnson to the Hudson Street Hospital, where he died at 11 o’clock last night. Before his death he told an interpreter that he was Michael Jevizoylon Karidis, pastor of the Greek Church of the Holy Trinity of New Orleans, La.

News of Karydis’ suicide spread quickly. Before Karydis had even died, one of the Orthodox in New Orleans, Marcos Papovich, received a telegram saying that Karydis was deathly ill in New York. “Papovich says he does not know the priest,” the New York Times reported. “Karidis lived a rather secluded life.” In a front-page story, the Biloxi Daily Herald (6/7/1901) said, “He had become demented from long work at a flying machine he was trying to invent. His workshop was a part of his home adjoining the church in which he had lived all alone for the past eighteen years.” 

With only a handful of newspaper accounts as our guide, it’s difficult to get a real sense of who Karydis was. The papers say he was from Bulgaria, but was he an ethnic Bulgarian, or a Greek? How did he end up in New Orleans? He’s supposed to have been “mentally unbalanced” and “demented” because of his work on a flying machine, but just two years later, the Wright Brothers flew an airplane in North Carolina, so the idea of a flying machine was not, in and of itself, evidence of mental instability.

When I started research for these articles on Karydis, I assumed that his suicide was an open-and-shut case. The newspapers (and presumably the police) assumed the same thing, but I’m getting a little skeptical. Isn’t it at least a little odd that he traveled all the way to New York before committing the act? This suggests the possibility that Karydis left New Orleans with no intention of killing himself. We don’t actually know why he was in New York — he’d been there at least once before, in 1886. Was he really going to collect money, as he claimed? Are we to believe that he planned all along to shoot himself, but took the trouble to journey halfway across the country and check into a hotel first?

The location of the gunshot wound is also suspicious. Who shoots himself in the side? I don’t mean to be macabre, but wouldn’t some other part of the anatomy be more logical? Isn’t it at least possible that Karydis was shot by somebody else? The problem with that theory is that Karydis was apparently conscious enough to tell an interpreter who he was — and if he could do that, you’d think he could have told the interpreter if someone had shot him. Unless he had some reason not to reveal his murderer. It’s at least within the realm of possibility that Karydis was killed either in a crime of passion, or in some sort of nefarious act (blackmail?) gone awry — and in both cases, Karydis would have had an incentive not to tell the whole story.

Why am I writing about this? Why tell such an unpleasant story, and then speculate about even more unpleasantness? I’m writing about this because it is a part of our past. This man, Fr. Misael Karydis, was the longest-tenured Orthodox priest in America at the time of his death. His parish was, for over half of his career, the only Greek church in the Western Hemisphere. He appears to have served the first Orthodox liturgy in Chicago, and possibly in other places as well. He was one of the most significant figures in 19th century, continental US Orthodoxy, and yet no one, today, has ever heard of him. I would be negligent if I didn’t tell his story.

UPDATE (12/23/09): Below, a reader named Lolajl points out that I’m wrong about the photo: “Looking at the clothes, especially the women’s dresses and their hats, I would say that this was taken around 1908 – 1914. The big hat style was very popular in this time range. Plus the dress style of the woman standing to the left (and next to the woman with the big black hat) was popular around 1910 – 1912.”

Assuming those approximate dates are correct, the priest in the photo is most likely either Fr. Chrysanthos Angelopoulos, Fr. Paisios Ferentinos, or Fr. S. Vassiliades.

Tags: 1901, Greek, Misael Karydis, New Orleans, New York, newspapers, parishes, primary sources

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

According to some sources, Archimandrite Kallinikos Kanellas was the first ethnic Greek priest to serve in America. And those sources may be right, depending on your definition of “Greek.” The only other candidates would be from the Greek church in New Orleans. Fr. Stephen Andreades was the priest in the late 1860s, and Fr. Gregory Yayas served there from 1872-74; considering their names, both were almost certainly Greeks of one sort or another. Archimandrite Misael Karydis (or Kalitski) was the priest from 1881-1901, but he was reportedly from Bulgaria. In any event, Kanellas was one of the very first Greek priests in America.

I don’t know anything about Kanellas’ early life. I do know that, before he came to the United States, Kanellas had spent some time in India. From 1880 to 1886, he was the rector of the Greek church in Calcutta (the origins of which dated to the 1700s; see this fascinating history for more information). He first shows up in the US in 1889, as one of the priests of the Russian cathedral in San Francisco. He seems to be the first of several non-Russian priests brought over to America to serve in the Russian Diocese — “client clergy,” as Fr. John Erickson has called them. Soon, he would be followed by people like Fr. Ambrose Vretta, Fr. Theoklytos Triantafilides, Fr. Sebastian Dabovich, Fr. Raphael Hawaweeny, and Fr. Michael Andreades. But Kanellas seems to have been the original.

I’m not sure what Kanellas was doing from 1886 to 1889, but I suspect he might have been in Russia. This would explain his connection to the Russian Diocese in America.

Kanellas appears to have been trusted by Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky, who appointed him to serve on the Alaskan Spiritual Consistory, the group of clergy which ran many of the day-to-day affairs of the diocese. He was particularly useful in ministering to ethnic Greeks. In 1891, he made a cross-country missionary trip. He stopped in Savannah, Georgia, and baptized a Greek child. The Columbus Enquirer-Sun (6/24/1891) reported that the child’s father spent $650, which presumably included transportation and lodging costs. The paper said that the amount “includes a handsome fee.” $650 seems outrageous, though. I checked an online inflation calculator, and it estimated that $650 in 1891 is equivalent to over $15,000 in 2008.

From Savannah, Kanellas went to New York City, where he baptized the daughter of Anthony Ralli (who was possibly connected with the well-known Ralli Brothers merchant firm). The New York Sun (6/26/1891) said that Kanellas had a “patriarchal beard and jewelled gown.”  According to one account, he actually had to bring his own baptismal font — can you imagine taking one of those on a train?

I’ve seen some references to Kanellas having served in Chicago. That’s a bit of a puzzler… In July 1891, the Chicago Inter Ocean (7/11/1891) reported that a certain Archimandrite Lininas, “who presides over a temple in San Francisco,” was visiting Chicago and holding services for the Orthodox there. I haven’t been able to find evidence of this Fr. Lininas being in San Francisco, and it’s very possible that this was actually Kanellas, on his way back from New York to California. However, the Inter Ocean says that Fr. Lininas “is a finely educated gentleman, speaking German, Russian, and French fluently, but his English is best understood through an interpreter.” So according to the paper, he didn’t speak Greek (which, if true, means he wasn’t Kanellas).

In 1892, amid much turmoil and scandal, Bp Vladimir was recalled to Russia and replaced with Bishop Nicholas Ziorov. On July 1 (June 19 Old Style), the members of the Spiritual Consistory (of which Kanellas was apparently no longer a member) wrote to the new bishop,

Today, the Archimandrite Kallinikos was informed that he has to leave the Mission as of July 1. He replied that he has nowhere to go. In accordance with Your Grace’s will, we deemed it was better to say nothing in reply: Your Grace has ordered not to drive him out.

Obviously, something was up, but I don’t know what. The 1893 San Francisco city directory  doesn’t list Kanellas among the cathedral clergy, so he didn’t stick around much longer. And for the next 18 years, I can’t figure out he was. I’m pretty sure he stayed in America, and by at least 1911 (and probably earlier), he was pastor of the Greek church in Birmingham, Alabama. In the 1913 book Greeks in America, Thomas Burgess, writing about the Birmingham church, said,

Of its former pastor, says the “Greek-American Guide,” “The Rev. Arch. Kallinikos Kanellas is a very sympathetic and reverend old man of whom it is possible to say that of the Greek clergy in America he is the most—shall we say ‘disinterested’? The Greek word is a dandy, (literally, ‘not loving of riches’). Plutarch used to use that word.

In 1913, Kanellas moved to Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. He spent the rest of his life there. This is from Annunciation’s parish history:

Father Kallinikos Kanellas was brought to Little Rock on a permanent basis in 1913, and services were held in an upstairs meeting hall near 9th and Main Streets for the next eight years. This hall included a small chapel for Liturgies and Sacraments such as weddings, baptisms, etc., as well as a place for social gatherings. Incidentally, research indicates that Father Kanellas probably was the first Orthodox priest of Greek ancestry to come to the United States. When Father Kanellas became seriously ill, young Theo Polychron visited him daily, bringing soup from his little café. Father died in 1921 and is buried at Oakland Cemetery where most of the early Greek immigrants were also interred.

As  you can see, Kanellas’ story has a lot of missing pieces. I suspect a lot of the gaps could be closed by a letter Kanellas wrote to Archbishop Meletios Metaxakis on March 16, 1918, in which he gave an account of his career in both the Russian Diocese and the Greek communities in America. That letter appears on page 333 of Paul Manolis’ History of the Greek Church in America in Acts and Documents… unfortunately, though, I can’t read Greek, so for now, I don’t know what the letter says. If any of you out there can read Greek and are interested in Kanellas, email me at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com.

Tags: 1889, 1891, 1892, 1913, 1921, Chicago, early unity, Greek, Kallinikos Kanellas, Meletios Metaxakis, New York, newspapers, Nicholas Ziorov, primary sources, Russian, San Francisco, Vladimir Sokolovsky

In 1878, the Arbeelys immigrated to the United States. They were the first Syro-Arab family to come to America; or, at the very least, they were the first prominent Syrians in America. Najeeb Arbeely founded the first Arab-American newspaper, Kawkab America, and he also held the post of immigration inspector at Ellis Island. His brother Abraham was instrumental in bringing St. Raphael Hawaweeny to the United States.

A couple of years after their arrival in this country, Abraham did an extensive interview with the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (7/22/1880). It’s long, but it’s also extremely interesting, so I’m reprinting the whole thing here:

“A native of Syria — of Damascus?”

“Yes; Dr. A.J.A. Arbeely;” and the person addressed bowed with Oriental grace, as he made himself known to the reporter.

“When did you arrive?”

“This morning,” answered the Doctor.

“Are you connected with the Syrian family that arrived in New York a couple of years ago?”

“The same; the party was composed of my father and mother, five brothers — I am the eldest — and sister. They are all in Tennessee now except my mother. She is dead.” And as he conveyed this last item of information the Doctor took off the red turban he wore, and bowed his head a moment in reverie. Then he continued: “The family are in Maryville, Tennessee. I have been in Texas eighteen months practicing medicine. My younger brother is also a doctor in practice in Tennessee.”

“Tell me about your coming to this country.”

“Well, you see we are Christians — my father being a Doctor of Divinity in the Greek Church, as well as a Doctor of Medicine — and we were subjected to great persecution at the hands of the Turks.”

“You were converts, then?”

“No; the family had always been Christian, that is, as far back as we have any record. My ancestors, as Christians, ante-dated the invasion of the Turks. My father, prior to coming here, was employed for many years in teaching the Syrian language to the missionaries from America. He had incurred the displeasure and hostility of the Turkish authorities. We were in the massacre of Christians in Damascus in 1860 — I was only 10 years old then — but my father, although hunted like a wild beast, succeeded in makign his escape. The murderous Turks made several other attempts upon his life, but a kind Providence protected him so that not a hair of his head was harmed. The Mohammedan persecution finally became so great that my father resolved to leave the land of our nativity, and upon consultation with the American missionaries he concluded to emigrate to America. In the summer of 1878, during the Parish Exposition, a passport was obtained for the entire family to visit the Exposition, and they started, but stayed only a few days in Paris, and then came to the United States, landing in New York in September. They spent a month in that city, but concluding that the weather would be too severe for them they went to Maryville, East Tennessee, and settled. Thus the first Syrian family that ever emigrated to this country came and took up their residence under the aegis of the stars and stripes.”

“Is it not difficult to leave Damascus — to emigrate — or are the Turks glad enough to get rid of Christians?”

“The Sultan and the Turkish Pasha (Governor) at Damascus look with great disfavor upon emigration of Syrians, and so many obstacles have to be overcome by emigrants that very few leave indeed, and thus it happens that we are the only Syrians in America. Passports are withheld, and as no one is allowed to leave there without these documents, the disfavor amounts to really a prohibition. That’s the reason no other family of that nationality has ever come to this country before. Our friends are very anxious to come, and thus establish a Syrian colony  here in America, but such a scheme was then impracticable. We promised to look the country over, however, and if possible find a suitable locality.”

“How much have you done already in this direction? Missouri, you see, is making an effort to induce immigration.”

“Well, the difficulty is to find a section suitable in every respect. The great obstacle is the climate. It is too changeable and uneven in those localities I have visited — a marked contrast to Damascus, where the climate is always even. Still we may yet find a suitable locality. We went to Texas in 1878, and it was hard getting along at first, as we could not speak English very well, as you observe I can now. When we arrived at Austin, Texas, I concluded to stop there for a time and see how the country agreed with me. My father went on and visited different parts of the State, but found nothing that suited him, so he returned to his home in Tennessee, where he has resided since. I practiced medicine at Austin for the past eighteen months, when I was called home suddenly by my mother’s death, and coming by the way of Kansas City, where I stopped for a few days, I arrived in St. Louis yesterday, as stated.”

“How do you like the country, generally?”

“It is magnificent — all the parts I have visited — except in respect to climate; and St. Louis is simply magnificent, if the weather could be always like this.”

“You liked Texas?”

“Very much. The people were very kind to me, and assisted me to a large practice. I shall probably return there. Kansas City I also greatly admired, and the professional brethren and others placed me under many obligations for courtesies. I wish I had time to visit all the medical institutions here and meet the doctors, but I shall have to go home in a day or two.”

“What is your school of medicine?”

“Oh, I am regular, as you call it here, or old school. I have several diplomas: one granted by the Syrian Protestant College, located at Beirut, chartered by the State of New York, and, therefore, an American institution. After receiving the parchment I was obliged to go through a very severe examination by the Sultan’s head medicine man, at the Royal Medical College at Constantinople, before I could practice my profession, as the other college is not recognized by the Government.”

He was awarded a diploma from the Royal College, and both of the documents are decorated with seals, indicating their authenticity.

And then the Doctor took his turn at interviewing.

“Are you the religious editor?”

“Not often; why?”

“Because I wonder when I read the Globe-Democrat every day in Texas, how it ever got so much religious matter. Is that the reason why it is called the great religious daily?”

“Yes, and because it is so thoroughly orthodox.”

“I notice that. I am orthodox myself. My father, besides being a Greek ecclesiastic, is very intimate with the Greek Patriarch at Antioch. Oh, yes, we are orthodox. I have letters from a number of clergymen, as well as doctors.”

And here the Doctor showed a number.

“Wasn’t there some talk of uniting the Anglican Church — Protestant Episcopal in America — with the Greek Church?”

“I believe there was some effort in that direction, and there is very little difference between them. Indeed, we are in accord with most evangelical bodies, and I have some very kindly reflections of the Presbyterians.”

“Isn’t there a Greek Church in New York, with which the Episcopal Church is in accord?”

“I believe they agree. But my father could tell you much better of these things than me, as the greater part of his sixty years of life has been spent in that direction.”

The Doctor was then entreated to explain somewhat of the Arabic tongue, and did so to the great interest of his auditors. He incidentally remarked that he believed the Oriental way of writing from right to left more proper and convenient than the English method, from left to right. The Arabic alphabet has twenty-nine letters, with only three vowels and a like number of accents. The Doctor contrasted it with the Greek, with which he is also familiar, and pointed out the differences. His sketch of the Syrian people was very interesting, and, if he is a specimen, they are a fine type of manhood, tall and dignified in appearance. His complexion is dark — olive rather than swarthy — and hair very black. Red heads are rare in Syria.

The population of Damascus he estimated at 150,000, of which about three-fourths are Mohammedan, about 25,000 Christians and the balance Jews. The latter are chiefly bankers or brokers. The Christians are not generally wealthy, and mostly engaged in weaving and the manufacture of damask. The Turks, many of them, live in opulence. There is no inter-marrying between Turk and Christian, or Hebrew and Christian. The Ottoman Government is represented by a Pasha, or Governor, who is a very enlightened man, but the people other than the Turks are not in favor of the Government, and covet independence. The future of Turkey, the Doctor thinks, will be just what the great Powers choose to make it. The Turks are a hindrance to Christian civilization, and must sooner or later be blotted out. Nothing but the jealousy of the Powers prevented them taking the territory, and eventually they will probably assume a protectorate over it. Perhaps Great Britain or France will eventually get Damascus. Further alluding to the manners and customs of his people, the Doctor spoke of prolonged religious fasts among the Turks, at times.

“What do you think of Dr. Tanner?”

“Oh (laughing), I hardly know what to think about his feat. I have been reading your paper every day about it and am much interested. I hardly think he can succeed. It doesn’t seem in accordance with nature. But he may. In this great country I don’t allow myself to be surprised at anything.”

Dr. Arbeely goes hence to Louisville, and from there to Knoxville, Tenn., and a visit to his family. He will probably return West via St. Louis.

A few things… I don’t know who “Dr. Tanner” is, though Arbeely’s comments have piqued my curiosity. His remarks about the fate of Turkey are almost prophetic, coming nearly four decades before the end of World War I. Also, what he says about religious persecution in Turkey is certainly accurate, but it shouldn’t be assumed that the later Syro-Arab immigrants — the “Ellis Islanders,” if you will — were fleeing such persecution. Most of the immigrants in the 1890-1920 period (including my own family) came to the US principally in search of prosperity and opportunity, rather than religious freedom.

The Arbeelys ultimately ended up back in New York, where, as I said earlier, Najeeb Arbeely became an immigration inspector and newspaper editor, and Abraham organized the Syro-Arab Orthodox and worked to bring St. Raphael to America.

Tags: 1880, Antiochian, Arbeely family, language, New York, newspapers, primary sources, St Louis, St Raphael

I always laugh a little bit when I hear people complain about Orthodox involvement in things like the World Council of Churches. It’s not that I support such involvement — my position on modern ecumenical relations really isn’t relevant here — but I laugh because I can’t imagine what the present-day anti-ecumenists among us would say about what was going on at the turn of the last century.

For instance, can you imagine what would happen if the World Council of Churches was expanded to include Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists? And if Orthodox bishops and priests were some of the main participants? That’s what happened at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, where the “Parliament of Religions” tried to serve as a veritable United Nations for religion.

Fr. Christopher Jabara, 1894

In the future, we’ll talk in detail about the Orthodox involvement in this event. For now, though, I’d like to focus on one of the Orthodox attendees in particular — the Antiochian archimandrite Fr. Christopher Jabara, who held the most extreme views of any of the Orthodox who were present.

For a number of years, Jabara had been the head of the Antiochian metochion (representation church) in Moscow. During this period, Jabara happened to meet with the Ecumenical Patriarch, and he helped arrange for an Antiochian student to attend the Patriarchal seminary at Halki. That student? A young monk named Raphael Hawaweeny.

A decade later, Jabara ran into problems in Russia. Apparently, he started talking about all religions being the same — particularly Christianity and Islam. This incurred the ire of the Metropolitan of Moscow, who ran him out of the country. His replacement as head of the metochion? Deacon Raphael Hawaweeny.

I’m not sure exactly where Jabara went after that, but by the end of 1892, he was in New York — one of the first Antiochian priests to come to America. He was carrying credentials from the Patriarch of Antioch (or at least, that’s what he said; unless we can inspect them, we can’t really be certain). The local Syro-Arab Orthodox, who were just glad to see an Antiochian priest, welcomed Jabara, and they set up a temporary chapel at Cedar and Washington Streets in New York City. At some point along the way, Jabara authored a book entitled, The Unity of Faith and the Harmony of Religions. The next year, the Parliament of Religions met in Chicago, and Jabara was there. Among other things, he said,

My brothers and sisters in the worship of God! All the religions now in this general and religious congress are parallel to each other in the sight of the whole world. Every one of these religions has supporters who prefer their own to other religions, and they might bring some arguments or reasons to convince others of the value and truth of their own form of religion.

Therefore, I think that a committee should be selected from the great religions to investigate the dogmas and to make a full and perfect comparison, and, approving the true one, to announce it to the people. This is easy to do in America, and especially in Chicago, as here the means for realization may be found.

First, there is full religious liberty; second, there is great progress in all branches of science; third, there is presence of great learning; fourth, wealth and benevolence; fifth, the piety of the American people in general and their energy in so many things useful to humanity, making this country a refuge to all nations.

Columbus discovered America for the whole world and discovered a home for the oppressed of all nations. As Columbus discovered America, so must Americans show the people of all nations a new religion in which all hearts may find rest.

That wasn’t all. Jabara told the Globe reporter,

I think and believe that when the gospels and the Koran, which are really one, are reconciled and the two great peoples, Christians and Mahometans, are also reconciled, the whole world will come into unity and all differences fade away.

All the human kind will become brethren in worshipping the true God and following Christ, the savior of the world, and I, as a servant of religion during all my life, have come from far away Damascus on my own account and in my poverty pray, in the name of God the omnipresent, that the people may consider my ideas on the unity of religion, especially between the sacred books.

Needless to say, the Syro-Arabs ran Jabara out of New York. There’s a story, probably apocryphal, that when Jabara returned to the chapel, his key didn’t work — somebody had already changed the locks. (This story is printed in the Antakya Press life of St. Raphael.)

Jabara stayed in America, and, as I said, he was in Boston in March of 1894. But he wasn’t there to minister to the Orthodox of the city; according to the Globe, he “came to Boston especially as a center of Unitarianism where the tenets of religion and the principles of his mission can be sifted and appreciated.”

Eventually, Jabara left the US, traveling to Egypt. An American Protestant named John Henry Barrows met him there in 1896-97, and wrote this account:

Two other men, who were present at the Parliament, I unexpectedly met at the Sunday services in the American Mission. One of them is Christophora Jibara, formerly Archimandrite of Damascus. He is still very active and earnest in what he deems his chief mission, persuading Christians to give up the doctrine of the Trinity, which prevents, as it seems to him, their coming into any union with Mohammedans and Jews. He believes that Christ is the Son of God and wrought a gospel of redemption. Jibara is a master of several languages, and I tried in vain to persuade him to employ his powers of speech in preaching a positive gospel, instead of smiting all his life at a dogma which has worn out many hammers.

I don’t know what happened to Jabara after 1897. The last traces I’ve found of him are from 1901, when Gerasimos Messara, the Metropolitan of Beirut, wrote a reply to an open letter by Jabara. (I don’t have copies of either Jabara’s letter or Met. Gerasimos’ reply; all I’ve found is this Google Books reference.)

With Jabara out of the picture, the Syro-Arabs in America still needed a priest. In 1895, they finally got one. His name? Fr. Raphael Hawaweeny.

Tags: 1893, 1894, America, Antiochian, Chicago, Christopher Jabara, New York, newspapers, Parliament of Religions, primary sources, Russian, St Raphael

Fr. Nicholas Bjerring in his New York chapel, November 1871. Grand Duke Alexis of Russia is standing behind the chair at the right. (Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 12/23/1871)

  
I got a little tired of quoting long sections of primary sources, and thought I’d try something a little different for a change. Don’t worry, though; I’ll be back with my regular style tomorrow. And if you’re wondering about sources, just let me know — I didn’t make any of this up, or anything.

Walking along Second Avenue in New York City in the 1870s, we encounter #951, a private residence in a nondescript brownstone. The only odd thing about the place is a gilt Greek cross that hangs over the door. As it turns out, this place isn’t just a home; it’s the only Russian Orthodox place of worship east of San Francisco.

We enter on the parlor floor. Originally, this was two rooms, but it has been modified — now, one of the “parlors” is the sanctuary, while the other is the nave. Where there were once doors separating the two rooms, now there is an iconostasis, surmounted with a gorgeous icon of the Mystical Supper. The iconostasis has only the Royal Doors — no deacon’s doors — which makes for an odd-looking Great Entrance. Inside, the altar table is lavishly ornamented. The altar cloth alone is worth a king’s ransom, made of yellow satin and embroidered with gold and silver lace. The sacred objects in the chapel — marriage crowns, chalice, candelabras, censer, diskos, crosses, etc. — were all gifts from the Tsar, and they looked the part, made of pure gold and studded with gemstones. On the opposite end of the room, over the mantelpiece, is a large mosaic and a gold cross — gifts of the Russian government. On the four ends of the cross, there are medallion icons with scenes from Christ’s life. The rest of the walls are covered with more icons and banners, also depicting scenes from the life of Christ.

The room feels bigger than it is, with no pews and only a couple of chairs on the floor. An impressive chandelier hangs from the high ceiling. But really, the place is tiny, and it feels crowded with a couple dozen people inside. When the Grand Duke visited in 1871, throngs of American girls begged the priest to let them in, but, as one journal said, the chapel wouldn’t hold a tithe of them.

They talked for years about building a great Orthodox church in the city; the Russian government even bought land on Lexington Avenue, but it all came to naught. The Russians pulled their money, and the Danish priest joined the Presbytery. Makes me wonder what exactly happened to all those treasures in the chapel. Rumor has it that some of them turned up in a pawn shop, of all places! It’s quite a shame how things turned out, and one has to wonder if this is the end of Orthodoxy in New York.

Of course, it was hardly the end of Orthodoxy in New York. One Greek church was established in 1892, and another in 1894. In 1895, a new Russian church was founded.

Tags: 1871, Grand Duke Alexis, New York, Nicholas Bjerring, Russian

Recently, there has been an interesting and lengthy discussion in the comments section on our website, regarding the extent of the territory of the Russian Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska in the 19th century. Let me try to briefly outline my position in this debate.

Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867. However, under the terms of the treaty, the Russian Church retained its property in Alaska, and there continued to be an Orthodox presence. At the time of the sale, Alaska was a part of the “Diocese of Kamchatka and the Kurile and Aleutian Islands.” This included Siberia, where the diocesan bishop lived. An auxiliary bishop (at the time, Bp Paul Popov) was based in Sitka (then called “New Archangel”) and administered the Alaskan part of the diocese.

In the wake of the 1867 sale, several significant things happened. Bp Paul was recalled to Russia, and he was replaced with Bp John Mitropolsky. The diocesan structure itself was reorganized; the American part of the diocese was lopped off and turned into its own diocese, the Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. This would remain the name of the diocese until the 20th century. Also, a church was established in San Francisco — the first Russian Orthodox church in the contiguous United States — and the bishop’s residence was moved there.

Another important development in this period was the establishment of the chapel in New York City, with Fr. Nicholas Bjerring assigned as priest. This chapel primarily served the Russian and Greek embassies and the few Orthodox in the city. It also functioned as a sort of showpiece, displaying Orthodox ritual to Americans. As we’ve discussed, many hoped that the Orthodox and Episcopal Churches would unite, and Bjerring’s chapel was very much like a metochion (representation church, or embassy church), aimed at fostering ecumenical dialogue.

Significantly, the New York chapel was not a part of the Aleutian Diocese. In the 1879 and 1880 reports on the state of the diocese, nine parishes are listed. Both lists include San Francisco, but neither include New York. Bjerring only dealt with the Aleutian Diocese bishops on rare occasions, when they happened to be passing through New York, traveling between Russia and San Francisco. Bjerring and his chapel appear to have been directly under the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, and Bjerring made regular visits to the Russian capital during his career in the church.

From an official standpoint, the territory of the Aleutian Diocese included only the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, as the name suggested. This is what also appeared on the Bishop’s certification of Bp Nestor Zass (1879-82), and it actually caused problems when he tried to purchase property in California (see this letter).

Obviously, the diocese claimed some jurisdiction outside its official territory, since it had the cathedral in San Francisco. But it didn’t extend from sea to shining sea; if it did, the New York chapel probably would have been included. And even if you ignore the issue of the New York chapel, there’s the simple fact that the diocese included no parishes east of California until the 1890s.

When did things change? Officially, the diocese became the Archdiocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America in 1905, under St. Tikhon. But there’s evidence that the name change predates 1905. In his “Account of the State of the Diocese of the Aleutians for 1900,” St. Tikhon wrote that the name was changed in 1900, at his suggestion.

Bishop Nicholas Ziorov (1891-98)

That was when the name changed, but I’ve seen references from the time of Bp Nicholas Ziorov (1891-98) which say that the diocese includes all of North America. According to the 1906 Census of Religious Bodies (page 261), the territory was extended sometime during Bp Nicholas’ tenure:

[...] Bishop Nicholas, whose stay was noted for [...] the enlarging of the eparchy to include the Eastern states of the United States, and Canada, opening thus a new period in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the United States.

Here is what I think happened. In 1867, or 1870, or even 1890, there were hardly any Orthodox Christians in North America, outside of Alaska, and there wasn’t any clear indication that this state of affairs was going to change in the future. The idea of American Orthodoxy, if it existed at all, was focused on union with the Episcopalians, which would make the Episcopal Church the “American Orthodox Church” (which is how lots of Episcopalians already viewed themselves). So the bishop of the Aleutian Diocese tended to his Orthodox flock in Alaska (with a few hundred in California), and didn’t much bother with the rest of the United States. The New York chapel naturally fell under the authority of the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, the highest-ranking bishop in the Russian Church.

Then, in the 1890s, thanks in large part to the convert priest St. Alexis Toth, entire Uniate parishes began joining the Orthodox Church. St. Alexis, when he was in Minneapolis, had sought out the Bp Vladimir in San Francisco, and the bishop quite naturally took responsibility for these new converts. When Toth moved on to Pennsylvania, and then other Northeastern Uniate parishes began to convert, the Russian bishop (by now Bp Nicholas) suddenly had churches stretching across the continent. The New York chapel had long since been closed, so Bp Nicholas opened a new church in the city. Within only a few years, the center of the diocese began to shift from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Apparently, the Russian Holy Synod enlarged the diocese sometime during this period (1891-98), and they made it official in 1900, when St. Tikhon was bishop.

Were the Russians no longer concerned about what the Episcopalians thought? I don’t think it was that. After all, they weren’t inviting Episcopalians to join the Orthodox Church (at least, not until the conversion of Ingram Irvine in 1905). The Uniates were “theirs,” in a way; they were seen as “Russians” who should really be Orthodox, and as such, the Episcopalians would have had no problem with the Russian bishop taking responsibility for them. Until the Uniate conversions, the Russian bishop really had no justification, in the eyes of the Episcopalians, for claiming any sort of jurisdiction in America, but once the Uniates began to convert, he had obvious responsibilities.

Certainly, Bishops Nicholas and Tikhon saw themselves as having jurisdiction over all of America. But before that, America was a sort of Orthodox no-man’s land — say, like Antarctica. The Russian Church was most definitely the first Orthodox Church to stake an explicit claim to all of America, but they staked that claim in the 1890s at the very earliest.

Tags: America, Episcopalians, New York, Nicholas Bjerring, Nicholas Ziorov, primary sources, Russian, St Tikhon

Immediately upon Fr. Nicholas Bjerring’s arrival in New York City in 1870, news spread that the Russian Church planned to construct a great temple in the city, on the corner of 51st Street and Lexington Avenue. This is from the Christian Advocate journal (6/29/1871):

A magnificent structure is about to be erected by the Russian government on Lexington Avenue for the devotions of the members of the Greek faith in this city and country. The designs will arrive here in a few days from St. Petersburg, when the work will at once be commenced. When finished the church will have cost between $500,000 and $600,000.

Half a million dollars in 1871 works out to something close to $9 million today. I’ve seen other references putting the figure at $200,000 to $300,000, but regardless, it was a pretty big chunk of change, and I have a little trouble believing that the Russian government was really going to foot that kind of bill for a representation church. In 1866, estimates out of Russia put the total cost of the proposed church at $20,000, or a little over $350,000 in modern terms, which sounds a lot more reasonable.

Konstantin Katakazi (Catacazy), Russian ambassador to the United States

Already, the Russian ambassador, Konstantin Katakazi (or Catacazy), had spent $20,000 to purchase the necessary land. When Grand Duke Alexis arrived in America for his famous visit in the fall of 1871, he brought with him plans for the building.

Everything looked like it was going smoothly, until the next summer. From the New York Times (7/22/1872):

The site was purchased by him [Catacazy] for $17,000 in currency. When the deed came to be made out Catacazy desired that $20,000 should be inserted, instead of the amount actually to be paid. There was some difficulty experienced in getting this done, but the intriguing diplomat at last succeeded. By paying the increased cost of revenue-stamps, and possibly using some other inducements, the character of which are not stated. Then he drew on his Government for $20,000 in gold to pay for the site. These facts  became known to or suspected by some of the Russians in New-York, who had an interest in the matter, and through them it was made known to the Russian Foreign office. When Catacazy was tried on his return, this was one of the charges which his own Government placed before the Commission for investigation, and it was fully proved.

It might just be a coincidence, but this report ran on exactly the same day that the same newspaper reported on Bjerring’s return to New York after a lengthy visit to Russia. Whether through Bjerring or some other channel, in the summer of 1872, the Russian government figured out that Ambassador Catacazy was skimming money. He had other issues as well (check out his Wikipedia entry), and he was soon exiled to a lowly post in Paris.

As you might expect, plans to build the New York church ground to a halt. But the Russian government still owned the land on Lexington Avenue, and two years later, the plans were revived. From the Baltimore Sun (9/17/1874):

The Russian chapel in New York being too small to accommodate the members of the Greek Church in that city, Russian subjects there have represented to the imperial government the need of a new church edifice for their use, and plans for a structure to cost $85,000 have been sent to St. Petersburg for approval. About $35,000 in aid of the project has already, it is understood, been obtained from various sources, Mr. Ross Winans, of Baltimore, having given $10,000. A plot of ground for such a church was purchased for the Russian government three years ago.

Who, you might be wondering, was Mr. Ross Winans? Well, from his Wikipedia entry, he was one of the first American multi-millionaires, an “inventor, mechanic, and builder of locomotives and railroad machinery.” Also, there’s this:

The Winans engine designs impressed a Russian delegation, and he was asked by the Czar to build the Imperial railroad from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Winans sent his two sons, as well as engineer George W. Whistler to Russia for several years for that project. Winans may have sold as much or more equipment in Russia as he did in the United States. Winans’ son returned to build a Russian style estate in Baltimore, named Alexandrofsky.

So Ross Winans had some serious ties to Russia and the Russian government, and also some serious capital at his disposal. The New York Orthodox, for their part, had apparently scaled back their ambitious plans, reducing the proposed cost of the church from several hundred thousand dollars down to $85K (around $1.6 million today).

Despite that encouraging report, the church was never built. I’m not sure what happened. Even on the eve of the New York chapel’s dissolution in 1882, there were still reports that the Russian government planned to construct a great edifice in the city, but of course they never materialized.

Not everyone realized this. In their 1871 Annual Cyclopaedia, D. Appleton & Company said this:

The first building in the United States designed expressly for a Greek church was erected in the city of New York, during 1871. It is on Lexington Avenue, between Fifty-first and Fifty-second Streets. The cost, about $260,000, is defrayed by the Russian Treasury in St. Petersburg. The church is attached to the Russian legation in the United States, but is directly under the supervision of the Metropolitan at St. Petersburg, and is not in anyway connected with the diocese of the resident Greek bishop at San Francisco.

They were wrong, of course; when that statement was written, the New York church was only in its earliest planning stages. What’s especially interesting about this Appleton’s reference is the assertion that the New York chapel was under the direct authority of the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg, rather than the Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska.

In any event, it’s not clear precisely why the plans for the church never came to fruition. Perhaps the money just couldn’t be raised — after all, New York’s Orthodox community was small and generally not wealthy. Perhaps the Catacazy scandal made the Russian government think twice about investing in a New York church. Perhaps the Russian Church changed its mind about the need for a great building in New York. The answer is out there somewhere, probably in some church archive back in Russia.

Also, what happened to the Lexington Avenue property? By all accounts, the Russian government had already bought the land.

As with so many of the stories we recount here at OrthodoxHistory.org, this one ultimately leaves us with more questions than answers.

Tags: 1870, 1871, 1872, 1874, civil authorities, converts, Grand Duke Alexis, New York, newspapers, Nicholas Bjerring, primary sources, Russian

In 1870, the Russian Church founded a chapel in New York City, and the priest was Nicholas Bjerring, a new convert from Roman Catholicism. The chapel served the Russian and Greek officials in New York and Washington, as well as the small Orthodox population living in New York City. It also functioned as a sort of showpiece, a place where interested Americans (especially Episcopalians) could see what Orthodox worship looked like. One thing it did not do was encourage converts; Bjerring had little interest in bringing Americans to the Orthodox faith, saying that he did not want to “add a fresh element of discord” to American religious life.

What I didn’t know, until a few days ago, is that the idea of the New York chapel had its origins prior to Bjerring, and even prior to the sale of Alaska in 1867. From The Congregationalist, a Boston newspaper, August 24, 1866:

A curious article from the St. Petersburg Commercial Gazette of March 24 (April 5), 1866, has fallen into my hands. The writer begins with the remark that “in view of the recent tendencies of the Anglican and American Episcopal churches toward the Orthodox Oriental Greek Church,” it is obivously of the highest importance to give to the former the means of personal acquaintance with the latter, by establishing an Orthodox Greek Church at New York, “the center of social and religious life in the United States.”

This object has occupied the Russian government, and has been earnestly pursued by Mr. Stoeckl, its ambassador at Washington. This gentleman proposes to purchase a house in New York (to rent one would be inexpedient on account of the frequent changes of ownership) at a cost of $15,000 or $16,000, and expend $4,000 to $5,000 in making the necessary alterations, say $20,000 in all. More than $2,000 of this has been obtained by subscription from Greeks and Slavonians residing in New York, and more is hoped for from sympathetic Americans. The rich merchants of Moscow, (who it seems often send agents on business to this country) are next to be applied to, and any deficiency, as well as the salary of priest and choristers, will be supplied by the Russian government. Thus, continues the writer, “we may soon expect to learn the inauguration of a regular orthodox service on the American continent, among a people kindly disposed toward us, and toward the church of our fatherland.”

The article goes on to recommend that this church should be purely ecclesiastical, and not in any way official, or mixed up with political matters, that it may the better “serve as a uniting link of relation and connection between the Russian and the American Episcopal church.” Also that the service be performed not only in the Slavonian, but the Greek language, for the benefit of Greeks residing in New York, and also because that language is more accessible than the Slavonian to those Americans “whose sympathy for the connection of their own with the orthodox church is founded on an acquaintance with the original sources of the history and dogmas of orthodoxy.”

The chief and most difficult problem, however, concludes the writer, is to select, as officiating priest in the proposed ecclesiastical establishment at New York, a suitable “representative of orthodoxy, not only by the excellence of his life and character, but mentally capable, and properly educated and prepared to be a mediator in the closer connection of the churches.” Besides being strong in the faith, and clearly comprehending the truths of orthodoxy, he should, if possible, have a thorough knowledge of the English tongue and of the Episcopal church; while both his character and his convinctions should be such as to furnish a sufficient guarantee that when left to himself at a distance from the center of our church’s life and authority, he will still contend for the true spirit and interests of orthodoxy, and in his relations to those of other faiths, can keep alike distant from the extremes of Popish “non possumus” and of undue concession. Such a man, concludes the writer, will be hard to find.

Between the original Commercial Gazette article and this report in The Congregationalist, another, independent report circulated in the American papers, citing as its source the Berlin correspondent to the Times of London. Early in 1867, a third independent report, from the Atlantic Telegraph, appeared in some US newspapers.

So, a full year before the sale of Alaska to the United States, the Russian Church was planning to establish a chapel in New York City. And while the chapel would obviously serve the small Orthodox population living in the area, its main purpose was clearly what would today be called “ecumenism.” It would be, basically, a Russian Orthodox metochion — a representation church, or an embassy chapel. Normally, one autocephalous Orthodox Church will have such a metochion in the main city of sister Church. For instance, St. Raphael originally went to Russia to serve in the Antiochian metochion in Moscow. What we’re seeing here is a plan for a metochion in New York, connected with the hope that so many had at the time that the Orthodox and Anglican Churches would unite.

It’s easy to forget, when we talk about territorial rights and so forth, the role of the Episcopalians in all this. I’ve long wondered, why, after the sale of Alaska, did the Russian Church create the “Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska,” but move the bishop’s residence to San Francisco — that is, outside of the territory of the diocese? I mean, the move to San Francisco made lots of sense, but why not call the diocese, the “Diocese of Alaska and North America,” or something like that? Why limit its territory to Alaska?

The answer, at least in part, seems to be connected to the Episcopal Church in the United States. The Episcopalians had no claim on Alaska, and they were generally happy to recognize Russian authority there. But if the Russians were to have put a bishop over America, it would have (in the view of the Episcopalians) created an overlapping jurisdiction. Think about it: the Episcopalians saw themselves as the American Orthodox Church. There was a very real hope on both sides that the Orthodox would eventually recognize this. And since the actual Orthodox presence in America (outside of Alaska) was negligible, why bother ruffling the feathers of the Anglicans by claiming territory that (theoretically) belonged to the Episcopal Church?

Presumably, the Russians couldn’t find an adequate priest in 1866. So imagine their joy when, four years later, Nicholas Bjerring came to them seeking conversion! He was (so they thought) perfect — literate, cultured, zealous, and already living in the US. Unfortunately, he was not nearly as firm in his Orthodox faith as they obviously assumed, but it’s easy to see why they ordained him so quickly and sent him to start a chapel in New York. And it’s also easy to see why Bjerring would go on to discourage conversions. He wasn’t there to be a missionary; he was there to be an ecumenical representative, a religious amabassador.

This 1866 proposal also suggests that the Russian Church did not plan to “penetrate the United States,” as St. Innocent wanted. (Incidentally, it would be a year and a half before St. Innocent would write his letter to the Ober Procurator of the Holy Synod, outlining his advice for America.) The Russians were focused, it seems, on ecumenical relations, and on establishing communion with the Episcopal Church. They do not seem to have been thinking about converting Americans, and of course they couldn’t have foreseen the great immigration that would begin a quarter century later.

Tags: 1866, 1867, America, Episcopalians, New York, newspapers, Nicholas Bjerring, primary sources, Russian

Yesterday, in my article on James Chrystal, I mentioned, “In 1870, there were various reports that the Russian government planned to assign a bishop to New York and offered the job to Chrystal. He declined, citing his opposition to icons.” In the comments, Isa Almisry asked, quite reasonably, if I had documentation for this. Here it is.

On July 19, 1870, a Philadelphia newspaper called the North American and United States Gazette published the following report:

The Russian Ambassador has received instructions from his government that three bishoprics of the Greek Church are to be established forthwith in this country – one at New York, one at New Orleans, and one at San Francisco, in each of which last named places there is already a Greek church and a Russo-Greek priest.

A few days later, the journal Christian Union (7/23/1870) reported on the move of the Russian bishop from Alaska to San Francisco, and on the founding of Bjerring’s chapel in New York City. Citing the Pacific Churchman as its source, the article then stated the following:

New York is expected to be, in time, the seat of a Greek Orthodox Eastern Church arch-diocesan, and of the cathedral church of that hierarchy on the American continent, while New Orleans and San Francisco are to be episcopal seats. It is further stated that Mr. N.L. BJERRING, of Baltimore, a recent convert from the Roman Church, has been selected as one of the Orthodox bishops for this country, and that he has been invited by telegraph, from St. Petersburg, to proceed thither, to be baptized, ordained into the ministry, and be consecrated a bishop.

It’s interesting to read about a plan calling for New York to be the headquarters of an archdiocese; it would be more than three decades before this would actually happen. Also, Bjerring, being married, could not have become a bishop. It’s possible that the Russian Church wasn’t initially aware of this, and did at some early stage consider him a candidate for the episcopacy. It’s also possible that the newspaper reporter misunderstood something.

Anyway, within a few more days, the New York Sun had run a piece on all this. I don’t have the original Sun account, but it was picked up by various papers, including the Cleveland Herald (7/30/1870), the Chicago Tribune (8/1), and Flake’s Bulletin of Galveston, Texas (8/20). This is from the Cleveland Herald’s version:

The Russian Government has decided to establish a Bishopric of the Greek Church in New York.  The fact was made known to a number of Episcopal clergymen by Count Catacazy, the Russian Minister, and the Count recently offered the position of Prelate of the proposed See to the Rev. Samos [the other versions say "James"] Christal, an Episcopal minister, who is understood to have favored the plan of Dr. (now Bishop) Young of uniting the Episcopal and Greek churches. Mr. Christal has, however, declined to accept the office, on the ground that he could not subscribe to the articles of the Seventh Synod of the Greek church, relating to the images and creature worship, and the new Bishopric has not yet been filled.

Two other Bishoprics are to be established by the Russian Government, one in San Francisco and the other in New Orleans, but the candidates have not yet been named.

On August 27, Christian Union (which had already published a report on July 23 — see above) ran a similar story, but cited Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian Banner.

Finally, in October, a correction of sorts began to appear. From the Christian Advocate (10/10/1870; the same appeared in the San Francisco Bulletin on October 29):

The Russian Government does not contemplate sending Bishops of the Greek Church to form dioceses in this country. Greek Church communicants are too few to require them, and these few, it seems, do not desire foreign Bishops.

That is the last thing I’ve found on the plan.

All of these reports were coming during a time of transition for American Orthodoxy. During the same summer of 1870, Bishop John Mitropolsky was assigned to replace Bishop Paul Popov as the Russian hierarch in North America. The diocese itself was restructured, and the new Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska was created. (Previously, Bishop Paul had been merely a vicar in the Diocese of Kamchatka.) Bishop John moved the hierarchical residence from Sitka (or New Archangel) to San Francisco. This move wouldn’t be officially recognized until 1872, but for all practical purposes, it took place with the change in bishops in 1870.

Also, in May of 1870, Nicholas Bjerring went to Russia and was ordained a priest. He returned to the US that summer, and news began to circulate that the Russian Church planned to establish a chapel in New York City.

Is it possible that the Russian Church (and the Russian government) was making initial efforts to implement St. Innocent’s recommendation from a few years earlier? Late in 1867, Innocent recommended, among other things, that

• The diocesan seat be moved from Sitka (New Archangel) to San Francisco,
• The American part of the Diocese of Kamchatka be separated from the Diocese (Innocent recommended that it be formed into a vicariate under St. Petersburg, so creating a separate diocese would have been an even bolder step),
• The former bishop be recalled to Russia, and a new bishop be appointed who is familiar with English, and
• The new bishop be allowed to ordain American converts to the priesthood for service in America.

It’s also interesting to note the apparent resistence of the few Orthodox living in America. The San Francisco community was probably not the source of the problem, since they were the one city that did receive a Russian bishop in 1870. The New Orleans parish may have taken issue with this proposal, though, since they were a mostly independent group connected with the Greek consulate and nominally affiliated with the Church of Greece. But, details being so scarce, it’s hard to know just what the real story is.

There are a couple of avenues one might pursue to get to the bottom of all this. Obviously, the Russian Orthodox Church may have records of this plan (and I would expect them to be in St. Petersburg). There also might be something in the records of the Russian embassy, since the Russian ambassador was the one who approached Chrystal about the proposal. It can’t have just been the imaginings of American newspapermen, and I for one would love to know rationale behind the plan — and the reasons why it was abandoned.

Tags: 1870, America, James Chrystal, John Mitropolsky, New Orleans, New York, newspapers, Nicholas Bjerring, primary sources, Russian, San Francisco, St Innocent

A month ago, I did a podcast and wrote an article about the first two American Orthodox convert priests, James Chrystal and Nicholas Bjerring. Today, I’m publishing a brief biography I wrote on Chrystal (and which I adapted for use in the podcast).

James Chrystal was born in 1831, ordained an Episcopal deacon in 1859 and a priest shortly thereafter. In 1861, he published a book called A History of the Modes of Christian Baptism. In the Preface, Chrystal himself described the book as “an apology for the belief of the early Church, that Christ enjoined triune immersion.” Chrystal argued that sprinkling – the form of baptism practiced by both Roman Catholics and Anglicans – was insufficient and contrary to Christ’s teaching. The Orthodox Church, he concluded, had alone preserved the correct practice.

Naturally, Chrystal wanted to get one of these authentic baptisms for himself. So at the end of 1868 he traveled to Greece, where he sought out Archbishop Alexander of Syra. The Archbishop examined Chrystal and was impressed with his learning and his sincerity. A local Greek newspaper commented, “He has acquired such accuracy concerning the theoretical parts of theology, as few of the clergy and theologians among us possess.” Satisfied with Chrystal’s Orthodoxy, the Archbishop baptized him on the eve of Theophany “after the evening service, at about 5 P.M., in the Holy Temple of the Transfiguration, Mr. K.G. Drakopoulos, the Nomarch of the Cyclades, standing as his godfather.” Chrystal, being unmarried, had to obtain permission from the Holy Synod of Greece to be ordained. The Synod gave it, and within a few months Chrystal was ordained and then elevated to archimandrite.

The English Orthodox journal Orthodox Catholic Review (Dec/Jan 1868) noted that Chrystal “had for six years studied the Orthodox faith, and was fully convinced that it was the only true Catholic religion. The neophyte recited the Creed both in Greek and English. He intends entering the ministry of the Church, and will in due time become Bishop in Alaska, lately ceded by Russia to the United States. He is anxious to become a lawful medium between the Reunionist party of the Anglo-American Church and the Orthodox Church; and the Greek ecclesiastical authorities hailed his scheme. He is now busy in translating the necessary service-books into English.”

The Greek newspaper quoted earlier opined, “We [...] do not hesitate to believe, that the spread of Orthodox teaching being commenced in those places, we shall in a short time see formed there an Orthodox Church of many thousands, and the light of the East shining bright and clear even in that new world.” It then exclaimed, “What glory then will it be for the Greek Church and for our nation, if by means of this her learned priest she should send out first the shining lamp of Orthodoxy.”

Jonas King, a Protestant missionary in Greece, translated the Greek newspaper article for a Protestant journal in the United States (New York Evangelist, 4/8/1869). In conclusion, he commented sarcastically, “It may be well, perhaps, to give publicity to this novel transaction, so that the people beyond the wide Atlantic may be prepared to see the light, which, it is supposed, will soon break in upon them from the East.”

No such light would come from the East, at least not as a result of Chrystal’s conversion. See, James Chrystal had his own interpretation of Christianity. Fr. David Abramtsov explains, “The erratic Chrystal soon repudiated his ties with the Orthodox Church and, upon his return to America, formed his own Baptist-type sect.” Insofar as the Orthodox Church agreed with him – namely, in baptism – he wanted to be a part of it. But that fact was soon superseded by another. Just a year later, we find the following report: “Mr. Christal [sic] [...] could not subscribe to the articles of the Seventh Synod of the Greek church, relating to the images and creature worship.”

So James Chrystal could not accept the veneration of icons. He was hardly alone among Protestants. What escapes me is how he could have somehow not noticed them covering the walls of the cathedral in which he was baptized and ordained. Did he simply not look up? Was he – clearly a learned man, who had studied Orthodoxy for half a dozen years – unaware of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, or the Protestant objections to icons? Or did his views toward icons change in a matter of months?

In any event, it took the Orthodox some time to figure out that Chrystal was no longer himself Orthodox. In 1870, there were various reports that the Russian government planned to assign a bishop to New York and offered the job to Chrystal. He declined, citing his opposition to icons. Only a few months later, Fr. Nicholas Bjerring opened the doors of Holy Trinity Chapel in New York City.

As for Chrystal, he initially rejoined the Episcopal Church, but it wasn’t long before he was on the move again. In his own words, he left from the Episcopal Church “on account of unchecked and unpunished idolatry and service of creatures in it contrary to the faith of its reformers of blessed memory.” He continued his opposition to icons for the rest of his life. In an 1899 letter to the editor of the New York Times, Chrystal argued against the practice of kissing the Bible. He went on to publish a series of books on the Third Ecumenical Council, which he claimed supported his iconoclastic position. His argument, which he also made in his letter to the Times, was basically that since the Council condemned the division of Christ into two persons, divine and human, and thus condemned the worship of merely Christ’s humanity (rather than the single divine-human person of Christ), it implicitly forbade the veneration of any and all matter. Of this series, The Third World Council, Chrystal dedicated the second volume to the “Greek race” and the third to the “Russian people,” in both cases exhorting them to reject the Seventh Ecumenical Council and return, so said Chrystal, to true orthodoxy.

James Chrystal died in 1908 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was 77.

ONE OTHER THING: Chrystal – who, to my knowledge, never married – donated his personal papers to the New York Public Library upon his death. They’re still there, apparently available for researchers.

Tags: 1868, 1869, 1870, 1899, America, converts, Episcopalians, Greek, James Chrystal, New York, newspapers, primary sources