Bishop Nicholas Ziorov (photo from Alaska's Digital Archives)

May 21, 1851: Michael Ziorov — the future Bishop Nicholas, head of the Russian Mission in North America — was born in the District of Kherson, in what was then the Russian Empire and what is today Ukraine. As a layman, he served as Inspector for two seminaries. At 36, he was tonsured a monk, ordained a priest, and appointed as rector of his alma mater, the prestigious Moscow Theological Academy.

In 1891, he was consecrated a bishop and placed in charge of the Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska. His task was difficult and complex. Not only was his new diocese geographically immense, but his predecessor, Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky, had been at the epicenter of near-constant scandal and conflict in his three-year tenure. Bishop Nicholas’ flock consisted of numerous Native Alaskan tribes struggling under their American overlords and predatory missionaries from the contiguous United States. In the rest of the country, he had immigrants from Greece, Serbia, Syria, and elsewhere; and the beginning of a flood of Carpatho-Rusyn converts from Greek Catholicism (Uniatism). Bishop Nicholas wasn’t perfect, but he did a pretty spectacular job in his seven years at the helm. In 1898, he was succeeded by Bishop Tikhon Bellavin, who built upon Nicholas’ foundation. In the process, the great Tikhon largely overshadowed his predecessor, who is, unfortunately, not well remembered today.

In the past, I’ve been as guilty as anyone else of writing off Bishop Nicholas in favor of Tikhon. But I was wrong: he was quite visionary in his own way, and proved himself to be a capable administrator and a good man. Someday, I hope someone will write a good article on Nicholas’ time in America. In many ways, his era, even more than Tikhon’s, set the stage for the century that followed.

After leaving America, Bishop Nicholas became an archbishop. He was Archbishop of Warsaw when World War I began, prompting him to move to St. Petersburg. He died there in 1915, thus avoiding the terrible events of 1917 and beyond.

May 26, 1868: St. Innocent Veniaminov, the great missionary to Alaska and Siberia, became Metropolitan of Moscow.

May 21, 1889: The Russian Orthodox cathedral in San Francisco was burned to the ground, and many suspected that it was the work of an arsonist. This was part of the whole Bishop Vladimir saga. It’s a topic that I really should write about one of these days, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. In 1997, Stanford professor Terrence Emmons wrote a riveting (but scandalously graphic) book about the whole affair, Alleged Sex and Threatened Violence. (The link takes you to the Google Books page where you can preview the book.) It’s by far the best piece of research anyone has done on the Bishop Vladimir era, but seriously — it’s really scandalous, so let the reader beware.

Archbishop Michael Konstantinides

May 27, 1892: The future Greek Archbishop Michael Konstantinides was born. In some ways, Archbishop Michael is sort of like the Bishop Nicholas Ziorov (discussed above) — sandwiched in between the larger-than-life Archbishops Athenagoras and Iakovos, the humble Michael has been largely forgotten. Which is really too bad, because Michael was both an effective hierarch, a fine scholar, and, by all accounts, a genuinely pious soul. A couple of years ago, we ran some articles on Archbishop Michael’s life; you can read them by clicking here, here, and here.

May 22, 1901: Bishop Tikhon Bellavin laid the cornerstone for St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City. He was assisted by a whole bunch of priests, including four saints (Frs. Raphael Hawaweeny, Alexis Toth, Alexander Hotovitzky, and Ilia Zotikov). If you click on Fr. Ilia’s name, in addition to reading a great article on his life (by Aram Sarkisian), you can view a newspaper photo from the cornerstone ceremony.

May 27, 1928: Fr. Sophronios Beshara was consecrated Bishop of Los Angeles for the “American Orthodox Catholic Church,” the quasi-autocephalous jurisdiction led by Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh. He was actually the first Orthodox bishop to take Los Angeles as his see.

May 27, 1964: Bishop Philaret Voznesensky was elected First Hierarch of ROCOR, succeeding the retiring Metropolitan Anastassy Gribanovsky.

May 22, 1965: Metropolitan Anastassy Gribanovsky, retired First Hierarch of ROCOR, died. Soon, we’ll be publishing an article on these two events, by ROCOR historian Dn. Andrei Psarev.

May 21, 1981: Ethiopian Orthodox funeral of reggae legend Bob Marley, in Kingston, Jamaica. Last year, Fr. Andrew posted the funeral program and video from the funeral, and that post has been one of the most-read pieces on our site.

May 26, 2010: The first meeting of the Assembly of Bishops began in New York. Our own Fr. Andrew was present at the event, and his firsthand accounts are some of the best primary sources on that historic gathering. Click here and here to read those articles.

May 24, 2011: For the first time in generations, bishops of the OCA and ROCOR concelebrated the Divine Liturgy. Christopher Orr wrote a guest article on this event last year; click here to read it.

This week in American Orthodox history (May 21-27) is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Fr. Ilia Zotikov

One of the little mysteries I’ve been meaning to research for some time has a bit of a family connection.  This past week, I finally had the opportunity to delve into it, and the results were far different than I ever anticipated.

My great-grandparents were married on May 2/15, 1908 at St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral in New York City.  As someone who specializes in that particular era, and who has focused a lot of research on events and figures at St. Nicholas at the time, it’s always been a bit of a curiosity as to which priest married them.  With the number of notable clegymen in and around New York at the time, and being a historian, I just had to know.  Last week, while having lunch with my grandmother (their youngest daughter, now 97 years old), I asked if she had their marriage certificate.  A few minutes later, she retrieved a rather fascinating set of documents from a file drawer, which included not only the answer to my original question, but also led me to something I think our readers would find interesting.

In 1916, my great-grandparents,who had moved to Detroit, wrote to the cathedral and requested the metrical records for their wedding and the baptisms of the three of their children who were born in New York.  In return, they received pre-printed forms designed for this purpose, with the requested information from the metrical books filled in by hand by Vsevolod Andronoff, the cathedral’s deacon, and signed by Fr. Leonid Turkevich (the future Metropolitan Leonty), then the Dean of the Cathedral.

Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky (third from left) and Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny (fourth from left) assisting Bp. Tikhon at the blessing of the cornerstone of St. Nicholas Church, New York City, May 22, 1901

In the record for the marriage, I was surprised to find the name of a priest I had never seen before:  Fr. Ilia Zotikov.  When I got home, I searched through the print and online sources I normally use to find information on priests, and found surprisingly little.  Other than the fact that he was in New York at the early part of the 20^th century, Zotikov seemed to have fallen into obscurity.  Then, like any crafty, 21^st-century researcher, I ran a Google search in Russian.  Dozens of hits popped up.  This is where the story became something quite interesting.

In 1922, Fr. Ilia Zotikov, like untold thousands in his vocation during the Soviet era, was forced into the murky abyss of the Soviet prison system, where his personal and professional lives were interrupted by a dizzying series of arrests, trials, imprisonments, exile, and ultimately, death.  Of course, Orthodox Americans are quite familiar with the Hieromartyr Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky, who is depicted and venerated in iconography throughout the world, and whose biography has been published far and wide.  This has as much to do with the circumstances of his various trials and ultimate martyrdom in the Gulag in the Soviet Union as his prominence in the North American Diocese during the nearly two decades he served in the United States.  Yet the same cannot be said for Zotikov, even though his life, ministry, and subsequent fate were quite similar, and intrinsically tied, to those of Hotovitzky.

Ilia Ivanovich Zotikov was born into a priestly family in Finland in 1863.  He was educated at the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary, where his classmates included John Kochurov and Alexander Hotovitzky.  In 1895, Zotikov was one of a number of Russian seminarians recruited for service as missionaries in America by Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, Bishop of Alaska and the Aleutians.  Zotikov was assigned to be an assistant to Fr. Evtikhy Balanovitch, and both were sent to New York City to start the small parish that would ultimately become St. Nicholas Cathedral.

They arrived in New York with their wives, both named Mary, on April 1, 1895 (NY Sun, 4/2/1895).  On May 19^th, Bp. Nicholas ordained Zotikov to the priesthood in the parish’s tiny house parlor sanctuary at 323 2^nd Avenue (New York Herald, 5/20/1895).  When Balanovitch left St. Nicholas in 1896, Zotikov stayed on to assist Balanovitch’s replacement, his seminary classmate Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky, who had been ordained a priest in San Francisco earlier in the year.  Together they were instrumental in both the growth of the congregation and the subsequent building of the parish’s new church on 97^th Street, which would become the cathedral of the entire North American Diocese in 1905.  Hotovitzky became the Cathedral Dean, and Zotikov the Sacristan.  It was there that Zotikov officiated the marriage of my great-grandparents in 1908, and where, as my grandmother’s files revealed, Hotovitzky baptized their first daughter two years later.

In the late summer of 1910, Zotikov returned to Russia. For most of the ensuing decade, he served in various parishes in St. Petersburg.  In 1919, he was reassigned to Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, where, alongside Hotovitzky, he served as Sacristan of the Cathedral and assistant to Patriarch Tikhon, in a nearly identical arrangement to that at St. Nicholas Cathedral more than a decade before.  There, the Patriarch, Hotovitzky, Zotikov, and Cathedral Dean Fr. Nicholas Arseniev were on the front lines of the defense against the repression of the Church by the Bolshevik government.  Both Patriarch Tikhon and Fr. Alexander would be arrested and imprisoned multiple times in the early years of Bolshevik rule.

Metropolitan Benjamin of St. Petersburg, a seminary classmate of Frs. Hotovitzky and Zotikov, before the Petrograd Revolutionary Tribunal, June 1922

In early 1922, the Bolshevik government ordered the seizure of all ecclesiastical vessels and objects of value held by the Church.  This was met with resistance by clergy and laity alike.  The clergy of Christ the Savior Cathedral, led by Hotovitzky, were especially instrumental in resisting the order, and meetings were held at Hotovitzky’s apartment to draft resolutions in opposition.  For his participation in these meetings, Zotikov was amongst a group of clergy and laity arrested in the spring of 1922, and was subsequently sent to Butyrki Prison.

In December, Zotikov, Hotovitzky, and others appeared before the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal.  Hotovitzky and two others were given ten-year sentences.  Most of the others, Zotikov amongst them, were sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and one year of deprivation of civil rights.  Appeals were unsuccessful, but in late 1923, many of the sentences were cut short on amnesty.  Zotikov returned to Christ the Savior, and in 1924, was reassigned to the Descent of the Holy Spirit, where he remained for several years.  Hotovitzky was left without a parish assignment, instead filling in where he was needed.

Zotikov was arrested again in June 1927.  Found to be in possession of the “Solovki Declaration,” a document issued by bishops imprisoned in the Solovki prison camp in opposition to the Soviet government, Zotikov was again imprisoned at Butyrki, put on trial, and sentenced to three years of exile in Vladimir, about 120 miles east of Moscow.  There, he became rector of a small cemetery chapel then serving as the cathedral for the entire Diocese of Vladimir following the forced closure of Dormition Cathedral earlier in 1927.  By this point in time, Soviet law had restricted the clergy from nearly every aspect of their vocations, leaving priests like Zotikov on dangerous ground as they attempted to perform even the most basic sacramental duties.  By 1929, widespread arrests of clergymen were underway.

In 1993, the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate published an article by Andrei Kozarzhevsky about parish life in Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s, which sheds some light on this period of Zotikov’s life.  (Thе article was recently translated into English and published on the Russian website Pravoslavie.ru.)  Kozarzhevsky was baptized by Zotikov in 1918, and was well acquainted with both Zotikov and Hotovitzky in his adolescence.  As a child, he assisted Zotikov during services in Vladimir, and recalled Zotikov’s third arrest, on October 13^th, 1930, for “membership in a counter-revolutionary organization of churchmen,” that being the Church.

On October 19^th, 1930, Zotikov was convicted by the OGPU (the arm of the Soviet secret police who spearheaded the repression of religious groups) and was relegated to the notoriously brutal Vladimir Central Prison.  On October 23^rd, Zotikov was sent for execution.  Some sources state both he and Protodeacon Michael Lebedev were shot by a firing squad, though Kozarzhevsky claims he suffered a fatal heart attack on the way to the execution.   Regardless, Fr. Ilia Zotikov is considered a Hieromartyr, and is commemorated according to the church calendar with the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia on January 25/February 7.

Andrei Kozarzhevsky’s recollections of Zotikov do not end with his death.  After Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky was martyred in the Gulag in 1937, Kozarzhevsky came into possession of a few of Hotovitzky’s personal effects, including a copy of a poem written by Hotovitzky in New York during the summer of 1910, on the occasion of a “triple event:” The feast of St. Elias, Zotikov’s name-day, and his imminent departure for Russia.

By any measure, it is clear that Zotikov and Hotovitzky (and their wives) were particularly close, a bond which apparently began in seminary, yet was forged largely in America.  When Hotovitzky departed for Russia in 1900 to raise money for the building of St. Nicholas Church, it was Zotikov who officiated the service blessing his trip.  When the church complex was finished, the Hotovitzkys and Zotikovs were neighbors in its apartments.  Mary Hotovitzky and Mary Zotikov later served together on the board of the Cathedral Sisterhood.

Far away from their native land, the two former classmates depended on each other, and continued to do so after they were reunited in Russia, where they ultimately met similar fates in the Gulag.  It is no surprise, then, that Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky’s 1910 poem was “dedicated to my best friend Fr. Ilia Zotikov.”

A note on sources:  Much of the metrical data for this article, including the particular dates of Fr. Zotikov’s biography, can be found (in Russian) here.  Additionally, biographical details and a brief biography of Zotikov can be found in The Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Central Russia (Vladimir Moss, 2009, 657-8), available for download (along with other similar works) here.

Fr. Ilia Zotikov: A Hieromartyr in a File Drawer is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

I don’t really have the expertise to outline the history of the Old Catholic movement, but suffice it to say that, in the latter half of the 19th century (and especially after the first Vatican Council in 1870, which promulgated the dogma of papal infallibility), a number of Roman Catholics broke away from their church.

Joseph Rene Vilatte was born in Paris in 1854. Originally, he was a Roman Catholic, but he became the quintessential religious chameleon as an adult. In the 1880s he came to the United States, where he served as a Presbyterian missionary in a Belgian Old Catholic community in Green Bay, Wisconsin. While there, he made contact with local Episcopal Bishop John Brown of Fond du Lac, who in turn recommended to the Old Catholic Bishop Edward Herzog of Bern, Switzerland that Vilatte be ordained a priest. This took place in 1886.

Soon, Bishop Brown died, and the new Episcopal bishop of Fond du Lac, Charles Grafton (the future friend of St. Tikhon), did not see eye to eye with Vilatte. Forced to make a choice between Episcopalianism and Old Catholicism, Vilatte chose the latter, and he tried to have himself consecrated a bishop in the Old Catholic Church. The church authorities in Europe declined. This is where our story begins. [Incidentally, this preliminary information on Vilatte comes from Theodore Natsoulas, "Patriarch McGuire and the Spread of the African Orthodox Church to Africa, Journal of Religion in Africa 12:2 (1981), 81-104. This is one of the only scholarly sources which discusses Vilatte at any length.]

Vilatte wanted to be consecrated a bishop, and he wanted as much autonomy as possible. That is the first thing to understand. In the paper cited above, Theodore Natsoulas says that the Old Catholics turned down Vilatte because he was “unpredictable,” and they did not want him to be their sole representative in America. Here is how Natsoulas describes what happened next:

[Vilatte's] attempts to be raised to the episcopate included approaches to the Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in America and to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Green Bay. Both turned him down, although Vladimir, the Russian Bishop, in order to incorporate the Old Catholics within his fold, did extend some form of recognition and protection to Vilatte and the Old Catholic Church. Vladimir and Vilatte, however, could not arrive at a mutually satisfactory agreement.

It all began when Vilatte traveled to San Francisco to meet with Bishop Vladimir, sometime in 1890 or early 1891. Interestingly, this coincided almost precisely with the visit of a delegation of Uniates from St. Alexis Toth’s parish in Minneapolis. It must have been amazing for Bishop Vladimir, sitting there in San Francisco, to receive near-simultaneous unsolicited visits from two Upper Midwest groups connected to Roman Catholicism and seeking reception into the Orthodox Church.

Bishop Vladimir traveled to Minneapolis in March of 1891 and formally received the Minneapolis parish into Orthodoxy. After that historic visit, Vladimir passed through Chicago, which had a sizeable Orthodox community which was determined to remain independent of the controversial Bishop Vladimir. He left Chicago on April 10, and by April 11 he was in Green Bay. The Milwaukee Sentinel reported the next day that Vladimir came for the purpose of visiting Vilatte and his Old Catholic parish in nearby Dyckesville. The Russian bishop “expressed great sympathy with [Vilatte's] work, and it is stated that he was agreeably surprised to find that the doctrinal basis of the Old Catholics at this place, and that of his own large church of 100,000,000 souls were precisely identical.”

But what, exactly, was the relationship between the Russian Diocese and the Old Catholics in Wisconsin? According to a web-published biography of Vilatte by Bertil Persson (the reliability of which is unclear), Vilatte had originally visited Bishop Vladimir in San Francisco in January 1891, at which time Vladimir “approached The Holy Synod of The Russian Orthodox Church suggesting that Vilatte should be consecrated.” I don’t doubt that Bishop Vladimir notified the Holy Synod of Vilatte’s visit, but I cannot believe that he actually suggested that the Russian Church consecrate the man.

Also according to the Persson biography, after visiting Vilatte’s parish in April, Bishop Vladimir issued the following certificate:

CERTIFICATE. The Russian Ecclesiastical Consistory of Alaska, San Francisco, Cal: May 9, 1891. By the Grace of God and the Authority bestowed on me by the Apostolic Succession, I, VLADIMIR, Bishop of the Orthodox Catholic Church, announce to all clergymen of the different Christian denominations and to all Old Catholics that The Reverend Joseph René Vilatte, Superior of the Old Catholic Parish in Dyckesville, Wisc:, is now a true Old Catholic Orthodox Christian, under the patronage of our Church, and no Bishop or Priest of any denomination has the right to interdict him or to suspend his religious duties, except the Holy Synod of the Russian Church, and myself. Any action contrary to this declaration, is null and void on the basis of liberty of conscience and the law of this country. ‡VLADIMIR, Bishop of the Greco-Russian Orthodox Ch.

I have no idea whether this document is authentic or not, and unfortunately, Persson only reprinted the text, so we can’t examine the letterhead or Bishop Vladimir’s signature.

Anyway, Bishop Vladimir was recalled to Russia soon after all this, in the wake of a series of scandals in his San Francisco cathedral. His replacement, Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, visited the Wisconsin Old Catholics in May 1892. According to Dom Augustine de Angelis in the Fond Du Lac Reporter (quoted in the Milwaukee Sentinel, 5/16/1892), “Bishop Nicholas, head of the Greek church in America, visited the Old Catholic mission at Dyckesville, last Monday. He has been in America only a month and a half, but has already made his episcopal visitation of the Orthodox and Old Catholic churches, preparatory to his annual visitation of the vast region of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. [...] His first impressions of America and Americans are very favorable, and he sympathizes with us in our hopes of seeing an Orthodox American church, in which mass shall be said in English, French, German, etc., until all have become so American that English shall be the common tongue of all…”

But the parish priest, Vilatte, wasn’t there. He was in Sri Lanka (Ceylon), awaiting his long-sought consecration to the episcopate. He had found a taker in the ancient Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the non-Chalcedonian church in India. Vilatte never seems to have considered himself to be a Malankara Syrian Orthodox; he was interested in their apostolic succession, not their actual Church. (As Theodore Natsoulas puts it, “Vilatte’s commitment to the [Malankara] Church of Antioch, or, in fact, to any other religious organization, never was very deep.”) He returned to Dyckesville in August, and on September 11, the New York Times reported that Vilatte had created the American Catholic Church. Needless to say, any connection he might have had with the Russian Diocese of the Aleutian Islands was dead by this point.

Vilatte went on to an exceedingly colorful career as a vagante bishop, and many little Old Catholic and pseudo-Orthodox groups have websites claiming “apostolic succession” through him. More importantly for our purposes, Vilatte remained in occasional contact with Orthodoxy. Robert Josias Morgan — soon to become Fr. Raphael, the first black Orthodox priest in America — was briefly a deacon in Vilatte’s church in the early 1900s. And many years later, in 1921, Vilatte consecrated George Alexander McGuire, who immediately formed the “African Orthodox Church.”

Was Vilatte’s Old Catholic parish once a part of the Russian Orthodox Church? Even if we assume that the purported certificate from Bishop Vladimir is authentic, I’m really not sure. Bishop Vladimir may have viewed St. Alexis Toth and Joseph Rene Vilatte as parallel church leaders, and he may have imagined that, just as Toth began a flood of Uniate conversions to Orthodoxy, so too Vilatte would be the first of thousands of Old Catholics to join the Russian Mission. But from Vilatte’s perspective, this whole idea would have been laughable. He was, it seems, utterly committed to becoming a vagante bishop. He wanted a mechanical, legalistic “apostolic succession,” and then he wanted to be left to his own devices. There is simply no way that he, or his Wisconsin parish, could have been effectively incorporated into the Russian Mission.

Much of this story remains a mystery, but at this juncture, I am most struck by the contrast between Toth and Vilatte, both of whom, in their own very different ways, made substantial impacts on the religious life of the United States in the decades that followed.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Joseph Vilatte and the Wisconsin Old Catholics, 1891-92 is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Clergy surrounding the body of St. Raphael. This photo is mentioned by Isabel Hapgood in her March 8, 1915 article.

Editor’s note: The following article was written by Isabel Hapgood and appeared in the New York Tribune on March 8, 1915. It is the most complete surviving description of the funeral of St. Raphael, who died on February 27, 1915. Hapgood herself had known St. Raphael for nearly two decades, from the time that he first arrived in America.

The first Syro-Arabian Bishop in America was buried yesterday in a tomb beneath the Syro-Arabian Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Brooklyn, which forms his monument.

Bishop Raphael Hawaweeny was born in Damascus, a pure Arab. [In fact, St. Raphael's family was from Damascus, but he was born in Beirut. - Ed.] From the Patriarchal Theological School, at Khalki, he went to Russia and became so identified with the spirit of the country that he was wont to say, “In soul I am a Russian.” He went in a monastery at Kiev for six years, and then was professor of Arabic at the University of Kazan. A desire for active work brought him to America.

In Russia he was ordained, and it was under the auspices of the Holy Synod that he labored here. On several occasions the Patriarch of Antioch offered him the rank of Metropolitan in his native Syria. It is probable that had he returned he would have become Patriarch, but he felt that his work was among the 25,000 Syro-Arabians here, whom he had organized into thirty parishes.

He came to this country in 1895. His first church was on the second floor of a house in Washington Street, Manhattan. How the floor bore up under the masses of worshippers, especially when the Russian Bishop held services there on his infrequent visits from San Francisco (then the seat of the Russian diocese), I never understood. Another dispensation of Providence was required to avert a catastrophe when we adjourned to the floor above and enjoyed a genuine Arab feast, ending with Arab coffee flavored with rosewater from Syria. All the partitions and supports below had been removed to make space in the church.

Bishop Nicholas, now Archbishop of Warsaw, remarked to me on one occasion: “I know now exactly how Louis XIV felt when he had to eat in public!”

After the feast a couple of handsome young fellows (ladies’ tailors by their American profession) in Albanian costume performed the famous sword play over the oilclothed floor, upon which dressy lengths of ingrain carpet had been loosely laid, with such vigor that they literally cut the gas jets, partly smashed the fixtures and had to be separated by the umpire, who interposed with a dagger — more Providence!

One day a pistol flew from one of the swordsmen’s sashes across the room and landed at my feet — that illustrates the vigor of the proceedings. I captured it and refused to return it until the end of the session — and thereafter, instead of sitting at the side of the room, I took a safe seat by the side of the Russian Bishop.

A few years passed and Father Raphael was able to move his church to a building on Pacific Street, near Hoyt Street, which later on became a cathedral. That was in 1904. Early that year he was raised to the rank of Archimandrite, and in May of that year he was consecrated Bishop, and became the second Vicar of the Russian Archbishop.

Ordinarily three bishops are required for consecration. In this case, owing to its exigencies, only two officiated, the Most Revered Tikhon, Archbishop of Aleutia and North America, now Archbishop of Vilna, and the Right Rev. Innokentz, first Vicar, later Bishop of Yakutsk and Viluisk, and now Archbishop of Tashkent, in Turkestan. That is, I am sure, the only ocasion [sic] when a Bishop of the Orthodox Eastern Church has been consecrated in America, and a wonderful service it was.

The Russian Ambassador, not being able to come, sent his representative, who sat at the right hand of the new Bishop at the banquet which followed. As the only representative of America and the Episcopal Church, I was placed at his left hand, opposite the consecrating prelates, and was called on for a speech after the Ambassador’s representative had conveyed his formal message.

In course of time Bishop Raphael came to know many of the Episcopal clergy, and was highly respected by them. His later alienation from them is regarded as having arisen under misapprehension. By his own people he was cherished as the man to whom they owed their beneficent organizations. The Young Turk element quarrelled with him for reciting the formal prayer for the Sultan, as the ruler of Syria, in the services, and several attempts were made on his life. At times he was obliged to go about with a guard, and I met him in the Syrian restaurants dining with a guard on duty. But he lived down their enmity.

Bishop Raphael died, after an illness of three weeks, from dropsy, kidney trouble and heart disease, worn and gray as a man of seventy with his toils and sufferings.

For a week he lay in state in his cathedral, and morning and evening requiem services were held by the Right Rev. Alexander, Bishop of Alaska, assisted by Russian and Syrian clergy. A wonderful service, picturesque in setting.

Across the foot of the open coffin was draped the purple episcopal mantle, with its crimson velvet “tables of the law.” Over the face lay a sacramental veil of white and silver brocade, embroidered with a gold cross. At the head of the coffin stood pontifical candles, but no longer lighted, as during pontifical service. They were tied with black ribbons, so that their tips spread abroad, reversed and unlighted. Between them, leaning against the head of the catafalque and the coffin rose the crozier. Behind, on a folding lectern, lay a purple velvet cushion, on which were placed the orders and decorations which the Bishop had received, many from Russia. The holy doors in the centre of the ikonostasis, with its many ikoni, were closed and draped in black and gold, purple and silver. All about the walls were more ikoni, and huge floral pieces surrounded the coffin. One of the set pieces was an armchair, of white artificial flowers, with sprays of lavender flowers and surmounted by a canopy or arched gateway of palms, violet tulle and white flowers.

At the evening requiems the church was always filled. Many women waited for hours to secure front seats in the little gallery. More women thronged every step of the stairs. The Syrian priests, in passing, kissed the dead Bishop’s hand, after kissing the cross. The Russian Bishop and priests passed without saluting cross and hand.

The gospels were read night and day, instead of Psalms, as with a layman, by relays of clergy. The Syrians relieved one another at frequent intervals, and showed the finest, most varied forms of intoning.

Bishop Alexander who, by command of the Holy Synod, has charge of the vast Russian Diocese of North America until the newly appointed Archbishop shall arrive, stood at the services motionless (“like a candle” is the Russian term.)

Thursday evening, at the close of the services, a picture was taken of the dead Bishop and the circle of celebrating clergy. After the clergy had retired, representatives of all the Syrian societies, including women, made addresses from the chancel platform about the great work which Bishop Raphael had accomplished for his people in America.

Saturday morning, after the liturgy had been celebrated in Old Church Slavonic and Greek by Bishop Alexander and his clergy, and in Syrian by the Syrians, while the choir of the Russian Theological Seminary from Tenafly, N.J., sang their part in Slavonic, two requiem services were held, the first by the Metropolitan Hermanos Shehadah, of Selveskia Mount Lebanon [should be Baalbek - ed.], Syria (his black, waist-long hair concealed beneath his black cassock and cloth of silver pall) and the Syrian clergy; and the second by Bishop Alexander and a few Russian priests, the seminary choir singing. The Syrian clergy no longer kissed the dead Bishop’s right hand. That lay at rest forevermore. The raised left hand supported a large cross, and this alone was saluted.

Yesterday morning, at 10 o’clock, the liturgy was celebrated by Bishop Alexander, standing at the right of Metropolitan Hermanos, on their eagle rugs upon the dais at the head of Bishop Raphael’s coffin. As was customary, Bishop Alexander was vested on the dais in magnificent vestments of silver brocade. Metropolitan Hermanos wore gold brocade and the tall Metropolitan’s mitre of crimson velvet and gold, from whose crest rose a diamond cross. The choir of the Russian St. Nicholas Cathedral sang, except during the brief intervals when the Syrians chanted.

At a layman’s funeral the clergy wear black velvet and silver; at the funeral of a priest or bishop, no mourning is worn and the flowerlike vestments of the priests, mingling with the magnificent floral pieces, produce a very brilliant effect. The Syrian deacon wore pink brocade with a stole of blue and gold. As only 500 people were allowed by the authorities inside the cathedral, there was space for the ceremony of processions to and from the altar. At 12 o’clock the liturgy ended. At 1:30 the funeral began.

The singing was now done for the Syrians by the boys’ and girls’ choir of the Sunday school, wearing white vestments with lavender crosses, the girls, with mortarboard caps, occasionally assisting the clergy. The Russian singing was done by the clergy, assisted by the adult members of the choir. In all there were about forty priests, Russian and Syrian, who chanted, the Russians led by Archdeacon Vsevolod, of the Russian Cathedral, with his magnificent voice.

Among the hymns, which show the spirit of the service, were:

“Give rest, O Lord, to the soul of thy servant and establish him in Paradise. Where the choirs of the saints, O Lord, and of the just, shine like the stars of heaven, give rest to thy servant, who hath fallen asleep, regarding not all his transgressions.”

“Forasmuch as we all are constrained to that same dread abode, and shall hide ourselves beneath a gravestone like to this, and shall ourselves shortly turn to dust, let us implore of Christ rest for him who hath been translated hence.”

In the Eastern Church there are several orders of burial. One is for a child under seven years old, in which no mention is made of sin, because a child’s soul “is not grown,” as the Russians say, until he is seven. Another is for adult laymen; a third, for those who die in Easter week, in which there are almost no songs of mourning, but all are songs of the joy of the Resurrection; the fourth, for dead priests, has five epistles and five gospels. These were read by the Syrians and the Russians alternately, as were the many hymns, most of which were written by St. John of Damascus.

Then at last the clergy made addresses, Father Basil Kerbawy, dean of the cathedral, Father Sergius Snegyeroff and others, in praise of the Bishop. Father Kerbawy reduced the congregations to tears. Bishop Alexander made the last speech, directly addressing the dead as he stood by the coffin.

After “Memory Eternal” had been proclaimed in Syrian and in Old Church Slavonic, with the addition of the Bishop’s title and name, the procession formed. It is customary to carry the body of a Bishop around the outside of the church and to hold a brief service on each of the four sides before going to the graveyard. This constituted the funeral procession in the present case, as its route was along Pacific Street to Henry Street, thence to State Street, then to Nevins Street and back along Pacific Street to the cathedral.

The procession formed in the following order: Cronin, political leader of the district; squad of mounted police; twenty to thirty small boys in white tunics, with lilac crosses and flowers; the Cathedral committee (honorary pall-bearers); girls, singing hymns; Syrian Ladies’ Aid Society; the Homsian Fraternity; the Syro-American Political Club; members of the various Syrian diocesan parishes; the United Syrian Societies; cathedral Sunday school pupils, carrying crosses, candles and church banners; coaches with floral offerings; Archimandrite [Aftimios] Aphaish of Montreal, carrying the cushion with the late Bishop’s orders; finally, St. Joseph’s Society of Boston.

The dead prelate was borne in an open coffin by the priests, the snowflakes drifting down upon his splendid mantle of purple, crimson and white, his golden mitre, and the white brocade sacramental veil which covered his face. The body was followed by the Orthodox clergy, both Syrian and Russian; last came Bishop Alexander of Alaska. The family of the deceased, parishioners and friends followed, women joining, although it is not the custom to do so abroad.

Directly beneath the altar the Bishop had built for himself a vault. On the return of the procession masses of the flowers were carried into the crypt, and the clergy surrounded the bronze coffin into which the mahogany casket was lowered. The Metropolitan Hermanos made the final address before the coffin was closed, and a most distressing scene of grief ensued. Not only the clergy, but many parishioners, cast earth upon the body of their beloved Bishop.

Isabel Hapgood: The death and funeral of St. Raphael is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Bishop Nicholas Ziorov (photo from Alaska's Digital Archives)

In September of 1896, Bishop Nicholas Ziorov made his first archpastoral visit to the brand-new parish of Ss. Constantine and Helen in Galveston, Texas. This multiethnic church was founded just a few months earlier by Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides, the great Greek archimandrite who served in the Russian Mission.

Just after the bishop’s arrival on September 19, a reporter from the Galveston Daily News paid him a visit (see Galveston Daily News, 9/20/1896). The reporter was told that Bishop Nicholas had fasted all day in preparation for the next day’s Divine Liturgy, and ”was about to retire into the room for the purpose of self communion and prayer.” On his way out, though, the reporter ran into Bishop Nicholas in the hall. The reporter wrote,

Bishop Nicholas is a typical Russian in appearance. He is large of frame, with a full, round face, somewhat thin beard and long, heavy, black hair. Though somewhat heavy, the features are those of a man with a strong mentality. From those who are in a position to know, it was understood that he is a man of great culture and scholarly attainments. He speaks very little English, but French and German fluently. He was attired in a long, black gown, similar to the ones used by the priests of the Roman church. From around his neck a gold chain was suspended, with a crucifix pendant.

Through a translator, Bishop Nicholas explained, “I am the only bishop on the American continents, and the head of the church in North and South America.” This is one of the earliest explicit assertions of Russian jurisdiction throughout the New World. The bishop continued, “My headquarters are in San Francisco, and I came here direct from that city. From what I have seen of Galveston, I think you have a beautiful city, and I like it very much.”

The reporter asked, “How many churches of the orthodox Russian-Greek faith are there in America?”

“There are about twenty-five churches and about sixty chapels scattered throughout the country,” the bishop said. “The largest are in Alaska, where the members are chiefly Russians, and therefore conform to the orthodox church. There are quite a number in Pennsylvania, but many of them do not belong to the orthodox church.” Of course, Bishop Nicholas was referring to the Uniate parishes, which began to join the Russian Mission in earnest during Bishiop Nicholas’ episcopate.

The reporter continued, “What is the difference between the orthodox and the unorthodox church?”

“The members of the orthodox church in America believe that God is the head of the chruch and the czar the first son of the church,” explained Bishop Nicholas, “while upon the other hand, owing to the political conditions of Russia, the people there have to believe that the head of the church is the pope. That is why the Russian people like America. They are free here to follow the dictates of their conscience, which they can not in Russia.”

I suspect that something got lost in the translation, because Bishop Nicholas was pretty obviously referring to the Carpatho-Rusyns living in Roman Catholic lands (particularly the Austro-Hungarian Empire), who retained many Orthodox traditions but acknowledged the authority of the Pope of Rome. The bishop certainly didn’t mean to say that otherwise-Orthodox people in Russia recognized the Pope and couldn’t “follow the dictates of their conscience” in Russia.

In any event, the interview concluded as follows:

“Is the church growing much in America?”

“Yes, it is growing steadily.”

“Do you expect to return or be recalled to Russia?”

“I may return, but not to work there. My field will be in America.”

The next day, Bishop Nicholas celebrated a hierarchical Divine Liturgy in the Galveston church (Daily News, 9/21). A few interesting notes about that service:

• The service commemorated “the bi-centenary of the independence of the church under Prince Nicholas of Montenegro.”
• The congregation was mostly composed of Greeks and “Slavonians” (mainly Serbs and Montenegrins). Bishop Nicholas may well have been the only Russian in the building.
• Prayers were offered for the Prince of Montenegro, the Tsar of Russia, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the clergy, and the President of the United States. The newspaper doesn’t mention it, but I assume that the Holy Synod of Russia was also commemorated.
• Bishop Nicholas gave his sermon, on the doctrines of the Church, in Slavonic, but Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides translated it into Greek.
• After the service, in addition to receiving holy bread, the parishioners were given “a religious book in Greek or Slavonic and a small metal cross,” both gifts from the bishop.
• Also after the service, Bishop Nicholas appointed the trustees and officers of the church. I don’t know if the parish held elections which were merely ratified by the bishop, or if Bishop Nicholas actually made all the choices himself.

Bishop Nicholas left Galveston for New Orleans the following day, September 21. Just before he left, a Galveston Daily News reporter (probably the same one mentioned above) caught up with him for a final interview. Here is the resulting article, in full (Daily News, 9/22):

Bishop Nicholas, the head of the Russian Greek orthodox church on the continent of America, left Galveston yesterday afternoon at 4.30 for New Orleans, en route to Chicago and the larger cities of the east.

A News reporter called upon the reverend gentleman a few hours prior to his reparture and found him just about to partake of some tea with a dash of lemon in it, a la Russian. He courteously invited the reporter to join him in a cup, which invitation was promptly accepted.

In response to the quesiton if he had enjoyed his stay here, the bishop replied in the affirmative with considerable emphasis.

“I like Galveston very much,” he said by way of continuation. “It is a beautiful city, but a little too warm just now. I shall try to come here and make a long stay — say about two months.”

“You did not dedicate the new church yesterday?”

“No; the report in The Galveston News of this morning was correct about that. The people of the church here are going to try to build a residence for the pastor, a school house and make other improvements. I shall try to come back again in December next. I will dedicate the church then.”

The bishop here rose and, going to a desk at the other end of the room, took from it a small book and, handing it to the reporter, said with a smile:

“If you will study that you will be able to give the service in full when I come again.”

The book contained the liturgies of the Russian Greek church, printed in Greek on one side and English on the other. The paper was of fine quality and the book was neatly bound.

“Where are you going from here?” inquired the scribe after he had returned due thanks for the gift.

“I go to New Orleans from Galveston, then to Chicago, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York and other large places,” replied the bishop.

“In what condition did you find the affairs of the church here?”

“O, very good; very satisfactory. When I come back I will tell you all you want to know about the church, but I must now prepare to take the train,” and the bishop rose as an indication that the interview was ended.

It’s not known whether Bishop Nicholas visited the Orthodox church in New Orleans when he passed through the city. There is no evidence that the parish was a part of his diocese, but given Bishop Nicholas’ own view that he had jurisdiction over the entire Western Hemisphere, he may well have considered the New Orleans parish to be under his authority. It would be very interesting to know what, if any, contacts the New Orleans Orthodox community had with the Russian bishop.

In any case, Bishop Nicholas can’t have been in New Orleans for very long. He arrived in New York on September 25, in time to celebrate the Elevation of the Cross with two of his newest priests, St. Raphael Hawaweeny and St. Alexander Hotovitzky (New York Times, 9/26/1896).

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

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Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, head of the Russian Mission from 1891 to 1898

Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, head of the Russian Mission in America from 1891 to 1898, is one of the most underappreciated people in American Orthodox history. I am afraid that I have done nothing to help this state of affairs. Back in June, I wrote dismissively that Bishop Nicholas “was a good man, but was also a Russian nationalist whose primary focus was (quite understandably) on the conversion of Uniates to Orthodoxy and their subsequent Russification.”

I based my assessment on a 1967 article by Fr. Alexander Doumouras (“Greek Orthodox Communities in America Before World War I,” published in St. Vladimir’s Quarterly). In the section dealing with San Francisco, Doumouras wrote the following:

It could also be that statements such as the following excerpt from a homily by Bishop Nicholas in 1896, helped to create division between the Greek and Russian parishioners. The sermon centered around the feast of St. Alexander Nevsky. Since it was also the feast of the Russian Tsar, the bishop urged his people to celebrate this particular feast with gratitude in their hearts to the Tsar of the Russian Empire: “It is meet that Orthodox Christians of foreign nationalities — Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, Montenegrins, Roumanians, Georgians and others — should, as well as the Russian, celebrate the high feast days of the Russian Church. It is meet — if only out of sympathy with an Empire that followed the same religion. … But this is not enough; all Orthodox nationalities should be inspired in this matter by a feeling of gratitude to the Russian Empire; for the Russian sovereigns have always been zealous guardians and defenders of Orthodoxy all over the world.” It is not difficult to sense that such an expression of Russian nationalism could have antagonized Greek sensitivities and that shortly after the beginning of the twentieth century, a Greek parish came into existence in San Francisco.

When I first read that passage, I had barely heard of Bishop Nicholas, and the idea of him as a mere nationalist got stuck in my head,  in spite of all the facts to the contrary. Maybe he was a nationalist, but in the late 19th century, who wasn’t? Regardless, it’s clear that he was more than a nationalist.

The reality is that much of what St. Tikhon is credited with doing was actually accomplished by his predecessor, Bishop Nicholas. Yes, St. Tikhon was a visionary — but in many respects he was continuing, implementing, and expanding upon the vision of Bishop Nicholas. It was Nicholas, not Tikhon, who recruited gifted young men like St. Alexander Hotovitzky, St. John Kochurov, and St. Anatolii Kamenskii to serve in America. Bishop Nicholas ordained Hotovitzky and Kochurov to the priesthood, as well as the great Serbian priest Fr. Sebastian Dabovich. And it was Nicholas, not Tikhon, who first set up special ministries for different ethnic groups, empowering Dabovich and importing talented clergy such as St. Raphael Hawaweeny and Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides. The flood of Uniates into Orthodoxy began with the conversion of St. Alexis Toth shortly before Bishop Nicholas arrived in America, but it was under Nicholas that the “return of the Unia” really picked up steam.

Bishop Nicholas came in 1891 to a diocese that was reeling from the scandals of Bishop Vladimir, a diocese that had not experienced hierarchical stability since the drowning/suicide of Bishop Nestor Zass in 1883. The diocese in 1891 was centered in Alaska, with only two parishes in the continguous United States (San Francisco and Minneapolis). While not neglecting Alaska (he was a great advocate for the Orthodox natives), Bishop Nicholas oversaw dramatic growth in the rest of the US, with an average of about two new parishes founded every year. Whereas the diocese was tiny and weak in 1891, by the time of Nicholas’ departure in 1898, it was thriving and healthy. St. Tikhon, Nicholas’ successor, was able to accomplish so much because he was a genuinely great man, but also because he took the reins of a diocese made strong by Bishop Nicholas.

After leaving America, Nicholas served as Archbishop of Tver and Kashin, and later Archbishop of Warsaw. He died in 1915.

Nicholas Ziorov may not have been the perfect hierarch, he was one of the most stable, effective bishops American Orthodoxy has ever seen. He provided strong, sound leadership and a forward-thinking vision at a critical time in our history. His tenure and his legacy warrant further study.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Correcting the record on Bishop Nicholas Ziorov is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

New York had no Russian church in 1894, so the Russian consul and numerous other dignitaries converged on the Greek church of Holy Trinity, on West 53rd Street. Here is how the New York Times described the event the next day:

The church was draped in black and white, and the walls were covered with a background of white, relieved at intervals with white crosses. Flags of Russia, Greece, and the United States hung in the forward part of the church, and in front of the altar was a canopy of black crepe, with a wreath of violets on one side, and another of white roses on the other side.

Father Matrofani, a Russian monk, conducted the services, partly in Greek and partly in Russian, and Father Agathadora, the pastor of the church, assisted him. An introductory prayer in Russian opened the service, and then Father Matrofani appeared before the altar clad in full golden sacerdotal robes, accompanied by Father Agathadora, who wore a black surplice.

Both priests carried lighted candles, and Father Matrofani led the chant choir, which consisted of Mme. Eugenie Lineff, Mlle. Chacquin, and Peter Popoff. Two Greek gentlemen who stood to the left of the altar responded to some of the Greek chants.

A portion of the service which seemed queer to the Americans present was the eating of a portion of rice and a raisin by Father Matrofani at the conclusion of the singing. This is an old custom in the Greek Church, commemorative of the early Christianity, when the priests were fed by their congregations.

Following the Russian custom, the women were separated from their escorts upon entering the church, and were conducted to their seats in the aisle to the left of the altar by Consul General A.E. Alarovesky of the Russian Consulate.

The Times went on to list the many notable people who attended the service, including Russian officials, representatives of numerous countries, the granddaughter of the last Tsar of Georgia, and future St. Nicholas Cathedral founder Barbara MacGahan. The article concluded, “Father Matrofani, who is on his way from San Francisco to Russia, sailed on the Columbia  yesterday. Before going he expressed the hope that a Bishop of the Greek Church, now on his way to this country, would establish a Russian congregation here.”

The Times was slightly misinformed, as the bishop in question, Nicholas Ziorov, was already in America and had, in fact, conducted a memorial for the Tsar in Washington, DC on the very same day. This service is especially notable because it was attended by the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland. The following account is reprinted from the Daily New Mexican of Santa Fe (11/9/1894):

Profoundly impressive ceremonies were held at the Russian legation to day in memory of the late czar, Alexander II [sic]. President Cleveland and his entire cabinet, except Postmaster General Bissell, attended, accompanied by Mrs. Cleveland and the cabinet ladies. Foreign ambassadors and ministers, with their extensive suites, wearing their rich official and court costumes, were present in a body, lending a brilliant color to the solemn occasion. Ambassador Bayard and ex-Secretary of State Foster were also there. The service began at 9 o’clock with mass celebrated by Bishop Nicholas, of the Russian Greek church, assisted by a Greek monk and two attendants. These services lasted until 10 o’clock and were held in private, being attended only by Prince Count Cresene, Russian minister, his daughter and the officials of the Russian legation. At 10 o’clock, chants and prayers for the repose of the czar’s soul began in the presence of the president, the members of the cabinet and the diplomatic corps. Each participant held a wax candle throughout the service.

I’m not certain, but this may be the first Orthodox church service ever attended by a US President. When the previous Tsar, Alexander II, died in 1881, Fr. Nicholas Bjerring held a memorial in Washington, but President Garfield was unable to attend (Washington Post, 3/16/1881).

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

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This past weekend, those of us on the New Calendar celebrated the feast day of St. John Kochurov, the Russian New Martyr and former priest of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago. With that in mind, I thought I’d talk a bit about St. John’s arrival in Chicago.

John Kochurov was just 24 years old when he became a priest, in the summer of 1895. The ordination took place in Russia, but it was done by the visiting Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, the head of the Russian Mission in America, and Fr. John was to accompany Bishop Nicholas back to the United States. They arrived in November, just as Fr. Raphael Hawaweeny was getting settled in Brooklyn.

The young Fr. John was entering a bit of a sticky situation. From the Chicago Tribune (11/25/1895):

Nicholaei of St. Petersburg, Archbishop of All America, held solemn mass in the Greek [that is, Orthodox] Church, at No. 13 South Center avenue, yesterday morning for the installation of Father Kochureff as assistant priest of the parish. He was assisted by the local priest, Father Kazantsier, and assistant, and two pages from St. Petersburg. The vacancy of assistant priest was caused by a difference of opinion between Archbishop Nicholaei and R.A. Bouroff, late assistant pastor, who has come under the displeasure of his superiors by attendance at the University of Chicago.

Nearly 100 persons were crowded into the little room reserved for the congregation of the Greek Church in Chicago. It is the front room of a ground flat in a modest three-story building erected for a dwelling. The chancel occupies an adjoining front room. The service is more elaborate than that of the Roman Church, and differs radically in much of the ceremony, being conducted behind a high chancel screen, sometimes with the single entrance closed. All the appointments of the altar and chancel are different. The service is unique in many ways.

A pretty standard description of vestments, candles, etc. follows. Then, we read,

There is a division in the Greek congregation owing to the retirement of Assistant Priest Bouroff. It is said that a wing of the congregation is at outs with the authorities because of loyalty to the younger priest, who persists in carrying on his studies at President Harper’s institution. These members credit Archbishop Nicholaei with having caused the exile of more students to Siberia than any man in Russia. On this account it is easy to believe, they declare, that the Bishop of All America will never forgive the independence of ex-Assistant Pastor Bouroff.

About a dozen clergy from all over the country came to Chicago for Bishop Nicholas’ visit; these included Fr. Alexis Toth of Wilkes-Barre, Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky of New York, Fr. Anatolii Kamenskii of Sitka (the future bishop and confessor), and Fr. Theodore Pashkovsky of Jackson, CA (the future Metropolitan Theophilus).

Several things, right off the bat: Bishop Nicholas was not actually an archbishop, and his title was “Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska,” not “Bishop of All America.” Other newspapers give various names for the other Chicago priest; the most accurate rendition is probably “Fr. Pavel Kazanski.” Also, the Chicago Inter Ocean says that the parish is called “St. Ivan.” Originally it was “St. Nicholas,” and this was soon changed to “St. Vladimir” and later “Holy Trinity.” I’m not sure if, at some point, “St. Ivan” was used, or if this was a reporter’s mistake.

In the Tribune article quoted above, Fr. John Kochurov is named as the assistant priest, with Fr. Pavel Kazanski as the parish rector (having apparently replaced Fr. Ambrose Vretta, who was transferred to Seattle). However, I’ve found several reports from 1896 which put it the other way round, with Kochurov as the rector and Kazanski as his assistant. It’s possible that the earlier Tribune article got it wrong; certainly, it would be odd to have a formal “installation” for an assistant priest. Most probably, Kazanski held down the fort until Kochurov arrived, at which point the former became the latter’s assitant.

In any event, the most interesting part of this story is the Fr. Bouroff, who was apparently removed from his post for daring to attend the University of Chicago. I know some of our readers here have connections to that institution; perhaps there is something in the school’s archives which could shed more light on this episode?

Of course, for the Chicago parish, everything worked out fine in the end. Kochurov would prove to be a dedicated and exemplary pastor, and he would lead the community for more than a decade. It’s interesting; recently, we discussed the fact that Fr. Evtikhy Balanovitch, in New York, got into trouble and was replaced by a saint, Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky. Here, at exactly the same time, Fr. Bouroff got into trouble and was replaced by another saint, Fr. John Kochurov.

For the rest of the story on Fr. Basil Bouroff, click here.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

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The faithful of the Orthodox Church in America never considered any form of political dependence on Russia.  Just as in his own day the Russian Prince Vasili Dmitrievich (XIV century)  stopped commemorating the Byzantine emperor in Russian churches on the grounds that, although the Russians received the Church from Byzantium, “they did not receive the emperor and will not have him,” so too Bishop Nicholas Zyorov, in 1896, reported to the Holy Synod that, “the commemoration of the Emperor and the Reigning House during divine services brings forth dismay and apprehension among Orthodox in America of non-Russian background.  This practice is also a hindrance to the propagation of Orthodoxy among Russian Uniates who came to America from Austria-Hungary.” In an Ukase dated January 27, 1906, and addressed to Archbishop Tikhon, the Holy Synod confirmed the practice of commemorating the American President by name during divine services.

It’s not clear to me whether the Russian parishes in America actually ceased commemorating the Tsar, or whether they just began commemorating the US President along with the Russian Tsar. Frankly, I’d be very surprised if they simply removed the prayers for the Tsar altogether. They were, after all, still a diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Russian hierarchs were still subjects of the Russian Emperor. If anyone has more details on this, please let me know.

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Sketch of St. Herman of Alaska, by Valerian Gribayedoff (Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, July 1895)

As his name suggests, Valerian Gribayedoff was from Russia. He was born in Kronstadt in 1858, the son of a colonel in the Tsarist army. He studied in St. Petersburg and then went to England, where he appears to have been acquainted with the exiled French Emperor Napoleon III (aka Louis Napoleon). I’ll let the Wisconsin State Journal (8/21/1885) pick up his story:

Valerian wearied of home life and ran away to South America, where he entered the Chilian [sic] army as a drummer boy. At the close of the war with Peru he went to Russia and soon identified himself with certain political societies, which brought him under the notice of the government and compelled him to seek other climes. After a prolonged residence in Paris, Berlin and other European cities, he came to this country and engaged in journalism, which profession he followed until the craze for pictorial papers induced him to turn his artistic talents to account.

Gribayedoff did all this by the age of 25. He quickly became famous as an illustrator, renowned for his “keen insight into character” (New York Times, 2/17/1908) and his ability to convey that insight in black and white. When photography became more common, Gribayedoff learned how to use a camera, took photos, and then copied them as sketches. His works led directly to the rise of Sunday newspaper supplements, full of photos and illustrations.

He wasn’t just an illustrator, though. Gribayedoff continued his journalistic writing, tackling all manner of subjects. In 1895, he published his first and only full-length book, The French Invasion of Ireland. By this time, he was well-established as the leader of a growing group of New York-based illustrators.

Gribayedoff was tall, handsome, and charming. He made friends easily, and was a popular raconteur in late 19th century New York. He spoke many languages, and, having traveled throughout the world, he was as cultured as they come. His subjects didn’t even mind his camera; according to the Times, “his natural tact enabled him to take his pictures without the audacity of those who have taken his place.”

Sketch of Metropolitan Isidore of St. Petersburg, by Valerian Gribayedoff (Christian Union, 12/10/1892)

Coming from the Russian nobility, it is likely that Gribayedoff was baptized in the Orthodox Church, but it’s not clear whether he maintained his Orthodox faith into adulthood. Certainly, his period of youthful rebellion suggests that he probably abandoned Orthodoxy at some point; whether he rejoined the Church remains an open question.

That said, he made his own contribution to American Orthodox history, authoring (and illustrating) numerous articles on Orthodoxy for different US publications. In an 1892 article on the Russian Orthodox Church, Gribayedoff called it “that wonderful branch of organized Christianity.” After briefly recounting the history of Orthodoxy, he concluded, “It has a great mission to perform, and, on the whole, it is doing its work nobly.” (Christian Union, 12/10/1892)

Elsewhere, writing about Orthodox services aboard a Russian naval vessel, Gribayedoff said, “I cannot imagine a more grateful subject for the artist’s brush than these morning and evening devotions on board a Russian war-vessel, the rugged outlines of the worshipers softened by the dim half-light of early dawn or the twilight of evening; the plash of a distant oar, the cadence of flowing waters beyond the taffrail, lend an added charm to the scene, the poetry of which can be fully realized only by those who have witnessed it.” He went on: “A glance around at the earnest throngs will convince the most skeptical that he is indeed in a house of prayer!” (Christian Union, 6/10/1893)

Sketch of Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, by Valerian Gribayedoff (Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, July 1895)

Gribayedoff wrote several articles on Orthodoxy in the United States, which, of course, was a rather new thing in those days. He told his readers of the 1894 centennial of Orthodoxy in Alaska, and reported on the early conversions of Uniates to the Russian Church. In 1895, he reported on the creation of a Russian parish in New York; indeed, Gribayedoff’s account is one of our main sources for this landmark event. He must have known Barbara MacGahan, the Russian-born war correspondent who was largely responsible for founding the New York church. Of MacGahan, Gribayedoff wrote, “Without her efforts but little would have been attained.”

In 1897, Gribayedoff began to feel that America was becoming “too hurried and crowded.” He moved to Paris on very short notice, and he quickly gained renown there for his photos of the Dreyfus trial. During the Russo-Japanese War, Gribayedoff worked in Siberia as a correspondent for an American newspaper.

Valerian Gribayedoff died in Paris in 1908. He was just 50, but had lived a life fuller than most men twice his age. He left a wife and a 25-year-old son; the son, apparently as much a traveler as his father, was working as a surgeon in the Philippines.

From his writings, it’s clear that Gribayedoff knew a great deal about Orthodoxy. He had a good grasp of Orthodox history and theology, and he was well acquainted with many of the leading Orthodox figures of his own day. In many places, he spoke very highly of the Church, and while I have no evidence that he was a member, it would certainly not surprise me. Even if he was not Orthodox himself, his writings on Orthodoxy are valuable sources.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Valerian Gribayedoff, the pioneer of pictorial journalism is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

World's Parliament of Religions. Abp Dionysius Latas is holding a staff, the second man to the right of the podium. (Click to enlarge. Many thanks to Isa Almisry for sending me a link to this photo.)

Not long ago, I wrote a pair of articles on the visit of the Greek archbishop Dionysius Latas to the United States. The archbishop came to America in 1893 to attend the ”World’s Parliament of Religions,” which was held in conjunction with the Chicago World’s Fair. When we last left Abp Dionysius, he had visited New York and Washington and was on his way to the main event in Chicago. We’ll continue his story today.

Archbishop Dionysius Latas of Zante, at the World's Parliament of Religions

Abp Dionysius and his deacon, Homer Paratis, arrived in Chicago in August or early September. The archbishop gave two addresses at the Parliament. His main talk focused on the history of religion in Greece, from the pre-Christian philosophers through the arrival of Christianity. He closed with this prayer:

Almighty King, most High Omnipotent God, look upon human kind; enlighten us that we may know Thy will, Thy ways, Thy holy truths; bless Thy holy truths; bless Thy holy Church. Bless this country. Magnify the renowned peoples of the United States of America, which in its greatness and happiness invited us to this place from the remotest parts of the earth, and gave us a place of honor in this Columbian year to witness with them the evidences of their great progress, and the wonderful achievements of the human mind.

The Parliament itself was a typically overambitious 19th century ecumenical gathering, and some of the participants had unrealistic goals of inter-religious union. In fact, one of those unduly optimistic compromisers was the Antiochian archimandrite Christopher Jabara, whom we’ve discussed in the past.

There were other Orthodox people there, too. Fr. Panagiotis Phiambolis, pastor of Chicago’s new Greek church, gave a speech of his own, and in many ways, it was more interesting than either of Abp Dionysius’ addresses. He was certainly not of one mind with Fr. Christopher Jabara. At the outset of his talk, Phiambolis said, “Believing is not the question — believing rightly is the question.” After referring to Rome’s schism from Orthodoxy, Phiambolis attacked Islam:

This division resulted in the prevention of Christianism and the progress of Mohammedanism, whose motto is, “Kill the Infidels,” because every one who is not a Mohammedan, according to the Koran of the prophet, is an infidel, is a dog. [...] The people of the orient suffered, and still suffer; the Christian virgins are dishonored by the followers of the moral prophet, and the life of a Christian is not considered as precious as that of a dog.

Phiambolis then spoke of the Orthodox Church:

Regarding the church, the orthodox church, we are true to the examples of the apostles and the paradigma of the synods, we follow the same road in religious questions, and after discussion do not accept new dogma without the agreement of the whole ecumenical council; neither do we adopt any dogma other than that of the one united and undivided church whose doctrine has been followed until to-day. The orthodox Apostolic Catholic church contains many different nations, and every one of them uses its own language in the mass and litany and governs its church independently, but all these nations have the same faith.

The Russian bishop of Alaska, Nicholas Ziorov, was at the Parliament on its opening day, but was conspicuously absent from the meetings themselves. According to the 1893 book The World’s Parliament of Religions, Bp Nicholas “met with the delegates and deeply regretted that his church duties called him from the city.” I’m not sure what those “church duties” were, and while I’m just speculating here, it’s possible that Bp Nicholas (or his superiors in Russia) did not want high-ranking Russian Orthodox churchman to participate in such a potentially questionable gathering. Of course, it could have been much simpler — Bp Nicholas simply could have had prior commitments.

The Parliament was more of a spectacle than anything else, and Fr. Christopher Jabara’s hopes for a single world religion were left unfulfilled. Abp Dionysius continued his tour of the United States, and we’ll pick up the rest of his journey in a future article.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

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Orthodoxy in Alaska after 1885 and Protestant Missionaries is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Kanellas’ letter, which runs over 900 words, gives a lot of details on his life and ministry. We already know that he was born in 1837. In 1880, while probably just a monk, he was invited to become the priest of the Greek church in Calcutta, India. Bishop Dionysios of Gefthia quickly moved Kanellas through the ranks of the clergy, all the way up to archimandrite.

Apparently, the Calcutta parish had their priests on five-year terms. After his first term ended, Kanellas re-upped for another five years, and the community gave him a raise of 50 British pounds. Kanellas explains (translation by Fortomas):

But unfortunately, becoming sick before the first year ended, I resigned and traveled to Europe for one year for my therapy. Then I went to the United States, not for work, but to visit. Unfortunately, here another illness was made manifest to me, on which I spent my money, and because of this need, I took refuge in being the rector and teacher of the in California Russian Church, with a very small wage, because I was not a member of the Russian Church.

After some years, Hierarch Vladimir was called back, and his replacement, Hierarch Nicholas, came with his entourage, and new staff consisting of six priests and deacons. He let the old staff go, especially me not being Russian.

I then went towards the east, to my friends and countrymen. Then, the Birmingham Association “Lord Byron” invited me to be the regular rector, under the appointment of the Sacred Synod of the Church of Greece, with a wage, which you can see in the letter of invitation, and so I continued for eight whole years, having as my main concern the establishment and advancement of the Church.

Bp Nicholas Ziorov took over the Russian Diocese in 1892, and Kanellas didn’t move to Birmingham until 1902 or 1903, so he must have spent a whole decade roaming around the Eastern US. He served in Birmingham until 1911, and he goes on to note that, at the time, he was one of the only Orthodox priests in the entire American South. In addition to his duties in Alabama, he visited the Greek churches in Atlanta and Memphis (among other places).

Health problems seem to have plagued Kanellas — they drove him out of Calcutta, and, in 1911, he began to have issues with a cataract in his right eye. He resigned his post in Birmingham and had surgery. The Holy Synod of Greece then appointed him to St. Nicholas Church in Tarpon Springs, Florida, but within a year, Kanellas became ill and had to resign yet again. He moved to Arkansas, hoping that the thermal springs would cure his ailment. In Little Rock, he happened to meet a handful of Greeks. He continues:

There I came into religious contacts with a few from the community so that I could be invited to serve here, finally being hired as the regular rector. But unfortunately, right away in the beginning and in the first meeting of the few that I called, it was forbidden for me to take an active part in the establishment and advancement of the Church. Certain members said that the Community would take care of the Church as a whole: I was to only liturgize not as I should have wanted to liturgize, but as they wanted me to, that is at a quick speed because their occupations did not allow them time to allot for prayers and churches.

Take note of this: the Community so far is comprised of 17 families and 150 people, from 4 regions (of Greece). They are Kravarites, Argirites, Maniates, and Peloponisians, who are from different cities. Instead of something happening, it does not happen without much noise.

The Church did not advance from then until today – there is a committee for the collection of funds for the preservation of the so called Church (because I liturgize in some sort of hall, and after the end of the liturgy, I need to quickly transfer the holy vessels, because another organization rents the hall).

By 1918 — when he wrote this letter to Metaxakis – Kanellas had had enough. He was over eighty, and he was tired of dealing with all the drama in Little Rock. He put out the word that he was going to leave, and began to search for a replacement. As it happened, several priests wrote to him about the job, and Kanellas passed these contacts on to the parish trustees. But the trustees didn’t bother to respond, and Kanellas, frustrated, told Metaxakis that he was considering a return to Birmingham. Of the Little Rock parish, he said to the archbishop, “From this Community, do not wait for any show of response, or any written acts.”

And yet, in the end, Kanellas did not leave. He stayed in Little Rock for another three years, dying there in 1921. He had lived through a turbulent period of American Orthodox history, from the scandalous era of Bp Vladimir in San Francisco, through the conversion of the Uniates and the mass immigration of the Greeks, all the way up to the founding of the Greek Archdiocese. He may not have been the very first Greek priest in America, but he was the first important one, and, by all accounts, he was a good man.

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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.

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Fr. Sebastian Dabovich oversaw the foundation of the first Orthodox place of worship in Portland, Oregon.

Orthodoxy has been in Portland, Oregon for well over a century, and its history is of particular interest to me, as my in-laws live in the city, and I have visited there many times. Today, we’re going to look at the beginnings of organized parish life in Portland.

According to Brigit Farley, there are records of some sort of Orthodox religious activity in Portland dating to at least 1881. That year, Fr. Vladimir Vechtomov, the rector of the San Francisco cathedral, visited Portland to bury a Russian woman. That said, organized church life didn’t begin until the 1890s. In November of 1892, 29-year-old Fr. Sebastian Dabovich baptized two Greek children, in what the Oregonian (11/7/1892) called “the first ceremony of the kind that ever took place in this city.” The service was held in the St. Charles Hotel, the first brick hotel in all of Portland. The paper went on,

The Greek colony in this city only comprises about 20 members, but they are very active in church matters. They are at present contemplating the building of a church on the East side, and have purchased half a block of land at Twentieth and East Morrison streets. The structure will cost $5000, of which $1000 has already been raised. The Russian government contributes about $400,000 annually to the support of the Greek church in North America, and part of this fund will be available for the construction of a church in Portland. The bishop, of San Francisco, will furnish the chancel, pictures and other fixtures for the church, and will be present at the laying of the cornerstone.

I’m not sure how many actual Orthodox Christians were in Portland. The article says that the city’s Greek colony had only 20 people, but there were surely Orthodox of other nationalities, and there were also Greeks in neighboring communities. In fact, I’ve found evidence that at least one member of the Dabovich family was living in Portland at the time. In any event, Fr. Sebastian was convinced that Portland was the right place for an Orthodox chapel.

In March of 1894, Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, accompanied by Dabovich and Fr. Alexander Pustynsky, paid a visit to Portland. It was his first stop in the city, but he actually wasn’t the first Orthodox bishop to set foot in Portland. In 1890, Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky had spent a night in Portland while en route from Alaska to San Francisco, but there’s no evidence that he interacted with the small Orthodox population of the city.

Anyway, Bp Nicholas made another visit in June, on his way to Seattle. Then, in July and August, Fr. Sebastian Dabovich spent three weeks in Portland, raising money for the chapel. Instrumental in this was an Alaskan Creole named Chernov, who was living in the city and apparently had some means. By August 15, construction had begun at East 20th and Morrison. The chapel’s name would be “Holy Trinity Greek Russian Mission.” Dabovich was telling the locals not just that it was an Orthodox chapel, but that it was a part of the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

With things going smoothly in Portland, Dabovich then left for Seattle, where he hoped to replicate his success. The pattern repeated itself the following spring: Dabovich visited Portland to dedicate the new chapel in March, and then traveled to Seattle to perform the same service. The two communities, Portland and Seattle, would be closely linked years to come. The Russian diocese never assigned a priest to the Portland chapel, so it operated as a sort of dependency of St. Spiridon Church in Seattle.

It’s often said that the current OCA parish in Portland, St. Nicholas, is identical with this original Holy Trinity chapel, which was founded in the 1890s. This isn’t really accurate… By the early 1900s, the original chapel had fallen into disrepair, and the Greeks organized their own parish in 1908. There wouldn’t be a Russian church in the city until 1927, when St. Nicholas Church was founded.

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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.

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Fr. Basil A. Bouroff, 1895

Yesterday, I wrote about St. John Kochurov’s arrival in Chicago, which followed on the heels of Fr. B.A. Bouroff’s expulsion by Bishop Nicholas, on the grounds that Bouroff had taken classes at the University of Chicago. But who was this Fr. Bouroff, and what was his story?

As it turns out, the September 2, 1895 issue of the Chicago Tribune — which is my main source of biographical information on Fr. Ambrose Vretta — also gives some valuable background on Fr. Bouroff. From the Tribune:

… In the meantime Bishop Nicolaus appointed the Rev. Ambrose Wretta, D.D., as pastor of the Russian colony in Chicago and the mission at Streator, Ill. He requested the Holy Synod at St. Petersburg to send an assistant to Dr. Wretta as teacher for the Russian children and Superintendent for the Sunday-schools to be established. The synod at once acted on his suggestion and the present Superintendent, Mr. Basil A. Beuroff, a graduate of the Imperial Theological Seminary of St. Petersburg, and for many years stationed in London at the Russian Church establishment there, was ordered to Chicago.

This article is recounting events that took place a few years earlier, so it’s not clear how long Bouroff was in Chicago, or when he became a priest. But just two months after this article was written, Bouroff was out, and Fr. John Kochurov was in.

Why was Fr. Basil Bouroff’s attendance at the University of Chicago such a problem? In the comments to yesterday’s article, Isa Almisry said,

For one thing, it could be the school’s Protestant connections: the Old University of Chicago had been founded as a Baptist College by Stephan A. Douglas. He had offered its facilities to the Presbyterian Church, but the Baptist were the ones who managed to raise the funds, and its board’s rules required a Baptist majority. Rockfeller, a Baptist, incorporated the new (present) University as a secular school, but the co-founder, William Rainey Harper, was another Baptist whose field was OT, in particular Hebrew studies. In 1895 the University was less than 4 years old, and had the Old University had failed less than a decade before. Given the prior failure and the Protestant connections, and how Fr. Bjerring ended, it could have been more of a gamble than Bishop Nicolai was willing to tolerate.

It’s also possible that Bouroff was simply becoming too immersed in academia to adequately fulfill his priestly duties. In 1900, he was still a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and he published a book called, The Impending Crisis: Conditions Resulting from a Concentration of Wealth in the United States. Here’s a contemporary summary of the book:

The book consists largely of compilations of facts concerning the distribution of wealth in America and as such will constitute a valuable book of reference. These are summarized and arranged in various forms to make them more vivid but there is little that is new either in matter or manner of presentation.

Bouroff seems to have been a Progressive. In a 1905 article, “Freedom of the Press in Russia,” he concluded,

Moreover, as a result of the recent rescript giving religious liberty to all, the freedom of the press is greatly extended. New dailies and periodicals are now rapidly established. It is quite natural that the clerical censorship has fallen of itself, and organs of publication for various non-orthodox religious communities are expected soon to take existence in Russia. Now Russia begins to live a natural life in the sense of progress which can never be smothered. But the great work of her progress is just beginning, and how great a role the Russian press must play in it can be easily imagined. The Russian press now is the most interesting press in the world.

Finally, I found a couple of tantalizing snippets on Google Books, from the 1924 book Greater Love Hath No Man, by Alexander Marshall. Unfortunately, Google won’t let you view the whole text, but I was able to make out a couple of sections:

BASIL BOUROFF was born and brought up in the city of Rostock [i.e. Rostov], on the river Don, Southern Russia. At the age of fifteen he was awakened by the Holy Spirit to an apprehension of his guilt and peril. [...]

When Basil Bouroff learned that salvation was not of works, and could not be procured by the observance of forms or ceremonies, he began to think that help might be obtained in the Scriptures. [...]

At this point, all we can do is make an educated guess based on bits and pieces of information. Fr. Basil Bouroff, the assistant priest of the Russian church in Chicago, apparently began attending the brand-new University of Chicago (which had Protestant connections), and also became involved in the Progressive political movement of the day. It seems quite likely that Bouroff eventually became a Protestant himself, especially given the language of the Greater Love Hath No Man snippets quoted above.

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John Kochurov was just 24 years old when he became a priest, in the summer of 1895. The ordination took place in Russia, but it was done by the visiting Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, the head of the Russian Mission in America, and Fr. John was to accompany Bishop Nicholas back to the United States. They arrived in November, just as Fr. Raphael Hawaweeny was getting settled in Brooklyn.

The young Fr. John was entering a bit of a sticky situation. From the Chicago Tribune (11/25/1895):

Nicholaei of St. Petersburg, Archbishop of All America, held solemn mass in the Greek [that is, Orthodox] Church, at No. 13 South Center avenue, yesterday morning for the installation of Father Kochureff as assistant priest of the parish. He was assisted by the local priest, Father Kazantsier, and assistant, and two pages from St. Petersburg. The vacancy of assistant priest was caused by a difference of opinion between Archbishop Nicholaei and R.A. Bouroff, late assistant pastor, who has come under the displeasure of his superiors by attendance at the University of Chicago.

Nearly 100 persons were crowded into the little room reserved for the congregation of the Greek Church in Chicago. It is the front room of a ground flat in a modest three-story building erected for a dwelling. The chancel occupies an adjoining front room. The service is more elaborate than that of the Roman Church, and differs radically in much of the ceremony, being conducted behind a high chancel screen, sometimes with the single entrance closed. All the appointments of the altar and chancel are different. The service is unique in many ways.

A pretty standard description of vestments, candles, etc. follows. Then, we read,

There is a division in the Greek congregation owing to the retirement of Assistant Priest Bouroff. It is said that a wing of the congregation is at outs with the authorities because of loyalty to the younger priest, who persists in carrying on his studies at President Harper’s institution. These members credit Archbishop Nicholaei with having caused the exile of more students to Siberia than any man in Russia. On this account it is easy to believe, they declare, that the Bishop of All America will never forgive the independence of ex-Assistant Pastor Bouroff.

About a dozen clergy from all over the country came to Chicago for Bishop Nicholas’ visit; these included Fr. Alexis Toth of Wilkes-Barre, Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky of New York, Fr. Anatolii Kamenskii of Sitka (the future bishop and confessor), and Fr. Theodore Pashkovsky of Jackson, CA (the future Metropolitan Theophilus).

Several things, right off the bat: Bishop Nicholas was not actually an archbishop, and his title was “Bishop of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska,” not “Bishop of All America.” Other newspapers give various names for the other Chicago priest; the most accurate rendition is probably “Fr. Pavel Kazanski.” Also, the Chicago Inter Ocean says that the parish is called “St. Ivan.” Originally it was “St. Nicholas,” and this was soon changed to “St. Vladimir” and later “Holy Trinity.” I’m not sure if, at some point, “St. Ivan” was used, or if this was a reporter’s mistake.

In the Tribune article quoted above, Fr. John Kochurov is named as the assistant priest, with Fr. Pavel Kazanski as the parish rector (having apparently replaced Fr. Ambrose Vretta, who was transferred to Seattle). However, I’ve found several reports from 1896 which put it the other way round, with Kochurov as the rector and Kazanski as his assistant. It’s possible that the earlier Tribune article got it wrong; certainly, it would be odd to have a formal “installation” for an assistant priest. Most probably, Kazanski held down the fort until Kochurov arrived, at which point the former became the latter’s assitant.

In any event, the most interesting part of this story is the Fr. Bouroff, who was apparently removed from his post for daring to attend the University of Chicago. I know some of our readers here have connections to that institution; perhaps there is something in the school’s archives which could shed more light on this episode?

Of course, for the Chicago parish, everything worked out fine in the end. Kochurov would prove to be a dedicated and exemplary pastor, and he would lead the community for more than a decade. It’s interesting; recently, we discussed the fact that Fr. Evtikhy Balanovitch, in New York, got into trouble and was replaced by a saint, Fr. Alexander Hotovitzky. Here, at exactly the same time, Fr. Bouroff got into trouble and was replaced by another saint, Fr. John Kochurov.

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Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky visited Chicago in 1888 and again in 1891, but was unable to start a parish.

Back in June, I did one of my first podcasts on an attempt, in 1888, to form a multiethnic parish in Chicago. Here are the basics:

By 1888, there were about a thousand Orthodox Christians living in Chicago, most of them Greeks and Serbs / Montenegrins. A few years earlier, they had organized themselves into an Orthodox society and petitioned the Church of Russia to send a priest and form a parish. There actually was no Russian bishop in America for much of the 1880s, so it wasn’t until Bishop Vladimir’s arrival in 1888 that the Chicago community got some attention from the hierarchy. In May, Vladimir wrote to the lay leaders in Chicago and asked them to call a meeting to determine just how many people were interested in starting a church, and just how much money they might be able to contribute. One of the highlights of the meeting was a speech by Greek leader George Brown, who said, “We will surprise the Americans. Let us stick like a brothers.” Bishop Vladimir himself came to Chicago in October, serving the first known Orthodox liturgy in the city, at No. 85 Fifth Avenue.

For some reason, despite the promise of the May 1888 meeting, no parish was formed. The reasons for this failure aren’t clear. A few years later, the Chicago Inter Ocean (7/11/1891) reported,

An effort was made some time ago to organize here to build a church or temple, as there are fully 2,000 of the faith residing here, but under the name of the Grecian Brotherhood Association it failed, as the Russians, Servians, and Slavonians would not come in under that title.

The Inter Ocean goes on to explain that, in June 1891 (so, three years after the initial meeting), a new organization was created, called the “Grecian, Slavonian, and Russian Orthodox Association.” This seems to have happened in conjunction with another visit by Bishop Vladimir to Chicago that spring. Hierarchical services were celebrated in Gazzolo’s Hall, at 82 West Madison Street. From the Chicago Tribune (6/1/1891):

Before the service a meeting had been held, at which it was decided to make application to the Holy Synod [...] for license to organize a church. The synod must consent to this before a church can organize. [...] There is little doubt that the license will be granted.

A nine-man committee was appointed to obtain the necessary signatures, and it wisely included three Russians, three Greeks, and three Serbs. Everyone hoped that the parish could be founded in time for the World’s Fair, which would be held in Chicago in 1893.

A couple months later, in July, an Archimandrite Lininas, from the Russian Cathedral in San Francisco, made a follow-up visit to Chicago. The aforementioned George Brown, one of the Greek leaders of the society, told a newspaper that the community had been promised a priest “as soon as they have erected a church.” I must say, it’s an odd approach, requiring the laity to construct a building before giving them a priest.

No building was erected, and no priest was sent. Throughout most of his episcopate in America, Bishop Vladimir was embroiled in a horrific scandal in San Francisco. Early on, his cathedral was burned to the ground (and some whispered that it was arson). Rumors swirled that funds had been embezzled. The accusations against Vladimir himself were the worst — he was charged by his detractors with sexually assaulting numerous young boys. To this day, it’s not clear whether these accusations were true or false.

More to the point of this story, the scandals in San Francisco had major ripple effects in Chicago. A Montenegrin named Gopchevich was one of the key players in the Chicago Orthodox community, and his brother happened to be one of Bishop Vladimir’s mortal enemies in San Francisco. In the fall of 1891, the Orthodox society met to discuss the crisis. From the Inter Ocean (11/2/1891):

Personal opinions vary. However, Bishop Vladimir had intended to establish the church here, but the local society has determined to remain entirely independent of Vladimir, and has sent a petition to the Russian Government and to the head of the Greek Church in Constantinople for a priest.

As it happened, Bishop Vladimir was on his way out, replaced by Bishop Nicholas Ziorov. In March of 1892, the new bishop and his entourage passed through Chicago on their way to San Francisco. Some of the leading Chicago Orthodox figures met with the group, and there was again talk of forming a multiethnic parish. But the very next month, Fr. Panagiotis Peter Phiambolis came to Chicago under the authority of Athens, and he founded a Greek church. The next month, Fr. Ambrose Vretta was sent by the Russian authorities to establish a Russian church.

Orthodoxy in Chicago, 1888-1892 is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.

Fr. Ambrose Vretta, 1895

In the past, I’ve mentioned the Russian Mission’s practice of employing “client clergy” — non-Russian priests with ties to Russia, who served multiethnic or non-Russian parishes in America. St. Raphael and Fr. Sebastian Dabovich are perhaps the most famous examples, but there were many more. One of the earliest of these client clergy was Fr. Ambrose Vretta, who has the distinction of being the first pastor of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Chicago and St. Spiridon’s Cathedral in Seattle.

Vretta (or Wretta) was originally from Macedonia. He was born in 1859, attended the Imperial Medical College in Istanbul, and then toured Europe and studied in Rome. He then returned to his homeland, but, according to the Chicago Tribune (9/2/1895), “he found the systematic persecution to which he was subjected by the Turkish Government too much for comfort.” So he left for Orthodox Russia, where he was warmly received. It wasn’t long before he had developed close ties with the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg (probably Metropolitan Isidore). At some point along the way he was ordained a priest; I assume this happened in Russia, but I can’t be sure. Vretta may have encountered a young Jovan (later Fr. Sebastian) Dabovich, who studied in St. Petersburg in the late 1880s.

When the newly-consecrated Bishop Nicholas Ziorov was assigned to America in 1892, the 33-year-old Vretta came along with him. His first assignment was Chicago, where a significant Orthodox community existed. For several years, the Orthodox of the city had been trying to organize a parish, but for various reasons, they hadn’t been successful. (We’ve discussed that a bit in the past, and will talk about it in great detail in the near future.)

On May 17, 1892, the first Russian Orthodox church was founded in Chicago (although, it should be noted, there were hardly any actual Russians, with much of the congregation being Serbian). This came only weeks after the first Greek parish was organized in the city. Vretta was present at that initial meeting, and he remained at the parish for the next three years. During that time, he also assumed responsibility for a new Orthodox parish in Streator, Illinois.

One of the most notable aspects of Vretta’s tenure in Chicago was the warm relationship between the Russian and Greek churches: although the Orthodox community of the city had split into two parishes, there doesn’t seem to have been any rivalry. Vretta concelebrated with the Greek priest, Fr. Panagiotis Peter Phiambolis, on numerous occasions. When the Greek Archbishop Dionysius of Zante visited Chicago for the World’s Fair, the Vretta went over to the Greek church for services. When the Russian Bishop Nicholas came to town, it was Phiambolis’ turn to visit the Russian church. In 1894, a special service was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Orthodoxy in North America, and both Vretta and Phiambolis were present. Later that year, Tsar Alexander III died, and for the memorial, Vretta went over to the Greek church, which was simultaneously dedicating its new building.

Vretta was transferred to Seattle shortly after that, in November 1895. Up to that point, the fledgling Orthodox community of Seattle had never had a resident priest. Fr. Sebastian Dabovich had been holding services on Saturdays, but Vretta was the first full-time pastor of the new St. Spiridon’s Church. He didn’t confine himself to working in Seattle, though. In the spring of 1896, Vretta and his young reader Vladimir Alexandrov traveled to Montana, where they celebrated the first-ever Orthodox services in the state. In her fascinating paper, “Circuit Riders to the Slavs and Greeks”, Brigit Farley tells this story:

[Vretta] began in Anaconda, where he administered the sacraments of marriage and chrismation to several Serbian Orthodox believers. The priest moved on to Butte, where he learned of an Orthodox miner named Mike Gamble, who wished to see a priest in order to receive Communion. Fr. Vretta finally located Gamble after a long climb up the side of a mountain, during which he had only the assistance of dogs and a sled for his baggage. After his meeting with the miner, he reported, he managed to convince two Uniates to accept union with the Orthodox church.

In December of 1896, Vretta was transferred from Seattle… And I’m not sure where he went. He was only 37 years old, so he presumably had a long career ahead of him, but I can’t find him on any later lists of clergy (and I’ve got lists for 1906, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, and 1918). He doesn’t seem like the type of priest — non-Russian, literate, mission-minded — who would be sent to Russia; in fact, he’s exactly the sort of priest that was being sent from Russia to America.

It’s possible, I suppose, that he remained with Bishop Nicholas. In 1898, Bishop Nicholas was transferred to a diocese in Russia; perhaps Vretta joined him (?). If anyone out there has more information about Vretta, particularly his whereabouts after 1896, please email me at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com.

Fr. Ambrose Vretta: pioneering priest in Chicago & Seattle is a post from OrthodoxHistory.org. All rights reserved. Your use of this article is subject to our Terms of Use.