Tag: newspapers

An Antiochian wedding at the St. Louis World’s Fair

Editor's note: 106 years ago tomorrow -- and almost exactly one year before the Battle of Pacific Street -- St. Raphael officiated at a wedding in St. Louis. The English bride and Arab groom had a rather romantic backstory, and the wedding took place at the imitation Holy Sepulchre in the...

St. Raphael and the Battle of Pacific Street

As we've seen over the past couple of weeks, in September 1905, New York's Syrian community was on the brink of war. On one side were the Orthodox, who rallied around their bishop, St. Raphael Hawaweeny. The saint himself opposed violence -- both violent acts and violent words -- but...

“New York’s 6,000 Syrians & Their Colony”

Editor's note: The following article appeared in multiple newspapers (including the New York Sun and the Washington Post) on July 30, 1905 -- just a couple of weeks before New York's Syrian community became embroiled in a very public, very messy war between Orthodox and Maronites. In light of that...

The Eve of the Battle of Pacific Street

Last week, we left the two New York Syrian camps -- Orthodox and Maronite -- on the brink of war. Each side's partisan newspaper attacked the other, and the Maronites took particular aim at St. Raphael, the Orthodox bishop of Brooklyn, accusing him of all sorts of outlandish offenses. Various...

Trouble in Syrian New York

Way back in January, I began what I intended to be a series on the 1905 arrest and trial of St. Raphael Hawaweeny. I wrote only one article on the subject, though, and even that article was more of a collection of quotations from contemporary newspapers than an actual piece...

Michael Anagnos, “who made the sightless see”

Helen Keller was one of the most famous women in America in the early 20th century. Both deaf and blind, she overcame her disabilities to become a bestselling author and popular lecturer. Keller's tutor, Anne Sullivan, became rather famous in her own right, for her role in training the young...

P.T. Barnum’s widow married in NY Greek church

P.T. Barnum was the greatest showman of the 19th century. Today, he's most closely associated with the circus that bears his name, but in his own day, he was much more than a circus organizer. In an era before blockbuster movies, Barnum was the closest you could get to a...

Source of the week: an interview with Fr. Sebastian Dabovich

Editor's note: The following interview, with Fr. Sebastian Dabovich, originally appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and was reprinted in the Macon (GA) Telegraph on July 31, 1903. We're reprinting it here in full. Abbot Sebastian Dabovich, a priest high in the circles of the orthodox Russian church, passed through Seattle...

The American tour of a Greek archbishop in 1893

As we've discussed several times in the past, in 1893, a Greek archbishop visited the United States. His name was Archbishop Dionysius Latas of Zante, and he came to America to attend the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. That's where we last saw him; today, we'll pick up Abp...

Prayers for the President

Attend an American Orthodox parish today, of any jurisdiciton, and you're likely to hear prayers offered for the President of the United States (and, in some parishes, for the other branches of government as well). The first evidence I've been able to find of such prayers is from the journal...