Editor’s note: Last week, Nicholas Chapman introduced three documents he found in the National Archives in London, under the heading “The Russian Orthodox Church in America and Its Clergy in 1865.” Today, we present the first of these documents — a letter from His Holiness Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, to the Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod of Russia, February 26, 1865. Nicholas Chapman explains, “The author of this document was Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov) who served as Metropolitan of Moscow for from 1826-1867. Metropolitan Innocent, since canonized as the ‘Apostle to America,’ succeeded him.” This draft translation has been provided by Matushka Marie Meyendorff.

One final note: St. Philaret makes reference to a Christmas liturgy celebrated by Honcharenko in New York. This appears to have been the first Orthodox liturgy in the history of New York City (or, for that matter, the first known liturgy in the eastern United States). It is earlier than the better-known liturgy celebrated by Honcharenko a couple of months later (and discussed here and here).

When the American spiritual leaders first showed the desire to have an Orthodox Church in America it seemed necessary for California but not for New York. Now a new outlook appears.

Already a priest has received from the Holy Church of Constantinople the antimens and the Holy Chrism. He has arrived in America and on the day of the birth of Christ performed there the first Orthodox liturgy from the time of the discovery of America. Then he performed the baptism of eight Slavs and two Russians. He writes, “I found there seven thousand Slavs, three thousand Greeks and three thousand Russians, without a Pastor.” If this is true, it is a strong reason to have in America a Russian Orthodox Church.

We are attaching to this a copy of the letter of Agapius Honcharenko written to the Editor of the newspaper “Orthodox Overview.” Won’t you take the decision if something should be done about this situation?

Tags: 1865, Agapius Honcharenko, Constantinople, New York, Philaret Drozdov, primary sources, Russian, Saints

Editor’s note: In 1938, Fr. Michael Gelsinger, with his daughter Mary, published a Handbook for Orthodox Sunday Schools. Gelsinger was one of the most influential convert clergymen in American Orthodox history. He served in the Antiochian Archdiocese, and this book was published with the blessing of Metropolitan Antony Bashir. Today, we’re presenting the first of a four-part series, taken from the introduction to Gelsinger’s book. We’ll run this mini-series on each of the next four Thursdays.

It is impossible to operate a Sunday School without spending money. Some Parishes can afford to spend more than others can, but every Parish must be willing to provide for its Sunday School as generously as its resources permit. Afte the first year of operation a Sunday School can usually finance itself, especially if the Parish provides adequate equipment at the beginning so that the School can do its work effectively.

The first requirement is that a Sunday School must have a suitable place in which to meet. There should be a room or hall large enough to accomodate the whole Sunday School when it meets for Assembly; and there should be smaller rooms in sufficient number to provide each class with a room of its own, so that when classes are in session they cannot see or hear each other.

In many Parishes, however, it will be impossible to provide a separate room for each class. If several classes must be taught in one large room, they may be separated from each other by screens. Satisfactory screens can be easily and inexpensively contrived by nailing wallboard to wooden frames which have been hinged in pairs. When not in use the screens can be folded up and put away. Screens, of course, will not prevent classes from hearing one another, and a certain amount of noise and confusion is unavoidable when they must be used; but noise and confusion are deadly enemies to the effeciency of the School, and every effort must be made to conduct classes as quietly as possible.

Since the majority of the members of a Sunday School are young children, the accomodations provided must be both safe and pleasant as well as sufficiently spacious. There must be good light, good ventilation, adequate heating, spotlessly clean floors and walls, and spotlessly clean toilets to which no persons except members of the Sunday School are allowed to go while the School is in session. If the hall provided for the Assembly has a concrete floor, it is absolutely necessary that a good wooden floor be built in; for a concrete floor is a menace to the health of the children. The walls should be painted, not in some ugly utilitarian color, but in some pleasant tint; and on them should be hung some appropriate pictures. It will not matter if a child of wealthy parents finds that the Sunday School lacks luxurious appointments; but we are disgraced if we give any child the least reason to think that the place where the Sunday School meets is dirty and cheerless.

Every class needs a table and a supply of chairs. Strongly built card tables, two or more to a class, will serve very well; and an advantage in using them is that they can be folded up and put away when not in use. The chairs should be folding chairs, preferably metal ones that cannot easily be damaged. There should be at least twice as many chairs provided as there are members of the School, so that it will never be necessary to move chairs from one place to another during the session. Money saved by buying fewer chairs will be lost over and over again in damage to the School’s efficiency, for chairs cannot be moved without noise and confusion and loss of valuable time. In providing chairs as in providing other necessities for the Sunday School, stinginess does not save money but throws money away.

The Syrian Archdiocese is preparing lesson materials to meet every need of Orthodox Catholic Sunday Schools conducted in the English language. Music will also be provided. It is surely unnecessary to remind our people that only Orthodox books and Orthodox music should ever be used in teaching our children.

Roll Books and record books, of course, and other supplies of that kind, must be purchased from Sunday School supply companies. No supplies should ever come from any other religious organization, not even if they are offered as gifts; for we are disloyal to our Orthodox Catholic Religion whenever we give anyone even the least reason to believe that the Orthodox Church is dependent upon any other religious organization or in alliance with it. Supplies should always be purchased from a company which is not connected with any particular religious organization. One of the best companies of the kind is the David C. Cook Publishing Company, of Elgin, Illinois, whose catalogue lists an immense variety of supplies for Sunday Schools.

Tags: 1938, Antiochian, converts, Michael Gelsinger, parishes, primary sources

Editor’s note: We are once again privileged to present the work of the remarkable Nicholas Chapman. Several months ago, we published two articles by Nicholas on the presence of Orthodoxy in Colonial Virginia (to read those, click here and here). Today, Nicholas introduces us to some of his most recent discoveries. On the next three Tuesdays, we’ll publish the three documents Nicholas discusses below.

At the end of July this year I was able to spend an afternoon at the National Archives in London, UK. I was aware that certain documents pertaining to the history of the Russian Orthodox Community in London were held there and I was hoping to find more information with regard to the early presence of Orthodoxy in British America before the American Revolution. Whilst my original goal was achieved I also discovered a wealth of other documents relating to the history of Orthodoxy in America between 1865 -1945. There is much more to translate and to write. I am grateful to Matushka Marie Meyendorff for her initial draft translation of the documents that follow. Not every part is immediately readable, but God willing a more complete and refined translation can be made in due course.

It would perhaps be helpful to briefly set a little historical background. There are three documents collectively filed under the heading of  “The Russian Orthodox Church in America and Its Clergy 1865” They consist of a covering letter written by the venerable and very elderly Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow to the “Ober Procurator” of the Holy Synod of Russia – effectively the Minister of Religion. The Metropolitan encloses two further documents: a detailed and generally negative overview of the case against Agapius Honcharenko with an explanation as to why he was defrocked as a deacon by the Russian Synod in 1861. The second is a letter to an unknown priest (most likely the Rev. Eugene Popov the Russian Orthodox priest in London) from Agapius Honcharenko pleading his side of the story and essentially petitioning to be taken back by the Russian Church. Since his defrocking as a deacon, he appears to have been made a priest, either by the Church of Constantinople or the Church of Greece.

It is interesting that Metropolitan Filaret does not simply dismiss Honcharenko’s claims but appears to treat them seriously enough to suggest to the Ober-Procurator that they provide sufficient grounds to lead the Russian Church to establish a full ecclesial presence in the United States. It should be remembered that these documents predate the US purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire in March 1867. It should also be noted that the American Civil War was still underway when these documents were written and that the Russian Empire was an active supporter of the Northern States during the conflict. Many in fact credit Metropolitan Filaret as being one of the driving forces behind the abolition of serfdom in Russian Empire (1861) and Agapius Honcharenko was also known as an advocate of that cause. This may partly explain Filaret’s somewhat sympathetic stance to his case. 

The reference of Filaret to “American spiritual leaders” in California is also of interest and is most probably related to the overtures being made at that time by leaders of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA to the Russian Orthodox Church and efforts which had already begun toward the formation of a Russian Orthodox Parish in San Francisco.

Nicholas Chapman, Herkimer, New York, August 21 2010

Tags: 1865, Agapius Honcharenko, America, England, Philaret Drozdov, primary sources, Russian

P.T. Barnum was the greatest showman of the 19th century. Today, he’s most closely associated with the circus that bears his name, but in his own day, he was much more than a circus organizer. In an era before blockbuster movies, Barnum was the closest you could get to a larger-than-life Hollywood producer. He was impossibly famous, and impossibly rich.

By 1874, the 54-year-old Barnum was a household name. He’d only been in the circus business for a few years, but before that, he had owned the Barnum Museum, the biggest attraction in New York City. It was, in short, at the height of his powers when the widowed Barnum married 24-year-old Nancy Fish, an English girl and the daughter of one of Barnum’s longtime friends. Here’s how the New York Times tells the story 20-odd years later (8/8/1895):

She was the daughter of a Lancashire, England, cotton miller named Fish. In 1858 Mr. Barnum lectured in Manchester, England, and after the lecture Mr. Fish called on the great showman to tell him that his success in life was due to his reading of Mr. Barnum’s autobiography, which fired his ambition to make money. When Mr. Fish built a new mill, his daughter christened the engine “Barnum.”

After the death of the first Mrs. Barnum, Mr. Fish visited America. His daughter’s letters so delighted Mr. Barnum that, as he put it, he fell in love with her before he saw her. They were married in 1874. The bride was half the age of her husband.

The couple remained together until Barnum’s death in 1891. Four years later, in 1895, Nancy Barnum remarried. She had been engaged in a very discreet courtship with Demetrius Callias Bey, a Greek from Turkey. Callias had supposedly made millions in the olive business, but there were rumors that he actually had no money at all. In any event, he was handsome, and according to one story (which may or may not be true), the pair met when Nancy was visiting Egypt and happened to fall off of the Great Pyramid, whereupon Callias caught her. The couple was married on August 7, 1895 at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in New York City, with Fr. Agatheodoro Papageorgopoulos officiating.

At least, that’s according to the New York Times the following day. I’m inclined to believe the report, although the Boston Globe passed this along (by way of the Knoxville Daily Journal, 8/13/1895):

The minister who married Mrs. P.T. Barnum to her wealthy Greek lover Wednesday is named Rev. Agathedorus Papageorgepouto, according to the New York Journal, Priest Archimandrite Paisius Ferentinos, according to the New York World, and Agathodoros Papageorgopoulus according to the New York Herald. It would have delighted Mrs. Barnum’s late husband to get either of those names to put among his curiosities.

Fr. Paisius Ferentinos, mentioned above, was the former priest of Holy Trinity, New York’s other Greek church.

The name of the officiating priest notwithstanding, the marriage between Nancy Barnum and Demetrius Callias Bey didn’t last long. A little over a year later — September 22, 1896 — Callias died of liver disease in Constantinople. His wife was on a brief visit to America at the time, and after learning of her husband’s death, she left the United States for good. Two years later, in Paris, she was married for a third time, to a French nobleman. The marriage was apparently pure business — the baron got some of Nancy’s money to pay his debts, and Nancy got to call herself a baroness. Nancy’s real love, it seems, was her departed Greek husband. When she died in 1927, she was cremated and then buried, not next to P.T. Barnum, but to Demetrius Callias Bey.

In the grand scheme of things, the story of Nancy Barnum and Demetrius Callias Bey isn’t all that significant. It is, however, an early example of an Orthodox-related story that made its way into newspapers across the United States. And the marriage of Barnum and Callias has always struck me as a sort of distant forerunner to the union of another famous American widow to a wealthy Greek man — Jacqueline Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee. In writing it, I relied on both contemporary newspaper articles and on the book P.T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man by A.H. Saxon (1995), 329-330.]

Tags: 1895, Greek, New York, newspapers, parishes, primary sources

Editor’s note: On Monday, we introduced Fr. Kyrill Johnson, who converted to Orthodoxy in the 1920s and spent most of his career in the Antiochian Archdiocese. Then, on Tuesday, we presented an article by Johnson reviewing a Protestant translation of the Divine Liturgy. Below, we’ve published another article by Johnson, on “The Prestige of the Oecumenical Patriarchate.” This piece originally appeared in the Orthodox American in its October 1944-February 1945 issue. Oh, and please be warned: Johnson can be… well, abrasive, I guess. I hope no one is offended by our publication of this historical document.

One of the pleasant myths in the uninformed Orthodox mind is that which infers that the various statements and pronouncements of certain individual Orthodox Patriarchs in conjunction with their Synods have binding force in the realm of Orthodox faith and morals. Nothing could be further from the facts.

It is true that there was a time in Orthodox history when such documents and pronouncements, although local and racial in origin, did have a certain weight and authority. That period came to an end with the reconstitution of the Greek nation and the consequent subservience of Orthodox faith and institutions to the Greek political ideal among ecclesiastics of Greek blood. Even the most casual student of Orthodox Church history is struck by the fact that all too often men of high ecclesiastical position in Orthodoxy, if they are of Greek blood, have been willing to use their positions to further and advance, not pure Orthodoxy, as such, but Greek political and racial aspirations.

Without doubt the ideal series of documents by which this thesis could be adequately proved is that which proceeded from the various Greek Patriarchates during the crises in Russian Church affairs after the Russian Revolution.

When the late Russian Patriarch Tikhon, of blessed memory, was deposed by a rump Synod of Bishops, the then Patriarch of Constantinople, Meletios, condemned this act as uncanonical. His successor, Gregory VII, reversed this pronouncement, and in his turn Gregory VII was reversed by his own successor, Basil III.

The Greeks who occupied the Patriarchate of Jerusalem reveal an equally unpleasant record of having no mind of their own, or any Orthodox mind at all for that matter, issuing document after document each in conflict with itself and with those, which had come before. Aside from the Russian Patriarchate of Moscow, only the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch seems to have had the ability to make up his own mind for himself and to stick to his decisions.

If one collates this series of pronouncements issued by Greek ecclesiastics with the political events and pressures, which paralleled their appearance, one soon discovers an obvious relation between their interpretation of Orthodox canon law and faith and the political tensions to which they were subjected.

Tempting as it is to explore this field in terms of the Russian question, we prefer at this time to direct attention to a lesser Greek political-ecclesiastical document. We do this because we have collected a considerable body of firsthand and as yet unpublished data relative to this lesser document. We refer to the pronouncement in the year 1922 by Meletios, Patriarch of Constantinople, on Anglican orders.

The facts necessary to understand the problems involved are simple enough. On July 28th, 1922, Meletios issued two documents. The first was in the form of a personal letter, not to the legal head of the Protestant religion established by law in England, the King, but to one of his political appointees, the senior of the two Protestant archbishops functioning in England. The other document was a sort of round robin addressed to “The Presidents of the Particular Eastern Churches.” The subject matter of both documents concerned itself with the much-debated question of the possible validity of Protestant ordinations in the state religion of England.

These two documents were hailed as a seven days’ wonder throughout the Protestant world. With this reaction we are in hearty agreement. Unfortunately their content was so neatly phrased in the subtle niceties of the Greek language that neither the casual nor learned reader could be quite sure what meaning they were intended to convey.

It is not our intent to add another essay in the necessarily dull exegesis of these documents. Obviously they follow the Pauline injunction, so dear to the Greek heart, of being all things to all men.

It is our purpose to throw some historical light on the confused background, which made these documents possible, and to trace the devious actions of the Greek mind when occasion demands of it that it say something without saying anything. It can be safely taken for granted that historical scholarship is fully justified in judging any document, not only in terms of its content, but also in terms of the conditions and the men, which brought it forth.

First let us consider the man over whose signature these two documents saw the light of day. He was one Meletios. By birth he was a Cretan; and if Pauline injunctions mean anything the wary should at once be put on their guard. His ecclesiastical career paralleled that of his fellow Cretan, Venizelos, in the realm of Greek politics. When this statesman was in power in the Greek world, Meletios also held a position of power. When the statesman fell, as he did many times, the ecclesiastic also fell. Let us grant at once that they were both very able men, intensely devoted to the Greek political ideal.

After the First World War Venizelos fell from power. Meletios, who was his Archbishop of Athens, fell with him and came to the United States as an exile. There is sufficient historical evidence to justify the statement that both the politician and the ecclesiastic were creatures whose power and position depended upon British foreign policy and backing. As exile in this country Meletios found favor with only a minority of Greek-Americans. He did receive much support from a section of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country.

During this period of exile the Throne of Constantinople suddenly became vacant, and with equal suddenness Meletios was elected to the Patriarchate. How the Throne of Constantinople became vacant, and how Meletios was elected, does not concern us here.

In this country the Greeks with consternation received this election. Some were delighted; many refused to accept it as fact. It goes without saying that the Protestant Episcopalians received the news with great rejoicing. How tense the situation was in this country can be gathered from an article in the New York Tribune of Jan. 8th, 1922. The headline stated that this election “shakes the foundations of the Greek Church.” It did not hide the fact that Meletios’ chief support came from Protestant circles.

In Greece itself the Holy Synod of that country refused to accept the election of Meletios as canonical and valid. Meletios journeyed to his Throne by way of England, and it was currently reported that he entered the Golden Horn on a British man-of-war.

Let us now turn to analyze the conditions, which existed during the brief administration of Meletios in Constantinople. An inter-allied military control entered the city. It was made up of representatives of England, France, Italy and the United States. The city itself had been promised by secret treaty to Russia at the beginning of the war. All the nations represented in the city save the United States were playing the age-old game of power politics. As was natural, the religious issues of the centuries merged into the political issues. France and Italy, representing Roman Catholic ambitions, were moving with not too much caution to establish a claim to the Cathedral Church of Orthodoxy, Hagia Sophia. If anything was necessary to throw Meletios even further into the hands of the British, this was more than sufficient.

At the same time the drama of the tragedy of Christian Asia Minor was developing. A mutual and secret agreement by France and Italy on the one hand to support Turkish aspirations, and by England on the other to support Greek aspirations, to the end that a fatal collision of these two minor powers might ensue to the mutual profit of the Great Powers, sealed the doom of the ancient Christian Churches of Asia Minor.

It is quite probable that Meletios at that time knew only the externals of this situation. The hard fact was that he had to sit on his uncomfortable Throne at the Phanar and watch the growing tension between the various members of the Allied military control and to hear each day of new Greek disasters in Asia Minor.

The implications of the situation were obvious to Meletios. Each day the diminished Greek race was being decimated throughout Asia Minor; the Great Idea of a reconstituted Byzantine Empire was dissolving into dust and ashes before his eyes. Meletios, the Greek nationalist, became a desperate man. He had but one last jewel to spend on wooing British Imperialism to stop the decimation of his co-racialists in Asia Minor. The jewel was his Orthodox Faith. He would offer up this precious jewel to international politics in a last desperate gesture. Out of Meletios’ racial agony was born his pronouncement on Anglican ordinations.

A number of years after it was issued we spent a very pleasant afternoon with Meletios in Cairo, Egypt. (British influence had translated him to the Throne of Alexandria.) During our lengthy discussion of Orthodox affairs we introduced the subject of these two documents. Without any hesitation Meletios discussed them quite frankly. He admitted that they had been issued against his better Orthodox judgment. He also pointed out some pertinent facts, which should become part of the record if these documents are to be judged in their proper perspective.

From our notes on this conversation we outline those things, which seem to have some historical import. He prefaced his remarks by saying that as a Greek he could not have been expected to sit quietly and not use everything at his command in an effort to avert the Asia Minor disaster. He made it quite clear that he realized fully that if the Turks won he lost the throne of Constantinople. He did not try to excuse the incongruities contained in the documents. His only disappointment was that he misjudged British opinion (something which Greeks are always prone to do).

He made no attempt to deny that his documents accomplished nothing for the cause of Greece. This he could not quite understand. Like so many other Greek ecclesiastics he had been thrown into contact with only the High Church minority, and he had no clear notions about the staid and respectable Protestantism of the majority of the English church. He was actually convinced that the majority of the clergy and members of the Establishment were smarting under the sting of the pronouncement of Leo XIII declaring English ordinations null and void in form and intent, and would reward handsomely any statement to the contrary.

It was at this point that Meletios sighed and said, “But these English, they just do not have any sense of history.” Piqued by this statement we pursued it further, and Meletios replied fully as to his meaning, and the following is an outline of his convictions as an Orthodox theologian.

In the first place, he pointed out, as Patriarch of Constantinople he had no historical or canonical right to intrude into the ecclesiastical problems of the Christian West. He contended that the bases of the centuries’ old contention between the See of Constantinople and the See of Rome rested upon the thesis that the See of Rome had no canonical jurisdiction in the Christian East. By the same token he had to admit that the See of Constantinople had no canonical right to intrude into the domestic problems of the See of Rome; and certainly the question of Anglican Orders, deriving from Rome, was essentially a problem coming under the jurisdiction of that Patriarchate.

Obviously, he said, England could not by any perversion of logic be considered within the jurisdiction of any Eastern Patriarchate; and to presume to settle any ecclesiastical problem arising among non-Orthodox peoples in that area would destroy once and for all the foundation and corner stone upon which all contentions between the Eastern Patriarchate and Rome had been erected.

In writing his documents, Meletios contended that he made his Greek sufficiently vague and subtle so as not to commit Orthodoxy to any untenable position. When I raised honest doubts, he further pointed out that the most that any person could obtain in the way of satisfaction from his documents was a mere opinion; and that even though an opinion derived from the Patriarch and Synod of Constantinople, it still remained an opinion and nothing more, and opinions never had and probably never would have any binding force in the realm of dogma or upon the Orthodox conscience.

Because I was still unconvinced, he reiterated that if I would re-examine the documents with care I would discover that Constantinople had only reviewed the report of a committee, merely taking note of the things contained therein. He then made a distinction between his encyclical to the Orthodox Churches and his private letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The former he held was the document upon which Orthodoxy could pass judgment; the latter was a personal matter. An analysis of the two documents will reveal why Meletios made this distinction. It is interesting to note in this connection that all copies and translations released in England of this letter carry the simple signature of Meletios, not his rank and title. Meletios in our conversation desired me to keep in mind that in his encyclical it was clear that both he and his Synod in accepting the report of the committee accepted it as an opinion and requested further opinion from other Orthodox Patriarchates. If the English had any sense of history, Meletios continued, the English should know that the Orthodox Church can only speak as a whole.

“Opinions,” Meletios said with a twinkle in his eye, “are, after all, just opinions, and the Greeks, as a people, have a considerable reputation for being able to change them very quickly. Remember, my son, there is a world of difference between opinions and conclusions.”

This then is a brief summary of Meletios’ own estimate of his own documents.

There is another angle to this whole involved question of the historical setting of these documents, which merits passing attention. It has to do with the question of who constituted this committee and just what its full report said. When we were in residence in Constantinople, we were unable to locate this report, and so was everyone else. It was just counted as among the number of missing documents. While we are in no position to say with finality that no such report ever existed, until it is produced we will remain of the opinion that it never did exist. This does not mean that it never will be produced. Knowing the ability of the Phanar to produce documents when and where needed, we think it is entirely possible that if pressure were brought the report would come into being in short order.

At least two conclusions are justified by any historian of these particular documents. The first is, that since the reconstituting of the Greek nation to a precarious existence, Greek ecclesiastics are very prone to consider themselves as Greeks in the political sense first and as representatives of the Orthodox Faith afterward. Secondly, our Christian charity demands that we do not judge too harshly the acts of Greek hierarchs, when as men and members of a once great race they use every instrument at their command to stem the tide of the destruction of the Greek people by the Christian powers of the West. As documents these pronouncements, which we have considered, are no more than interesting ecclesiastical curiosa, reflecting the political stresses and strains of the Greeks as political beings. As statements of Orthodox teaching and dogma they are completely meaningless and not worth the paper they were written on.

Tags: 1944, 1945, Constantinople, Greek, Kyrill Johnson, Meletios Metaxakis, primary sources

Editor’s note: Yesterday, we introduced Fr. Kyrill Johnson (1897-1947), a 1920s convert who spent most of his career in the Antiochian Archdiocese. What follows is an article by Fr. Kyrill which appeared in the Orthodox American (September 1943), which was a sort of forerunner to the modern-day Word Magazine. (Just to clarify: St. Raphael did have a periodical called Al Kalimat, which is Arabic for “The Word.” After St. Raphael’s death, Al Kalimat continued for a little while, but it eventually ceased publication. Many years later, in the 1950s, Metropolitan Antony Bashir started a new magazine, also called The Word. While the two periodicals have the same name and the same general audience (Antiochian Americans), they really are two distinct publications. Anyway, before the modern-day Word Magazine began, there was the Orthodox American.

Regarding Fr. Kyrill Johnson’s article (below) — one of the things that immediately struck me about Fr. Kyrill’s writing was its similiarity to the style and tone of an earlier convert priest, Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine. The two priests never met each other (Irvine died before Johnson joined the Church), and they seem to have been very different in most other respects, but reading this article, it almost sounds as if Irvine wrote it. He almost certainly would have agreed with Fr. Kyrill’s conclusions.

In temporal warfare, when there is a desire to destroy those who do not agree with you, there are two methods open to the aggressor. The first is to marshal on a field of battle one’s material strength, and to engage the opposition in a test of strength and endurance to determine which side is to be destroyed and which side is to survive. The second is more a technique than a method, and was perfected by Hitler in recent years. It is to carry on undercover warfare through the functioning of a fifth column in the area for which there is the hidden and secret desire to destroy. The purpose of this technique is to avoid carrying on a frontal assault until there has been carried on a process of inner weakening. For this purpose everything is considered legitimate for gaining victory: lies, deception, bribery, the playing on natural human weaknesses and vanity, the deliberate misuses of terms and ideals to make them mean what they were not intended to mean and to use them as instruments of inner destruction. On the whole, this technique is pretty low and despicable, and it is disliked by civilized people.

Unfortunately, in the spiritual warfare in which the powers of darkness seek to destroy those of truth and light, one finds too often the use of methods of temporal wars; there is in some instances the clean clash of truth and error in the open, and an effort at honesty and sincerity on both sides. Then there is the Hitler technique, used to divide, to weaken, to invade the sanctities by fifth column methods through operation from within.

Recently we have observed an example of this second technique put into operation within the sanctity of our Orthodox fold here in America.

It appeared in the form of an innocent enough appearing publication, with the title inscribed “The Greek Orthodox Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Arranged for Use in English.” It comes from the press of an educational institution of one of the more wealthy protestant sects and is sent out without any official imprimatur, so that those whose point of view it represents cannot be held morally responsible for its contents.

In his introduction the “arranger” writes his purposes as follows: “Finally, in making this adaptation, the editor has had in mind two possible uses, apart from private reading: first, for public use in English speaking congregations of the Orthodox in the United States; secondly, for occasional public use in churches of the Anglican Communion,” meaning, of course, the Protestant Episcopalian Church in the United States.

We must, as Orthodox Christians, grant a certain amount of Christian charity toward this self-appointed arranger of our sacred Orthodox Liturgy for our people in this country. We trust that he was merely simple-minded enough to presume that we are so bankrupt of scholarship and initiative as to be unable to perform this task for ourselves when we need to have it done.

At the same time we must confess that the result is an amazing performance of unmitigated effrontery toward Orthodox Christians. There is not the slightest understanding of the fact that for us, our Liturgy is part of Holy Tradition and therefore is entitled to the most scrupulous respect.

Before we are misunderstood let us make it crystal clear that this work is not a translation into English of the Greek text, nor does it pretend to be. Had the author, as a scholar, set himself to render into English any of the mss. or the printed texts, we could have understood and perhaps welcomed his efforts. This was not his purpose. His task, as he saw it, was to re-write our Divine Liturgy so that it might be brought into conformity with protestant notions as to what is [sic] should be. This intrusion into a realm which the Church safeguards with the strictest limitations is something for which there can be no forgiveness either on the score of intent or of performance.

Let us also make ourself clear on this point. We do not care a hoot what Protestant Episcopalians do among themselves. For their own use and spiritual edification they can adapt the Rig Veda, the poems of Walt Whitman, the Latin Mass, or even our own Sacred Texts. But when our sacred Mysteries are tampered with in the hope that they will be used by our Orthodox People in the protestant and not in the Orthodox sense, then indeed we protest throughout the entire length and breadth of universal Orthodoxy.

Let us examine this remarkable document ever so briefly. We have not the space for a detailed analysis. First we will list those sections which are cut out entirely, viz.: the First and Second Antiphons, with their prayers; the beautiful and necessary Prayer of the Trisagion; the Ektenia for the Dead; the First Prayer of the Faithful; all that follows immediately after “It is meat [sic] and right.” the Theotokion Megalynarion. It is suggested that in place of the Megalynarion a verse from a protestant hymnal be used- which it terms a “free translation of the original,[”] which it certainly is not. Also omitted is the Ektenia which follows the Great Eucharistic Prayer.

And there is added immediately after the Words of Institution a section which does not occur in the Liturgy but which gives the whole area a protestant Theological flavor. Moreover, prayers are changed about; Petitions are shifted hither and yon; liturgical directions are given which violate the whole spirit of the accepted Diataxis. In short, our most Sacred Mystery has been re-written to make it over and to make it acceptable to protestant ways of thinking. Besides the palpable heresy which comes to notice on almost every page (such as a mistranslation of “Theotokos” which would shock the Holy Fathers of Chalcedon) the total effect is one which will strike the heart of every Orthodox Christian as something very much akin to blasphemy.

Some of the omissions the “arranger” excuses by saying that his “edition” does not pretend to be an altar-book,” but the excuse looks pretty thin because he proceeds in a manner that is more capricious and arbitrary than it is systematic. For additions to the text and deformation of it no passable excuse is conceivable in the face of the expressed desire that the Orthodox themselves shall use it.

Had the “arranger” not stated his intention and hope that it would be used by Orthodox Christians, we would ignore it as another example of the working of the untutored protestant mind intruding into fields quite beyond the spiritual and academic depth of the intruder. Under the circumstances of the expressed hope of the dual function it is presumed to fulfill, we can inform the arranger that Orthodoxy will have none of such things. Any attempt to corrupt Orthodoxy by a fifth column of protestant heresy from inside is doomed to failure. We have intelligent and learned Bishops and no text can be used at the Altar without study by competent ecclesiastical authorities and due permission.

At the same time we expect from now on, in walking through various American cities, to find advertised on the conventicles of protestantism signs reading “The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.”

Our young people must from henceforth b[e] very much on their guard; and our ancient discipline which forbids us to worship with heretics must be vigorously enforced. We remind our people once again that to attend the religious exercises of people outside the bosom of Orthodoxy is reckoned a major sin by the Church. Even though the sign may read “The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom”, the stranger should make sure that it is under the jurisdiction of a lawful Orthodox Bishop.

We cannot view activities like this “arranging” of our Divine Liturgy otherwise than with alarm and sorrow, no matter how well intentioned are their perpetrators. God may pardon the sins of ignorance, but the Faithful must be on their guard lest the wiles of evil enter into the fold of Christ.

Tags: 1943, America, Antiochian, converts, Episcopalians, Kyrill Johnson, primary sources

 

Editor’s note: The interview that follows originally appeared in a book published by the YMCA in Prague. I found it on the fascinating Alexander Palace Time Machine website (the original is here). Many thanks to Jenny Mosher, who posted a link to this interview on our SOCHA Facebook page. Bob Atchison, editor of the Alexander Palace Time Machine, graciously granted us permission to reprint the interview in full. 

After the decision to restore the Patriarchate, the most important act of the Sobor was the election of the man to fill that office. In the midst of the three days battle which resulted in the taking of Moscow by the Bolsheviks, the Sobor in orderly sittings earried out the routine it had defined for the election of a Patriarch. This was a minutely detailed procedure based upon the method first employed in 1634 for the election of Joasaf I and followed in the choice of aII subsequent Patriarchs. A secret ballot of all members was taken and the names of those receiving votes tabulated according to the number received. The choice of the Patriarch must be made from the highest three in the list. In this case they were Tikhon, Metropolitan of Moscow, Antonius, Archbishop of Kharkov, and Arsenius, Archbishop of Novgorod. On November 5th, after a solemn service in the Church of the Savior, the three names, carefully sealed in wax rolls of equal size and weight, were placed in an urn and the eldest of the recluse-monks present drew out one name. It proved to be that of Tikhon, whose election was forthwith proclaimed. On November 21st (1917) occurred the solemn consecration in the Cathedral of the Assumption, and a new epoch in Russian church history had begun. 

The man chosen to this high office was without question one of the most widely known and loved in all the Russian Church. He had been elected unanimously to the presidency of the Sobor. His appointment a few months earlier to the Metropolitanate of Moscow had simply indicated his prominence in Russian church affairs. The Patriarch is a native of Toropetz, a town near Pskov. His theological education was acquired in the Petrograd Academy, after which he served for three years as instructor in the Pskov Theological Seminary. In 1891 he took the monastic vow and after serving for six years as rector of the seminary in Kholm, he was consecrated Bishop of Lublin. One year later he was appointed Bishop of North America. In 1907 he returned to Russia as Bishop of Jaroslavl and in 1913 he became Bishop of Vilna, from which seat he was called four years later to the Metropolitanate of Moscow.

Patriarch Tikhon’s nine years in America were important ones in the affairs of the Orthodox Church there. During this period the episcopal seat was removed from San Francisco to New York. During this period Bishop Tikhon became Archbishiop Tikhon, the first American Orthodox hierarch to bear that title. These years made a deep impression upon the future Patriarch himself, and as will later be pointed out, the knowledge of the life and religious ideals of American people he acquired there have been very influential in later events in Russia. America has no better friend in Russia than Patriarch Tikhon and he seems especially pleased to maintain his connection with Americans and things American. In view of his unique position and significance for all the Orthodox Church, a brief sketch of the Patriarch as the author last saw him in November 1920, will possibly here be pertinent.

An erect, well-built man in a blaek robe: grey hair and beard which at first glance make him appear older than his fifty-six years: a firm handclasp and kindly eyes with a decided trace of humor and ever a hint of fire in the back of them: those are your first impressions. That, and his beaming smile. The next thing I thought of was how little he had changed in appearance in the two years since I last visited him. He does not look a day older, and his manner, in marked contrast to so many of my friends in Moscow, is just as calm, unhurried and fearless as though he had not passed through two years of terrible uncertainty and stress. He had put on the white silk cowl with its diamond cross and the six – winged angel embroidered above the brow which is the head-dress of the Patriarch on all official oceasions, but he had evidently just been sitting down to tea and the arrival of an old friend dispelled any formality. So in a minute the cope and gown had disappeared and we were sitting beside the samovar in his living room. First the Patriarch wanted to know all about the Church in America. The only recent news he had was a cablegram which had been over a year en route. Then I had to promise to convey his heartiest greetings and special blessing to a number of individuals and to “all American friends” in general. He was most anxious to know if the letter he addressed to President Wilson on Thanksgiving Day, 1918, had ever reached him. In it the Patriarch had expressed his Church’s participation in offering thanks for victory over the powers of evil, and congratulated President Wilson on his fine type of leadership. The letter then went on to speak of the seemingly severe terms imposed upon the enemy, and urged Christian forbearance and the alleviation of the conditions laid down, rather than the creation of a lasting hatred which could but breed more war. No reply was ever received, and the Patriarch was curious to know if it had ever reaehed the President. Later, I tried to get a copy of this letter, but found that all extant copies had been destroyed during a political raid in the home of the Patriarch’s secretary.

All those who know Patriarch Tikhon enjoy his well-developed sense of humor. I believe it is this whieh has helped him retain his poise and cheerfulness through the past three years. I asked him how he had been treated. He told me he had been under “home arrest” for more than a year, had been permitted to go out to conduct service in other churches about once in three months, but aside from this had suffered no personal violence; this in marked contmst to many of the Church’s dignitaries who had been sent to jail or even condemned to execution. “They think”, the Patriarch smilingly remarked, as he patted my hand confidentially, ’0, he’s an old chap: he’ll die soon….. we won’t bother him’. “Wait and see”, he went on, shaking his finger, schoolmaster-fashion – “I’ll show them, yet”. And the roguish twinkle in his eyes, remarkably young in contrast to his grey hair, gave you confidence that when the present nightmare has cleared in Russia, her Church’s leader will be found ready to take a most active part in the affairs of the new day.

But not a political part: we spoke of several churchmen who had dabbled in politics, and the Patriarch expressed his sorrow and disapproval; ‘What is right and just one may openly approve, and what is evil and unrighteous one must as openly condemn”, he said, “that is the Church’s business. But to meddle with the affairs of secular politics is neither the course of wisdom or of duty for a priest”. “What is the most urgent need of the Orthodox Church which the Christian world outside can supply?” I asked the Patriarch.

“Send us Bibles”, he replied. “Never before in history has there been such a hunger for Scripture in the Russian people. They clamor for the whole book – not only the Gospels but the Old Testament as well – and we have no Bibles to give them. Our slender stocks were exhausted long ago, and our presses have been confiscated, so that we cannot print more”. I assured him that Christians in other lands would doubtless find a way to supply this need.

It happened to be Thanksgiving Day at home, and the Patriarch remembered, and smilingly referred to its being known as “Turkey Day” in an American family he used to visit in New York. This brought on a discussion of American and Russian holidays and this in turn led to an interesting conversation “bout the present religious situation in Russia. At every step in this recital the Patriarch’s clear insight into men and events and his statesmanlike grasp of the affairs of the whole Church were clearly evident. I left him with a renewed conviction of his fitness for the high post he occupies.

Russian Christians believe the choice of the Patriarch was direeted by Divine Providence, and surely Patriarch Tikhon’s career thus far, offers basis for the belief. It would be difficult to imagine a man better fitted, mentally and temperamentally for the peculiarly difficult task of leading the Orthodox Church through these years of disorder and suffering in Russia. His good-humored friendliness, combined with a kindly firmness have become proverbial in the Russian Church. This is even more true of what Russians call his “accessibility”. It is common belief that anyone, be he bishop or priest or the most obseure layman, who has real need of his advice or decision, may get to see the Patriarch.

I recall a small incident which gives point to this statement. One day in 1918, late in the afternoon I called at the Patriarch’s house, by appointment, for in those troubled months the Patriarch was so busy and his presence so much in demand that we used to wonder when he found time for sleep. And as I passed through the hall I noticed a woman in a peasant’s dress, sobbing in a corner. In response to my question she poured out a long story of how some canonicaI difficulty in the marriage of her daughter could only be solved by, the personal decision of the Patriarch. “I’ve been here since early morning”, she said, wiping her eyes, “without eating or drinking, and now they say the Patriarch is home from the Sobor but he is too busy to see me”. The tall servant in the hall, who by the way was also in America with Patriarch Tikhon, told me in English that he felt the Patriareh was too busy with matters of national importance to be troubled with one woman’s private request. Knowing the Patriarch as I did, I ventured to tell him of the petitioner in the hall, and as I left he asked to see her. In some Russian village today there is a peasant family who think Russia’s Patriarch is the kindest man who ever lived.

But these glimpses of fatherly kindness in the leader of the Russian Church must not be allowed to give a one-sided impression. On account of his good nature a Russian writer has compared him to the first Patriarch of Russia, Job. In view of his proven statesmanship and his fearless insistence upon justice as well as the remarkable skill with which he has held the Church together when everything else in Russia was falling into ruin, it seems to me he more nearly resembles Hermogen, whose influence moved so powerfully in unifying and inspiring Russian spirit to throw off the Polish yoke. From the closing of the Sobor in September, 1918, the Patriarch continued its policy of protest against increasing encroachments of civil powers upon church property and church direction. With constantly increasing severity the government punished anyone who questioned or opposed its decrees, so that to make a public protest was something which might bring the gravest personal consequences. The policy of Red Terror had gone into effect. In the face of this, the Patriarch issued his classic Epistle to the “Soviet of People’s Commissars”: – “Whoso taketh a sword shall perish by the sword”, it begins. “The blood of our brothers shed in rivers at your order, cries to Heaven and compels us to speak the bitter words of truth. You have given the people a stone instead of bread, a serpent instead of a fish. You have exchanged Christian love for hatred: in the place of peace you have kindled the flames of class enmity”. A few lines later we read “Is this freedom, when no one may openly speak his mind without danger of being accused as a counterrevolutionary? Where is the freedom of word and press? Where is freedom of church preaching?” The epistle concludes with the formal excommunication of all those connected with the terroristic movements in the government. He is a stern man and a bold one, who can publish such sentences in the face of powerful enemies against whom he has not the slightest physical defence. The Head of the Russian Church has been absolutely fearless in condemning wrong and insisting upon justiee and right.

This boldness, tempered with a well-seasoned moderation, has enabled the Patriarch to maintain his position as leader and center of the whole church organization. With clear consistence he has refrained from interferenee with purely political affairs, save in so far as they touched upon matters of public morals or eommon justice. He is probably the only man of similar importance who was able to speak his mind so freely without punishment by imprisonment or worse, during four years of the Soviet government in Russia. His life during this time has been of the greatest importance to the Russian Church. In his person all Orthodox thinking has centered. His personality has kept alive the spirit of a Church unified in a time when every other institution had gone to pieces. His example has inspired new ideals of religion I and life in the hearts of millions of his people.

Chaotic as these years have been, they have witnessed at the same time a momentous deepening of religious feeling and spirit in Russia. Religion has become in the lives of most people something far more than ever before. What once was more or less formal theory has now been transmuted by the fires of the past four years into vivid reality, into lifeblood to strengthen men and women through boundless hardship. In the old days, one was often charmed by the peculiarly intimate and conscious sense of God shown by a peasant or a workman, something one finds much more rarely in western lands. Now, it is an experience to make one stop and think, to diseover in the lives of the “intelligentsia”, as well, exactly the same vivid certainty of God’s presenee and of the actuality of communion with Him. Is it something they have just learned, in these years of trial, or have they simply rediscovered the sense of God which has been latent all their lives? I think most Russians feel the latter is true, although most of the people I know frankly confess that never before has religion meant so much to them.

The Countess L. is an example of what I mean. As one knew her in the old days she was typical of her elass of the “intelligentsia” in her attitude toward the church and toward religion in general: a mild respect for the feeling of other people in matters religious but a very frank scepticism, at least on the surface, so far as her own interest in religion was concerned. That was three years ago. The reign of terror and the general suffering of these years have not passed her by, and she has undergone such experiences as at once horrify you and inspire you by the heroism exhibited. Today she is a striking personality, who impresses you primarily in a religious way. It is difficult to say what it is about Countess L. which so inspires you, whether it is her serene faith in the goodness of God and the power of prayer, her sincere charity toward those who have caused her so much ill, or the transparently beautiful character which has grown in the midst of so much sorrow. I only know that a talk with her makes one’s own faith seem so small and one’s own religion so puny, that you are driven to a resolve to deepen your own spiritual life, and make it count more than ever before for the service of others.

And although the common folk of Russia have learned much in the past four years, and although many attempts to teach them have had a decidedly anti-religious color, the total new culture has not altered that depth of religious feeling which has already been mentioned. I remember riding with a woman conductor on a freight-train, in 1920, who illustrated this point. She had been telling me of the different train-loads of troops, war prisoners and the like, it had been her fortune to help transfer. Then later we spoke of schools under the Soviet government and she expressed her chief criticism against the fact that no religious instruction was offered. “It’s a bad thing for folks who lose God,” she told me. “So many other people seem to have lost Him of late years. Thank Heaven we in Russia haven’t. Why just last week I had a trainload of Austrian communists and some of them tried to prove to me that there is not any God at all. ‘I don’t want to listen to your talk’, I told them, ‘you don’t act as though you had anything better than the old religion, and you need not talk to me against a God I know”’.

Even where common folk have been led to attempt casting off their faith together with everything else connected with the old life, the success of the assault upon religion has been only superficial. People could be harangued into a superficial acceptance of infidel doctrine, but when the matter actually came to the test, they discovered that the old faith still remained. I know no better illustration of this than an incident in Jaroslavl in Easter week, 1919. The radicals in charge of the town, apparently moved by the notable religious feeling among the populace, called a meeting to discuss religion. Among others, representatives of the clergy were invited. Some of the best communist orators of the district were brought in to present the case against rcligion. First a skillful speaker discussed the “Christ myth”. He explained that simple people had once been easily misled by priests into belief that Jesus was something more than a man, that He had worked miracles, had even risen from the dead. Now while Jesus deserved honor as the first Communist, He was simply a man, and an enlightened and revolutionary people should put “way all their old superstitions about Him. “Long live the Communist Internationale” – and he was fairly well applauded by the people. The second speaker was a Jewess who attacked the ancient stories about the birth of Jesus. When she closed with a statement that Mary was simply a woman of the streets, and nothing more, the applause was somehow less vigorous.

Now it came the turn of the senior priest of the town to present his case. He rose, made the sign of the cross, stood a moment silently facing the erowd and then pronounced the age-old Easter greeting: “Christ is risen.” Without a moment’s hesitation the crowd swayed toward him in reply: “He is risen indeed”. “Christ is risen”! the priest repeated, and the answer came almost before he had pronounced the words. A third time he said it, with” thunderous response from the people, then, waiting a moment, he asked simply, “What more is there to say? Let us go to our homes”, and the anti-religious meeting adjourned. It is this deep-seated sense of religion in the hearts of Russian folk of all classes which has come so mightily to the front in the past four years.

Concomitant with this rise in spiritual values, there has come notably broadened popular interest in any sort of religious instruction. Moscow, in the autumn of 1920, was placarded with posters, practically the only ones visible which were not put up by the government, announcing a series of meetings organized by the Russian Student Christian Movement, with Professor Martsenkoffsky as the chief speaker, all on purely religious themes. “The Way to New Life” and “The Coming Christ” were among other lecture topics. These meetings were held in one of the largest auditoriums in Moscow, and roused such popular interest that eventually the leaders were arrested, lest the movement turn against the government. To one returning to Russia after an absence of two years, it was astonishing to see many churehes open for service every day, with a sermon at each service. In former times, a sermon was a rarity. Most congregations did not care for them, and even those priests who would have been glad to preach were under such restraint from the government that they found it very difficult. A popular lecturer on religious subjects in Petrograd some years ago once remarked that frequently priests who came to his lectures told him how they envied the freedom with which he was allowed to speak of religion. Now the whole picture is changed, people demand sermons, and sermons of the most practical character. The few specimens which have gotten into Russia of such books as Fosdick’s with their very modern application of Christian teaching to everyday Jife, have been fairly worn out, passed from hand to hand by people eagerly seeking guidance in this new comprehension of religion. And priests have risen to meet this need, speaking truth in vigorous style, often at the risk of the gravest personal consequences. Sermons are no longer the pious, half-sentimental homilies such as one used to hear, and as are sometimes encountered today in old-fashioned churches in Europe or America, but open, direct instruction in the duty of Christian living. One of the most striking changes in the Russian Church in the past four years is that of clergy who practicalIy never prepared a sermon, now metamorphosed into a body of fearless preachers of the Gospel.

This same interest in religion is again exhibited in the universal demand for Scripture. I have mentioned the Patriarch’s opinion on the matter. The same situation persists everywhere. Two different women, one a lady formerly of high estate and the other a working girl, told me in Russia how they had been unable to buy a Bible. Red Army troops returning after eight months internment in Germany, begged relief agencies at the border for some bit of Scripture to take back into Russia with them. A talk with Father Hotovitsky brought out the same hunger for the Book, of which the Patriarch spoke. Three months later a British commercial agent, with no special interest in religious teaching, brought out another formal request from representatives of both the Orthodox Church and the Tolstoyan movement for assistance in procuring copies of the Bible for distribution. The fever of interest in Scripture which swept through peasant Germany at the dawn of the Reformation seems to have found a modern-day counterpart in Russia. Here however the Church, instead of attempting to suppress the spread of the Book, is the chief agency urging its use, and asking aid of foreign Bible Societies in producing the Scriptures which it eannot itself print since the confiscation of all its publishing plants. This hunger for Scripture is another indication of the new interest and meaning which religion has for all sorts of people in Russia since the Revolution.

It is also interesting to see how inevitably people connect their new-found religion with the old Church. To me this has been a new proof of the inherent vitality of Russian Orthodoxy, in this as in other times of crisis. The churches are crowded, and the worship in them is if anything more devout than before, but one senses a new spirit of comprehension, of the practicability of faith, if the term may be applied, which was not generally present four years ago. To be sure, there may be emotional or sentimental elements in this. One woman told me: “The church is the only place where one can get away from the terrible existence we must endure”. Another person, thinking along the same line, said: “O, Russia isn’t Russia any more; the only place you can feel at home is in church”. Be that as it may, the Church itself has made great advances in adapting itself to the newly apparent needs of its people, and religion as preached daily in its sanctuary has a new meaning for Russia. Take the purely external alterations, for example.

One of the differences from old times which immediately strikes a visitor in present-day Russia are the posters at the church door. Here is one announcing congregational singing-practice; another lists the services for the week, and you are surprised to note that there is a service with a sermon every day. Another gives notice of a special collection for a choir-director and a fourth, perhaps, appeals to all members to remain after this morning’s service and help put in place the mats which are used in winter to cover the cold pavement. In the congregation the men are surprisingly predominant, many of them wearing Red Army insignia. You notice that while people are constantly entering the chureh, as in the old days, there are practically none leaving it, a phase of church service which was always very disconcerting to a western visitor in a Russian church before the Revolution. Now people come and stay for the entire service, especially the sermon, an institution which in the last few months (autumn 1921) has become, except for government deliverance, the most liberal and fearless public utteranee to be heard. In general, the preachers confine themselves and their remarks pretty well within the limits set by the Patriarch in his quoted statement regarding the political activity of priests, but within these limits there has been the most vigorous, speaking of the “bitter truth”. The preaching priesthood has attained a new respect in the eyes of Orthodox people, through the power of the spoken word.

The anecdote I heard in Moscow about Father Hotovitsky, of the Church of the Savior is indicative of the sort of priests here mentioned. There is probably no more remarkable preacher in Russia than Father Hotovitsky. His sermons are very modern both in their theology and in their practical application. He was drawn into a discussion with Lunacharsky, Commissar of Education, on the omnipresence of God. “You say that God is everywhere”, Lunacharsky told him. “Now you will surely admit that one could imagine a small box somewhere without God’s being in the box”. “But why suppose an imaginary box”, Hotovitsky retorted, when we have you, Mr. Commissar?”

Easter, 1921, in Moscow was another indication of the present position of the Church. The Patriarch was released from his “home arrest” to officiate at the midnight service in the Church of the Savior. But even that great temple, accomodating ten thousand people, was utterly inadequate to serve the crowd which came. The whole of the grand square about the church was flooded with worshippers and several extra services were conducted simultaneously, in the open air, to meet the exigencies of the occasion. One very significant item about this service was the insistence of the people that it should occur at midnight by sun time, instead of by the daylight-saving chronometry of the Soviet government. So while the street clocks of Communist regime marked three-thirty a. m., the Orthodox people of Moscow celebrated” midnight service at midnight as the sun indicates time.

There is much more to be said of religious life in Russia today. These paragraphs have merely hinted at what will some day require volumes properly to outline and portray, but they will perhaps have indieated the remarkably deepened spirituality of these present times in Russia, with religion a more vital reality in the lives of all classes than ever before, with this new spiritual life manifesting itself in a keen interest in religious discussion and literature, with the old Church rising to meet the newly awakened needs of its people.

These needs present far more searching problems than merely those of organization or of church discipline. The new day in Russia demands new modes of thought, even new phases of religion. By its preaching the Church must endeavor to guide the thinking of its people as they grope their way in the dazzling light of a freedom they were as unprepared for as owls for sunshine. The Byzantine elements in religion, emphasizing the mystic in the teaching about Christ, and the less positive than negative attitude toward joyous activity, must gradually give part of their place to more modern ideas of the Christian conquest, the blessedness of Christian service, the reality of Jesus’ comradeship. This is not to say that the past as a whole is to be sloughed off like an outgrown shell. Such elements as the beautiful humility which has characterized Russian Christianity for so many centuries, or the mysticism in devotion which is one of its greatest charms, must not be permitted to fade from the picture. Rather, the idea of activity, of service for Christ who is living and loving men must be engrafted into the old stock, re. taining all the beauty and usefulness of the old, but providing a combination of religious thought better fitted to meet present-day needs. These ideas must be embodied in the homiletics of the new Russia.

Such preaching you may hear in Russian churches today sermons by Russian priests. A Westerner would never be able to produce the desired result: he would be too brusque, too positive, too little able actually to get within the Russian religious thought of the past generations. Among American Protestants there have been numerous volunteers to go and “Christianize” Russia – they may better remain at home and preach to folk whose temperament and background they ean comprehend. In Russia they would shout to unresponsive listeners. The Orthodox Church wishes every aid other Christian bodies can give it, but its preaching must be done by Russians if it is to appeal to the Russian mind.

With a rising culture in Russia, another age-old custom of Orthodoxy may come up for consideration. What will be the future of the holy pictures (ikons) of Russia? There are those who think ikons will gradually disappear from the service. If they do, it will be in the distant future. But even in these post-revolutionary years, events have often shaped themselves in a way to bring forcibly to mind the actual inconsequentiality of “holy” things and “holy” pictures. Popular feeling has revolted at cinematograph photos of the desceration of a shrine like that of Saint Sergius, but at the same time the half-unconscious impression has been made that the place or the relics are in themselves of small real worth to a Christian. The priceless treasures adorning some specially-revered ikon have been stolen and the century-old sanctity of the holy picture violated. And folk, half unknowingly, begin to take less interest in the ancient painting. It is somehow discovered to be not so efficacious as an aid to Christian living. Are these indications of the future? Perhaps, but with a custom as ancient as the usage of ikons in the Orthodox Church, alterations will be made but slowly. If the question may be called a problem at all, it is surely a secondary one. It is so unimportant in comparison with the new developments in religious thinking and comprehension that while the topic will interest future students of Russian life, it need not further occupy us here.

There are educational problems for the Church to face, as well as theological. How shall it provide a body of clergy with a training adequate to meet the demands of its membership, especially in times like the present when church schools of all sorts are quite eliminated from the government’s list of possibilities? This is one of the most immediate problems the Church has to solve. Up to now a general solution has not been discovered, the chief reliance at present being a return to the ancient custom of training young men in each church, a sort of apprentice-system for the priesthood. The ranks of the clergy have also been augmented by the ordination of many religiously minded laymen with suitable education. Although perhaps nothing better. is possible just now, both of these schemes have their serious deficiences, of course, and the Church’s leaders are keenly alive to the situation. The future will doubtless discover effective means to provide an adequately trained clergy. But the Churech’s efforts along educational lines are not to be limited to the training of priests. The Church has gone vigorously about the task of providing a substitute for its parish schools, and organizations of various sorts among the congregations have opened religious instruction for all the church membership. Bible-study groups and something like our American mid-week prayer meetings have appeared. Preaching missions to the villages have been encouraged. The Church has given its support to other than strictly ecclesiastical movements for the spread of religious instruction.

And not purely religious education alone, has received the support of’ the Church. As in former times, so now it is anxious to cooperate with every worthy ageney working for the general cultural uplift of Russia. The Patriarch’s open letter, prepared to accompany a rural-education expedition, is an example of the attitude of the Orthodox Church toward all sincere efforts for the well-being of Russia: 

“The Young Men’s Christian Association is undertaking the support of a series of movements having for their object the improvement of the moral atmosphere of Russian life, the preaching of God’s Word and, abstaining from politics, cooperation with Russian educational and economic improvement societies.

“With this object in view, an expedition is proposed with a special steamer on the Volga, stopping at different villages and landings. On this boat there are to be lectures on agriculture and other topics valuable for popular education, also short religious services with appropriate moral instruction by Orthodox priests.

“Sympathizing with everything whieh may be helpful, materially or morally, to our Russian people, we hereby confer our blessing upon the organizers of this good work, praying God’s aid for its successful accomplishment.

(Signed) Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.”

The content of such an epistle evidences the remarkably modern position which this ancient Church has assumed in the face of the modern educational requirements of its people.

The widespread demand, already noted, for the Bible, indicates another line of development where the Orthodox Church has to blaze away. Although the Church has used and taught the Gospels and the New Testament generally, until Leroy-Beaulieu could write that “the Gospels are undoubtedly the book dearest to the Russian”, the Old Testament has been very little known, hence the Church faces just now an interest in Scripture study quite unprecedented in its history. And again the need evidenees itself for a transition from the old. mystic usage of Scripture to a vitalizing praetical study, relating with ever-growing distinctness the life-giving Book to life itself.

Realizing the need for expert direction in the religious life of his Church, one of Patriareh Tikhon’s first official acts was to call from New York Father Hotovitsky who for some years in America had been specializing on church organization, young people’s work and the like. As early as the autumn of 1918 parish organizations similar to the “Brotherhoods” in many American churches, had begun to make their appearance. They were followed by women’s organizations with the object of Bible study as well as assistance in church maintenance. Children’s, particularly boys’ groups. have been formed, until today in Russia thousands of congregations have one or more organized clubs of women, men or young people, existing for self-help in religious and moral edueation, and for helping others along the same lines. The preaching missions already mentioned, whieh from time to time have gone from city centers out into the villages, have been another evidence of the Church’s capacity to cope with this need for a more general edueation in practical religion.

Surely the history of the Church since the revolution offers a guarantee for its future place in the life of the Russian people. During times when all other phases of national life and organization were dissolved in a national disorder sueh as no other country of modern times has experienced, merely to have held itself together in unbroken unity would have been a performance worthy of the world’s notice. This the Church has done, but beyond that it has sueeeeded, in the faee of all the forces striving for its dissolution, in building for itself a new form of organization and government, with principles of democratic control such as it had never known before. In the Patriarchate. which as has been seen is not a restoration of the old autocracy or a centralization of authority in one person, the Church has found for itself a new center around which it has crystallized a firm unity.

In establishing the principle of coneiliar management, with democratic legislative bodies representing all classes of the people, men and women, clergy and lay, it has provided a form of government which harmonizes with the best progressive spirit of the Russian world. The Church has remodelled its administration to meet the new situation.

It has revised its services as well, so that now as never before the services in its sanctuaries are not merely for the people, but of the people. The new economic conditions have helped to bring each communicant into a position of participation in the affairs of his parish. The management of parish business by a committee chosen by the people has given them a new sense of responsibility for their Church. The introduction of congregational singing and the entirely new emphasis upon preaehing brings worship into a new phase of actual commonality. All the people are participants in the services, and these services are so ordered as to meet the marvellously new interest in practical religion whieh exists throughout Russia today.

These, changes the Church has made in itself in, order to minister to the new needs of the Russian people are simply what might have been expected in the light of its historic past. When Christianity first dawned in Russia, it was the Church which spread the light of learning and the acceptance of Christian morality throughout the land. When much of the old order was dissolved in the two hundred years Russia bowed beneath the Tatar yoke it was the Church again which offered a rallying point and actually inspired the effort which threw off the Asiatic tyranny. It was the Church under Hermogen, in the “Troublous Times”, which kept alive the spark of patriotism, for Russians always linked in an indissoluble way with the idea of Orthodoxy, and the glorious defence of the Sergievskaya Lavra marked a new turning point in Russian national affairs, with the Church in the leader’s role. In the light of the Chureh’s glorious past, when in every time of national crisis it has somehow maintained not only its own unity, but has been the center around which the spirit of the nation could rally, is it unduly optimistic to suggest that in our day we are witnessing another repetition of history! Surely the events of the past five years, with the Church as the only organization whieh still exists, standing like a temple miraculously preserved amid a city devastated by fire, offer ground for the belief that the Church in Russia will not belie its past performances. It is not only preserved amidst general ruin, but it has purged itself of the evils which a time of servitude had fastened upon it, remodelled its forms of government and worship, and ministers today to the needs of Russian people with a eompleteness it has never before known.

And if the history of the past offers bright hope for the future of the Orthodox Church, just as truly does the personality of the men who are guiding its affairs in the present. What has been said of the liberality and breadth of mind of the Patriarch, of his keen appreciation of the needs of Russian Christianity today and the measures the Church must take to meet them, is typical of the church leaders who form his immediate circle of advisers. It is no exaggeration to say that the most able and the most liberal men in the Orthodox Church are guiding its present efforts. Perhaps the fact is significant that many of them, like Patriarch Tikhon himself, have spent some years in America, where acquaintance has been gained with western religious ideals and practice. Father Hotovitsky using his knowledge of young people’s organizations in America to build up throughout the Russian Church similar groups, or Bishop Anatolii of Tomsk who even before the assembly of the Sobor began parochial organizations modelled after those he had known in America, are outstanding examples of the progressive leadership in the Orthodox Church today. Besides forming one of the strongest possible ties of friendship with America, these will by the very fact of their acquaintance with life in our country are bound to be of most valuable service in bringing the Russian Church up to the new and lofty standards she has set for herself. Their background of acquaintance with Western ideals of religion is likely to be of large influenee in the progress of the Church of Russia.

As these men go forward in the work of leading Russian Christianity out along lines of freer activity and more vital religion, they are looking to the Christians of other lands for support and assistance. It would be difficult to imagine an organization more truly desirous of learning from the best in others, of profiting by experience along the same paths it has laid out for itself, than is the Russian Church. It confidently expects that Christians of other nations will gladly offer whatever assistance is within their power. What contributions can members of other Christian confessions make toward the progress of Christianity in Russia?

To be of service to the Church of Russia, Christians of the West must first cultivate aequaintance with it. A study of its ideals and its history, a genuine effort to appreciate all that is valuable in its past and present – these must first lead us to a sincere recognition of the breadth and depth of Russian Christianity. Study its literature; if possible become familiar with its service. There are many Russian churches in America where one may begin this helpful acquaintance and any sincerely friendly approach will be met with equal friendliness.

Practical aid may be extended in the provision of books. The whole realm of our modern religious literature may be opened to Russia: educational courses for use in church schools and organized Bible-study groups will be eagerly utilized. Such books as homiletical aids, guild and society handbooks, would be most useful if translated and adapted to modern Russian conditions. The best religious thought of the modern West should be put at Russia’s disposal by translation and publication in Russian. In the interval until the Church is again in a position to publish the Bible and portions of it for itself, the other Christian communions will find it difficult to turn a deaf ear to the appeals of both the Church and the Russian people for copies of the Word of God. Cooperation should be encouraged along all lines of religious endeavor and all our own experience in religious organization and method should be open for the use of the Russian Church. They seek our aid, and we must not withhold it.

Any such assistance offered to Russia by Western Christianity will be welcomed with open arms, and if the suggestions here contained are borne in mind there will be no possibility for misunderstanding. Once a thorough appreeiation of the essential “Russianity” of the Orthodox Church is established, there will be no misguided efforts to help Russian Christianity through the propagation of other forms of church organization or sectarian propaganda. What Western Christianity gives to Russia must be given through the Orthodox Church and not in any sort of opposition to or competition with it. A church which regardless of the barriers of distance and language, has prayed daily for a thousand years for “the welfare of God’s ehurches and the union of them all” will welcome every sincerely friendly approach from other Christian bodies.

In all this talk of efforts toward the rapprochement of other Christian bodies to the Russian Church, and methods of extending aid in these trying years, one possibility overtops all the rest. We must cultivate acquaintance with the Orthodox Church and personal contact with its leaders. We must learn to appreciate the beauty and value in its worship and its teaching. We must realize that the Russian Church is essentially indigenous and adapt to that cardinal fact our efforts at effective assistance. We should put at its disposal the best of our modern religious thought in the form of books and periodicals. These are particularly vital for those Americans who go to Russia or who are directing the home churches. To all Christians at home, however, there remains the privilege of all Christians everywhere, that of intercession. It is doubtful if anywhere in the Christian world today there is a more vital belief in the value of prayer, than in Russia. When the Russian Church asks for our prayers, the request is more than an empty formality. Russia believes, she knows from experience, how the power of God may be invoked, and her people confidently expect the prayer support of Christians of other lands. In the midst of the terrible uncertainty of the summer of 1918, when no one dared plan anything more than a few days in advance, and even the Sobor carried on its orderly deliberations only in the face of unbelievable hindrances, the proclamation of President Wilson appointing “a day of humiliation, prayer and fasting” made a deep impression upon the leaders of the Russian Church. The feeling of the Patriarch is evident in his letter, written at that time, to his friend Dr. Mott, as one of the leaders among the Christian forces of America:

“It was with especial sympathy that we together with all believing Russians heard that the members of the churches of God in America. had been assembled by your President and ehurch leaders in the houses of God Memorial Day to fast and pray for peace among the nations at war. We also recall with deep gratitude the friendly feelings repeatedly expressed by your President toward Russia. 

“It would comfort us to know that the Christians of America will continue to remember our Russian Church and people in their prayers. We would feel deeply grateful if you could express to the Christian people in America our profound desire for their intercession, especially at this crisis in Russia. We are conscious in this dark hour that the moral support and prayers of all Christendom are vital for the rebuilding of Russia through Christ to her former strength”.

The head of Russia’s Church is here expressing the feeling of most of its leaders and millions of its people. Such a letter brings an almost irresistible appeal. As the old Church of Russia moves out into new fields of service for a people rising to the ideals of a modern world, may Christians of the West be not unmindful of this desire for their prayer-support. Joining in its age-old prayer for the welfare of all God’s churches, may we open our thought to every means of eooperation and assistance for the Church of Russia. The man chosen to this high office was without question one of the most widely known and loved in all the Russian Church. He had been elected unanimously to the presidency of the Sobor. His appointment a few months earlier to the Metropolitanate of Moscow had simply indicated his prominence in Russian church affairs. The Patriarch is a native of Toropetz, a town near Pskov. His theological education was acquired in the Petrograd Academy, after which he served for three years as instructor in the Pskov Theological Seminary. In 1891 he took the monastic vow and after serving for six years as rector of the seminary in Kholm, he was consecrated Bishop of Lublin. One year later he was appointed Bishop of North America. In 1907 he returned to Russia as Bishop of Jaroslavl and in 1913 he became Bishop of Vilna, from which seat he was called four years later to the Metropolitanate of Moscow.

Patriarch Tikhon’s nine years in America were important ones in the affairs of the Orthodox Church there. During this period the episcopal seat was removed from San Francisco to New York. During this period Bishop Tikhon became Archbishiop Tikhon, the first American Orthodox hierarch to bear that title. These years made a deep impression upon the future Patriarch himself, and as will later be pointed out, the knowledge of the life and religious ideals of American people he acquired there have been very influential in later events in Russia. America has no better friend in Russia than Patriarch Tikhon and he seems especially pleased to maintain his connection with Americans and things American. In view of his unique position and significance for all the Orthodox Church, a brief sketch of the Patriarch as the author last saw him in November 1920, will possibly here be pertinent.

An erect, well-built man in a blaek robe: grey hair and beard which at first glance make him appear older than his fifty-six years: a firm handclasp and kindly eyes with a decided trace of humor and ever a hint of fire in the back of them: those are your first impressions. That, and his beaming smile. The next thing I thought of was how little he had changed in appearance in the two years since I last visited him. He does not look a day older, and his manner, in marked contrast to so many of my friends in Moscow, is just as calm, unhurried and fearless as though he had not passed through two years of terrible uncertainty and stress. He had put on the white silk cowl with its diamond cross and the six – winged angel embroidered above the brow which is the head-dress of the Patriarch on all official oceasions, but he had evidently just been sitting down to tea and the arrival of an old friend dispelled any formality. So in a minute the cope and gown had disappeared and we were sitting beside the samovar in his living room. First the Patriarch wanted to know all about the Church in America. The only recent news he had was a cablegram which had been over a year en route. Then I had to promise to convey his heartiest greetings and special blessing to a number of individuals and to “all American friends” in general. He was most anxious to know if the letter he addressed to President Wilson on Thanksgiving Day, 1918, had ever reached him. In it the Patriarch had expressed his Church’s participation in offering thanks for victory over the powers of evil, and congratulated President Wilson on his fine type of leadership. The letter then went on to speak of the seemingly severe terms imposed upon the enemy, and urged Christian forbearance and the alleviation of the conditions laid down, rather than the creation of a lasting hatred which could but breed more war. No reply was ever received, and the Patriarch was curious to know if it had ever reaehed the President. Later, I tried to get a copy of this letter, but found that all extant copies had been destroyed during a political raid in the home of the Patriarch’s secretary.

All those who know Patriarch Tikhon enjoy his well-developed sense of humor. I believe it is this whieh has helped him retain his poise and cheerfulness through the past three years. I asked him how he had been treated. He told me he had been under “home arrest” for more than a year, had been permitted to go out to conduct service in other churches about once in three months, but aside from this had suffered no personal violence; this in marked contmst to many of the Church’s dignitaries who had been sent to jail or even condemned to execution. “They think”, the Patriarch smilingly remarked, as he patted my hand confidentially, ’0, he’s an old chap: he’ll die soon….. we won’t bother him’. “Wait and see”, he went on, shaking his finger, schoolmaster-fashion – “I’ll show them, yet”. And the roguish twinkle in his eyes, remarkably young in contrast to his grey hair, gave you confidence that when the present nightmare has cleared in Russia, her Church’s leader will be found ready to take a most active part in the affairs of the new day.

But not a political part: we spoke of several churchmen who had dabbled in politics, and the Patriarch expressed his sorrow and disapproval; ‘What is right and just one may openly approve, and what is evil and unrighteous one must as openly condemn”, he said, “that is the Church’s business. But to meddle with the affairs of secular politics is neither the course of wisdom or of duty for a priest”. “What is the most urgent need of the Orthodox Church which the Christian world outside can supply?” I asked the Patriarch.

“Send us Bibles”, he replied. “Never before in history has there been such a hunger for Scripture in the Russian people. They clamor for the whole book – not only the Gospels but the Old Testament as well – and we have no Bibles to give them. Our slender stocks were exhausted long ago, and our presses have been confiscated, so that we cannot print more”. I assured him that Christians in other lands would doubtless find a way to supply this need.

It happened to be Thanksgiving Day at home, and the Patriarch remembered, and smilingly referred to its being known as “Turkey Day” in an American family he used to visit in New York. This brought on a discussion of American and Russian holidays and this in turn led to an interesting conversation “bout the present religious situation in Russia. At every step in this recital the Patriarch’s clear insight into men and events and his statesmanlike grasp of the affairs of the whole Church were clearly evident. I left him with a renewed conviction of his fitness for the high post he occupies.

Russian Christians believe the choice of the Patriarch was direeted by Divine Providence, and surely Patriarch Tikhon’s career thus far, offers basis for the belief. It would be difficult to imagine a man better fitted, mentally and temperamentally for the peculiarly difficult task of leading the Orthodox Church through these years of disorder and suffering in Russia. His good-humored friendliness, combined with a kindly firmness have become proverbial in the Russian Church. This is even more true of what Russians call his “accessibility”. It is common belief that anyone, be he bishop or priest or the most obseure layman, who has real need of his advice or decision, may get to see the Patriarch.

I recall a small incident which gives point to this statement. One day in 1918, late in the afternoon I called at the Patriarch’s house, by appointment, for in those troubled months the Patriarch was so busy and his presence so much in demand that we used to wonder when he found time for sleep. And as I passed through the hall I noticed a woman in a peasant’s dress, sobbing in a corner. In response to my question she poured out a long story of how some canonicaI difficulty in the marriage of her daughter could only be solved by, the personal decision of the Patriarch. “I’ve been here since early morning”, she said, wiping her eyes, “without eating or drinking, and now they say the Patriarch is home from the Sobor but he is too busy to see me”. The tall servant in the hall, who by the way was also in America with Patriarch Tikhon, told me in English that he felt the Patriareh was too busy with matters of national importance to be troubled with one woman’s private request. Knowing the Patriarch as I did, I ventured to tell him of the petitioner in the hall, and as I left he asked to see her. In some Russian village today there is a peasant family who think Russia’s Patriarch is the kindest man who ever lived.

But these glimpses of fatherly kindness in the leader of the Russian Church must not be allowed to give a one-sided impression. On account of his good nature a Russian writer has compared him to the first Patriarch of Russia, Job. In view of his proven statesmanship and his fearless insistence upon justice as well as the remarkable skill with which he has held the Church together when everything else in Russia was falling into ruin, it seems to me he more nearly resembles Hermogen, whose influence moved so powerfully in unifying and inspiring Russian spirit to throw off the Polish yoke. From the closing of the Sobor in September, 1918, the Patriarch continued its policy of protest against increasing encroachments of civil powers upon church property and church direction. With constantly increasing severity the government punished anyone who questioned or opposed its decrees, so that to make a public protest was something which might bring the gravest personal consequences. The policy of Red Terror had gone into effect. In the face of this, the Patriarch issued his classic Epistle to the “Soviet of People’s Commissars”: – “Whoso taketh a sword shall perish by the sword”, it begins. “The blood of our brothers shed in rivers at your order, cries to Heaven and compels us to speak the bitter words of truth. You have given the people a stone instead of bread, a serpent instead of a fish. You have exchanged Christian love for hatred: in the place of peace you have kindled the flames of class enmity”. A few lines later we read “Is this freedom, when no one may openly speak his mind without danger of being accused as a counterrevolutionary? Where is the freedom of word and press? Where is freedom of church preaching?” The epistle concludes with the formal excommunication of all those connected with the terroristic movements in the government. He is a stern man and a bold one, who can publish such sentences in the face of powerful enemies against whom he has not the slightest physical defence. The Head of the Russian Church has been absolutely fearless in condemning wrong and insisting upon justiee and right.

This boldness, tempered with a well-seasoned moderation, has enabled the Patriarch to maintain his position as leader and center of the whole church organization. With clear consistence he has refrained from interferenee with purely political affairs, save in so far as they touched upon matters of public morals or eommon justice. He is probably the only man of similar importance who was able to speak his mind so freely without punishment by imprisonment or worse, during four years of the Soviet government in Russia. His life during this time has been of the greatest importance to the Russian Church. In his person all Orthodox thinking has centered. His personality has kept alive the spirit of a Church unified in a time when every other institution had gone to pieces. His example has inspired new ideals of religion I and life in the hearts of millions of his people.

Chaotic as these years have been, they have witnessed at the same time a momentous deepening of religious feeling and spirit in Russia. Religion has become in the lives of most people something far more than ever before. What once was more or less formal theory has now been transmuted by the fires of the past four years into vivid reality, into lifeblood to strengthen men and women through boundless hardship. In the old days, one was often charmed by the peculiarly intimate and conscious sense of God shown by a peasant or a workman, something one finds much more rarely in western lands. Now, it is an experience to make one stop and think, to diseover in the lives of the “intelligentsia”, as well, exactly the same vivid certainty of God’s presenee and of the actuality of communion with Him. Is it something they have just learned, in these years of trial, or have they simply rediscovered the sense of God which has been latent all their lives? I think most Russians feel the latter is true, although most of the people I know frankly confess that never before has religion meant so much to them.

The Countess L. is an example of what I mean. As one knew her in the old days she was typical of her elass of the “intelligentsia” in her attitude toward the church and toward religion in general: a mild respect for the feeling of other people in matters religious but a very frank scepticism, at least on the surface, so far as her own interest in religion was concerned. That was three years ago. The reign of terror and the general suffering of these years have not passed her by, and she has undergone such experiences as at once horrify you and inspire you by the heroism exhibited. Today she is a striking personality, who impresses you primarily in a religious way. It is difficult to say what it is about Countess L. which so inspires you, whether it is her serene faith in the goodness of God and the power of prayer, her sincere charity toward those who have caused her so much ill, or the transparently beautiful character which has grown in the midst of so much sorrow. I only know that a talk with her makes one’s own faith seem so small and one’s own religion so puny, that you are driven to a resolve to deepen your own spiritual life, and make it count more than ever before for the service of others.

And although the common folk of Russia have learned much in the past four years, and although many attempts to teach them have had a decidedly anti-religious color, the total new culture has not altered that depth of religious feeling which has already been mentioned. I remember riding with a woman conductor on a freight-train, in 1920, who illustrated this point. She had been telling me of the different train-loads of troops, war prisoners and the like, it had been her fortune to help transfer. Then later we spoke of schools under the Soviet government and she expressed her chief criticism against the fact that no religious instruction was offered. “It’s a bad thing for folks who lose God,” she told me. “So many other people seem to have lost Him of late years. Thank Heaven we in Russia haven’t. Why just last week I had a trainload of Austrian communists and some of them tried to prove to me that there is not any God at all. ‘I don’t want to listen to your talk’, I told them, ‘you don’t act as though you had anything better than the old religion, and you need not talk to me against a God I know”’.

Even where common folk have been led to attempt casting off their faith together with everything else connected with the old life, the success of the assault upon religion has been only superficial. People could be harangued into a superficial acceptance of infidel doctrine, but when the matter actually came to the test, they discovered that the old faith still remained. I know no better illustration of this than an incident in Jaroslavl in Easter week, 1919. The radicals in charge of the town, apparently moved by the notable religious feeling among the populace, called a meeting to discuss religion. Among others, representatives of the clergy were invited. Some of the best communist orators of the district were brought in to present the case against rcligion. First a skillful speaker discussed the “Christ myth”. He explained that simple people had once been easily misled by priests into belief that Jesus was something more than a man, that He had worked miracles, had even risen from the dead. Now while Jesus deserved honor as the first Communist, He was simply a man, and an enlightened and revolutionary people should put “way all their old superstitions about Him. “Long live the Communist Internationale” – and he was fairly well applauded by the people. The second speaker was a Jewess who attacked the ancient stories about the birth of Jesus. When she closed with a statement that Mary was simply a woman of the streets, and nothing more, the applause was somehow less vigorous.

Now it came the turn of the senior priest of the town to present his case. He rose, made the sign of the cross, stood a moment silently facing the erowd and then pronounced the age-old Easter greeting: “Christ is risen.” Without a moment’s hesitation the crowd swayed toward him in reply: “He is risen indeed”. “Christ is risen”! the priest repeated, and the answer came almost before he had pronounced the words. A third time he said it, with” thunderous response from the people, then, waiting a moment, he asked simply, “What more is there to say? Let us go to our homes”, and the anti-religious meeting adjourned. It is this deep-seated sense of religion in the hearts of Russian folk of all classes which has come so mightily to the front in the past four years.

Concomitant with this rise in spiritual values, there has come notably broadened popular interest in any sort of religious instruction. Moscow, in the autumn of 1920, was placarded with posters, practically the only ones visible which were not put up by the government, announcing a series of meetings organized by the Russian Student Christian Movement, with Professor Martsenkoffsky as the chief speaker, all on purely religious themes. “The Way to New Life” and “The Coming Christ” were among other lecture topics. These meetings were held in one of the largest auditoriums in Moscow, and roused such popular interest that eventually the leaders were arrested, lest the movement turn against the government. To one returning to Russia after an absence of two years, it was astonishing to see many churehes open for service every day, with a sermon at each service. In former times, a sermon was a rarity. Most congregations did not care for them, and even those priests who would have been glad to preach were under such restraint from the government that they found it very difficult. A popular lecturer on religious subjects in Petrograd some years ago once remarked that frequently priests who came to his lectures told him how they envied the freedom with which he was allowed to speak of religion. Now the whole picture is changed, people demand sermons, and sermons of the most practical character. The few specimens which have gotten into Russia of such books as Fosdick’s with their very modern application of Christian teaching to everyday Jife, have been fairly worn out, passed from hand to hand by people eagerly seeking guidance in this new comprehension of religion. And priests have risen to meet this need, speaking truth in vigorous style, often at the risk of the gravest personal consequences. Sermons are no longer the pious, half-sentimental homilies such as one used to hear, and as are sometimes encountered today in old-fashioned churches in Europe or America, but open, direct instruction in the duty of Christian living. One of the most striking changes in the Russian Church in the past four years is that of clergy who practicalIy never prepared a sermon, now metamorphosed into a body of fearless preachers of the Gospel.

This same interest in religion is again exhibited in the universal demand for Scripture. I have mentioned the Patriarch’s opinion on the matter. The same situation persists everywhere. Two different women, one a lady formerly of high estate and the other a working girl, told me in Russia how they had been unable to buy a Bible. Red Army troops returning after eight months internment in Germany, begged relief agencies at the border for some bit of Scripture to take back into Russia with them. A talk with Father Hotovitsky brought out the same hunger for the Book, of which the Patriarch spoke. Three months later a British commercial agent, with no special interest in religious teaching, brought out another formal request from representatives of both the Orthodox Church and the Tolstoyan movement for assistance in procuring copies of the Bible for distribution. The fever of interest in Scripture which swept through peasant Germany at the dawn of the Reformation seems to have found a modern-day counterpart in Russia. Here however the Church, instead of attempting to suppress the spread of the Book, is the chief agency urging its use, and asking aid of foreign Bible Societies in producing the Scriptures which it eannot itself print since the confiscation of all its publishing plants. This hunger for Scripture is another indication of the new interest and meaning which religion has for all sorts of people in Russia since the Revolution.

It is also interesting to see how inevitably people connect their new-found religion with the old Church. To me this has been a new proof of the inherent vitality of Russian Orthodoxy, in this as in other times of crisis. The churches are crowded, and the worship in them is if anything more devout than before, but one senses a new spirit of comprehension, of the practicability of faith, if the term may be applied, which was not generally present four years ago. To be sure, there may be emotional or sentimental elements in this. One woman told me: “The church is the only place where one can get away from the terrible existence we must endure”. Another person, thinking along the same line, said: “O, Russia isn’t Russia any more; the only place you can feel at home is in church”. Be that as it may, the Church itself has made great advances in adapting itself to the newly apparent needs of its people, and religion as preached daily in its sanctuary has a new meaning for Russia. Take the purely external alterations, for example.

One of the differences from old times which immediately strikes a visitor in present-day Russia are the posters at the church door. Here is one announcing congregational singing-practice; another lists the services for the week, and you are surprised to note that there is a service with a sermon every day. Another gives notice of a special collection for a choir-director and a fourth, perhaps, appeals to all members to remain after this morning’s service and help put in place the mats which are used in winter to cover the cold pavement. In the congregation the men are surprisingly predominant, many of them wearing Red Army insignia. You notice that while people are constantly entering the chureh, as in the old days, there are practically none leaving it, a phase of church service which was always very disconcerting to a western visitor in a Russian church before the Revolution. Now people come and stay for the entire service, especially the sermon, an institution which in the last few months (autumn 1921) has become, except for government deliverance, the most liberal and fearless public utteranee to be heard. In general, the preachers confine themselves and their remarks pretty well within the limits set by the Patriarch in his quoted statement regarding the political activity of priests, but within these limits there has been the most vigorous, speaking of the “bitter truth”. The preaching priesthood has attained a new respect in the eyes of Orthodox people, through the power of the spoken word.

The anecdote I heard in Moscow about Father Hotovitsky, of the Church of the Savior is indicative of the sort of priests here mentioned. There is probably no more remarkable preacher in Russia than Father Hotovitsky. His sermons are very modern both in their theology and in their practical application. He was drawn into a discussion with Lunacharsky, Commissar of Education, on the omnipresence of God. “You say that God is everywhere”, Lunacharsky told him. “Now you will surely admit that one could imagine a small box somewhere without God’s being in the box”. “But why suppose an imaginary box”, Hotovitsky retorted, when we have you, Mr. Commissar?”

Easter, 1921, in Moscow was another indication of the present position of the Church. The Patriarch was released from his “home arrest” to officiate at the midnight service in the Church of the Savior. But even that great temple, accomodating ten thousand people, was utterly inadequate to serve the crowd which came. The whole of the grand square about the church was flooded with worshippers and several extra services were conducted simultaneously, in the open air, to meet the exigencies of the occasion. One very significant item about this service was the insistence of the people that it should occur at midnight by sun time, instead of by the daylight-saving chronometry of the Soviet government. So while the street clocks of Communist regime marked three-thirty a. m., the Orthodox people of Moscow celebrated” midnight service at midnight as the sun indicates time.

There is much more to be said of religious life in Russia today. These paragraphs have merely hinted at what will some day require volumes properly to outline and portray, but they will perhaps have indieated the remarkably deepened spirituality of these present times in Russia, with religion a more vital reality in the lives of all classes than ever before, with this new spiritual life manifesting itself in a keen interest in religious discussion and literature, with the old Church rising to meet the newly awakened needs of its people.

These needs present far more searching problems than merely those of organization or of church discipline. The new day in Russia demands new modes of thought, even new phases of religion. By its preaching the Church must endeavor to guide the thinking of its people as they grope their way in the dazzling light of a freedom they were as unprepared for as owls for sunshine. The Byzantine elements in religion, emphasizing the mystic in the teaching about Christ, and the less positive than negative attitude toward joyous activity, must gradually give part of their place to more modern ideas of the Christian conquest, the blessedness of Christian service, the reality of Jesus’ comradeship. This is not to say that the past as a whole is to be sloughed off like an outgrown shell. Such elements as the beautiful humility which has characterized Russian Christianity for so many centuries, or the mysticism in devotion which is one of its greatest charms, must not be permitted to fade from the picture. Rather, the idea of activity, of service for Christ who is living and loving men must be engrafted into the old stock, re. taining all the beauty and usefulness of the old, but providing a combination of religious thought better fitted to meet present-day needs. These ideas must be embodied in the homiletics of the new Russia.

Such preaching you may hear in Russian churches today sermons by Russian priests. A Westerner would never be able to produce the desired result: he would be too brusque, too positive, too little able actually to get within the Russian religious thought of the past generations. Among American Protestants there have been numerous volunteers to go and “Christianize” Russia – they may better remain at home and preach to folk whose temperament and background they ean comprehend. In Russia they would shout to unresponsive listeners. The Orthodox Church wishes every aid other Christian bodies can give it, but its preaching must be done by Russians if it is to appeal to the Russian mind.

With a rising culture in Russia, another age-old custom of Orthodoxy may come up for consideration. What will be the future of the holy pictures (ikons) of Russia? There are those who think ikons will gradually disappear from the service. If they do, it will be in the distant future. But even in these post-revolutionary years, events have often shaped themselves in a way to bring forcibly to mind the actual inconsequentiality of “holy” things and “holy” pictures. Popular feeling has revolted at cinematograph photos of the desceration of a shrine like that of Saint Sergius, but at the same time the half-unconscious impression has been made that the place or the relics are in themselves of small real worth to a Christian. The priceless treasures adorning some specially-revered ikon have been stolen and the century-old sanctity of the holy picture violated. And folk, half unknowingly, begin to take less interest in the ancient painting. It is somehow discovered to be not so efficacious as an aid to Christian living. Are these indications of the future? Perhaps, but with a custom as ancient as the usage of ikons in the Orthodox Church, alterations will be made but slowly. If the question may be called a problem at all, it is surely a secondary one. It is so unimportant in comparison with the new developments in religious thinking and comprehension that while the topic will interest future students of Russian life, it need not further occupy us here.

There are educational problems for the Church to face, as well as theological. How shall it provide a body of clergy with a training adequate to meet the demands of its membership, especially in times like the present when church schools of all sorts are quite eliminated from the government’s list of possibilities? This is one of the most immediate problems the Church has to solve. Up to now a general solution has not been discovered, the chief reliance at present being a return to the ancient custom of training young men in each church, a sort of apprentice-system for the priesthood. The ranks of the clergy have also been augmented by the ordination of many religiously minded laymen with suitable education. Although perhaps nothing better. is possible just now, both of these schemes have their serious deficiences, of course, and the Church’s leaders are keenly alive to the situation. The future will doubtless discover effective means to provide an adequately trained clergy. But the Churech’s efforts along educational lines are not to be limited to the training of priests. The Church has gone vigorously about the task of providing a substitute for its parish schools, and organizations of various sorts among the congregations have opened religious instruction for all the church membership. Bible-study groups and something like our American mid-week prayer meetings have appeared. Preaching missions to the villages have been encouraged. The Church has given its support to other than strictly ecclesiastical movements for the spread of religious instruction.

And not purely religious education alone, has received the support of’ the Church. As in former times, so now it is anxious to cooperate with every worthy ageney working for the general cultural uplift of Russia. The Patriarch’s open letter, prepared to accompany a rural-education expedition, is an example of the attitude of the Orthodox Church toward all sincere efforts for the well-being of Russia: 

“The Young Men’s Christian Association is undertaking the support of a series of movements having for their object the improvement of the moral atmosphere of Russian life, the preaching of God’s Word and, abstaining from politics, cooperation with Russian educational and economic improvement societies.

“With this object in view, an expedition is proposed with a special steamer on the Volga, stopping at different villages and landings. On this boat there are to be lectures on agriculture and other topics valuable for popular education, also short religious services with appropriate moral instruction by Orthodox priests.

“Sympathizing with everything whieh may be helpful, materially or morally, to our Russian people, we hereby confer our blessing upon the organizers of this good work, praying God’s aid for its successful accomplishment.

(Signed) Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.”

The content of such an epistle evidences the remarkably modern position which this ancient Church has assumed in the face of the modern educational requirements of its people.

The widespread demand, already noted, for the Bible, indicates another line of development where the Orthodox Church has to blaze away. Although the Church has used and taught the Gospels and the New Testament generally, until Leroy-Beaulieu could write that “the Gospels are undoubtedly the book dearest to the Russian”, the Old Testament has been very little known, hence the Church faces just now an interest in Scripture study quite unprecedented in its history. And again the need evidenees itself for a transition from the old. mystic usage of Scripture to a vitalizing praetical study, relating with ever-growing distinctness the life-giving Book to life itself.

Realizing the need for expert direction in the religious life of his Church, one of Patriareh Tikhon’s first official acts was to call from New York Father Hotovitsky who for some years in America had been specializing on church organization, young people’s work and the like. As early as the autumn of 1918 parish organizations similar to the “Brotherhoods” in many American churches, had begun to make their appearance. They were followed by women’s organizations with the object of Bible study as well as assistance in church maintenance. Children’s, particularly boys’ groups. have been formed, until today in Russia thousands of congregations have one or more organized clubs of women, men or young people, existing for self-help in religious and moral edueation, and for helping others along the same lines. The preaching missions already mentioned, whieh from time to time have gone from city centers out into the villages, have been another evidence of the Church’s capacity to cope with this need for a more general edueation in practical religion.

Surely the history of the Church since the revolution offers a guarantee for its future place in the life of the Russian people. During times when all other phases of national life and organization were dissolved in a national disorder sueh as no other country of modern times has experienced, merely to have held itself together in unbroken unity would have been a performance worthy of the world’s notice. This the Church has done, but beyond that it has sueeeeded, in the faee of all the forces striving for its dissolution, in building for itself a new form of organization and government, with principles of democratic control such as it had never known before. In the Patriarchate. which as has been seen is not a restoration of the old autocracy or a centralization of authority in one person, the Church has found for itself a new center around which it has crystallized a firm unity.

In establishing the principle of coneiliar management, with democratic legislative bodies representing all classes of the people, men and women, clergy and lay, it has provided a form of government which harmonizes with the best progressive spirit of the Russian world. The Church has remodelled its administration to meet the new situation.

It has revised its services as well, so that now as never before the services in its sanctuaries are not merely for the people, but of the people. The new economic conditions have helped to bring each communicant into a position of participation in the affairs of his parish. The management of parish business by a committee chosen by the people has given them a new sense of responsibility for their Church. The introduction of congregational singing and the entirely new emphasis upon preaehing brings worship into a new phase of actual commonality. All the people are participants in the services, and these services are so ordered as to meet the marvellously new interest in practical religion whieh exists throughout Russia today.

These, changes the Church has made in itself in, order to minister to the new needs of the Russian people are simply what might have been expected in the light of its historic past. When Christianity first dawned in Russia, it was the Church which spread the light of learning and the acceptance of Christian morality throughout the land. When much of the old order was dissolved in the two hundred years Russia bowed beneath the Tatar yoke it was the Church again which offered a rallying point and actually inspired the effort which threw off the Asiatic tyranny. It was the Church under Hermogen, in the “Troublous Times”, which kept alive the spark of patriotism, for Russians always linked in an indissoluble way with the idea of Orthodoxy, and the glorious defence of the Sergievskaya Lavra marked a new turning point in Russian national affairs, with the Church in the leader’s role. In the light of the Chureh’s glorious past, when in every time of national crisis it has somehow maintained not only its own unity, but has been the center around which the spirit of the nation could rally, is it unduly optimistic to suggest that in our day we are witnessing another repetition of history! Surely the events of the past five years, with the Church as the only organization whieh still exists, standing like a temple miraculously preserved amid a city devastated by fire, offer ground for the belief that the Church in Russia will not belie its past performances. It is not only preserved amidst general ruin, but it has purged itself of the evils which a time of servitude had fastened upon it, remodelled its forms of government and worship, and ministers today to the needs of Russian people with a eompleteness it has never before known.

And if the history of the past offers bright hope for the future of the Orthodox Church, just as truly does the personality of the men who are guiding its affairs in the present. What has been said of the liberality and breadth of mind of the Patriarch, of his keen appreciation of the needs of Russian Christianity today and the measures the Church must take to meet them, is typical of the church leaders who form his immediate circle of advisers. It is no exaggeration to say that the most able and the most liberal men in the Orthodox Church are guiding its present efforts. Perhaps the fact is significant that many of them, like Patriarch Tikhon himself, have spent some years in America, where acquaintance has been gained with western religious ideals and practice. Father Hotovitsky using his knowledge of young people’s organizations in America to build up throughout the Russian Church similar groups, or Bishop Anatolii of Tomsk who even before the assembly of the Sobor began parochial organizations modelled after those he had known in America, are outstanding examples of the progressive leadership in the Orthodox Church today. Besides forming one of the strongest possible ties of friendship with America, these will by the very fact of their acquaintance with life in our country are bound to be of most valuable service in bringing the Russian Church up to the new and lofty standards she has set for herself. Their background of acquaintance with Western ideals of religion is likely to be of large influenee in the progress of the Church of Russia.

As these men go forward in the work of leading Russian Christianity out along lines of freer activity and more vital religion, they are looking to the Christians of other lands for support and assistance. It would be difficult to imagine an organization more truly desirous of learning from the best in others, of profiting by experience along the same paths it has laid out for itself, than is the Russian Church. It confidently expects that Christians of other nations will gladly offer whatever assistance is within their power. What contributions can members of other Christian confessions make toward the progress of Christianity in Russia?

To be of service to the Church of Russia, Christians of the West must first cultivate aequaintance with it. A study of its ideals and its history, a genuine effort to appreciate all that is valuable in its past and present – these must first lead us to a sincere recognition of the breadth and depth of Russian Christianity. Study its literature; if possible become familiar with its service. There are many Russian churches in America where one may begin this helpful acquaintance and any sincerely friendly approach will be met with equal friendliness.

Practical aid may be extended in the provision of books. The whole realm of our modern religious literature may be opened to Russia: educational courses for use in church schools and organized Bible-study groups will be eagerly utilized. Such books as homiletical aids, guild and society handbooks, would be most useful if translated and adapted to modern Russian conditions. The best religious thought of the modern West should be put at Russia’s disposal by translation and publication in Russian. In the interval until the Church is again in a position to publish the Bible and portions of it for itself, the other Christian communions will find it difficult to turn a deaf ear to the appeals of both the Church and the Russian people for copies of the Word of God. Cooperation should be encouraged along all lines of religious endeavor and all our own experience in religious organization and method should be open for the use of the Russian Church. They seek our aid, and we must not withhold it.

Any such assistance offered to Russia by Western Christianity will be welcomed with open arms, and if the suggestions here contained are borne in mind there will be no possibility for misunderstanding. Once a thorough appreeiation of the essential “Russianity” of the Orthodox Church is established, there will be no misguided efforts to help Russian Christianity through the propagation of other forms of church organization or sectarian propaganda. What Western Christianity gives to Russia must be given through the Orthodox Church and not in any sort of opposition to or competition with it. A church which regardless of the barriers of distance and language, has prayed daily for a thousand years for “the welfare of God’s ehurches and the union of them all” will welcome every sincerely friendly approach from other Christian bodies.

In all this talk of efforts toward the rapprochement of other Christian bodies to the Russian Church, and methods of extending aid in these trying years, one possibility overtops all the rest. We must cultivate acquaintance with the Orthodox Church and personal contact with its leaders. We must learn to appreciate the beauty and value in its worship and its teaching. We must realize that the Russian Church is essentially indigenous and adapt to that cardinal fact our efforts at effective assistance. We should put at its disposal the best of our modern religious thought in the form of books and periodicals. These are particularly vital for those Americans who go to Russia or who are directing the home churches. To all Christians at home, however, there remains the privilege of all Christians everywhere, that of intercession. It is doubtful if anywhere in the Christian world today there is a more vital belief in the value of prayer, than in Russia. When the Russian Church asks for our prayers, the request is more than an empty formality. Russia believes, she knows from experience, how the power of God may be invoked, and her people confidently expect the prayer support of Christians of other lands. In the midst of the terrible uncertainty of the summer of 1918, when no one dared plan anything more than a few days in advance, and even the Sobor carried on its orderly deliberations only in the face of unbelievable hindrances, the proclamation of President Wilson appointing “a day of humiliation, prayer and fasting” made a deep impression upon the leaders of the Russian Church. The feeling of the Patriarch is evident in his letter, written at that time, to his friend Dr. Mott, as one of the leaders among the Christian forces of America:
 

“It was with especial sympathy that we together with all believing Russians heard that the members of the churches of God in America. had been assembled by your President and ehurch leaders in the houses of God Memorial Day to fast and pray for peace among the nations at war. We also recall with deep gratitude the friendly feelings repeatedly expressed by your President toward Russia. 

“It would comfort us to know that the Christians of America will continue to remember our Russian Church and people in their prayers. We would feel deeply grateful if you could express to the Christian people in America our profound desire for their intercession, especially at this crisis in Russia. We are conscious in this dark hour that the moral support and prayers of all Christendom are vital for the rebuilding of Russia through Christ to her former strength”.
 

The head of Russia’s Church is here expressing the feeling of most of its leaders and millions of its people. Such a letter brings an almost irresistible appeal. As the old Church of Russia moves out into new fields of service for a people rising to the ideals of a modern world, may Christians of the West be not unmindful of this desire for their prayer-support. Joining in its age-old prayer for the welfare of all God’s churches, may we open our thought to every means of eooperation and assistance for the Church of Russia.

Tags: 1923, America, Communism, primary sources, Russian, Saints, Tikhon Belavin

Editor’s note: The following excerpt appeared in the Historical Sketch Book and Guide to New Orleans and Environs, published by Will H. Coleman in 1885. It is a rare firsthand account of Holy Trinity church in New Orleans in the 19th century. The priest at the time was Fr. Misael Karydis, whose life has been the subject of several articles on this website.

A visit to the Greek Church of the Holy Trinity, on Dolhonde near Barracks, will be found interesting. It stands in a little church-yard – a, small brick structure, with a bit of a house for the priest, by its side. A Greek flag, at half-mast, hangs from a tall staff by the front door.

The church consists of a small square room, with vaulted ceiling; its furniture, two reading desks, a baptismal font, the ark, a large cross bearing the crucified Saviour, and two candle-stands. The ark resembles a bier supporting a miniature two-story Greek temple. On the upper part is the story of Christ’s condemnation, agony, last supper and crucifixion. Most notable is the first little picture, wherein Pontius Pilate is to be seen literally “washing his hands” of the whole affair.

The back of the church is separated by a partition on which hang four paintings, singular in their lack of perspective. Two doors, one on either end, holds each a picture, one of St. Michael the other of Gabriel. Both dance upon clouds, but Gabriel, deprived of his trumpet, waves a bunch of flowers.

Another picture represents Herodias dancing off the head of John the Baptist. It is a curious and very antique picture, and guilty of a strange anachronism, for Herod and the party are represented seated at table.

Midway of the partition is an opening veiled with a banner bearing a picture of Christ partaking of the sacrament; around it in Russian: “He who takes the sacrament never dies.”

The baptismal font for babies looks like a magnified hour glass. There is a large one for grown people. Baptism, both for the young and old, is by immersion.

Chairs are brought in by obliging neighbors for the women and the guests. The devout gather candle in hand, and with many genuflections, each piously kisses a sacred spot upon the paintings, the infant Jesus’ toe seeming the most popular.

Scarcely a Greek nose was to be seen. Bronzed faces, toil-hardened hands, relieved by shirts of blue and red, plaid and plain, are illuminated by the upheld torches.

The services opening, the men range themselves in single file along the wall, the females and visitors occupying chairs on the other side. The banner is drawn aside, revealing an altar before which stands a priest. His face is Hebraic, his robe, of dark blue and white, fitted on very much after the fashion of Dakota Indians, by a convenient hole in one end. A long scarf of pale blue and white satin hangs over his capacious front.

Concluding a short chant, he comes among the people, lifting the cross, and kissing the wounds upon the body.

After a few more chants and reading of Scriptures, the holy ark, preceded by the priest, is borne out by four strong men, all chanting the Kyrie Eleison, “Lord, have mercy upon us.”

A long reading of the Scriptures follows, interrupted by admonitions in modern Greek from his reverence to his delinquent clerks.

Tags: 1885, Greek, Misael Karydis, New Orleans, parishes, primary sources

In the early 1900s, a woman named Vera Johnston was involved with the Russian cathedral in New York and the seminary in Tenafly, New Jersey. With a name like Johnston, you might think that she was a convert, which is exactly what I thought when I first ran across her name. But Vera Johnston was actually a cradle-born Orthodox Christian. She was born in the Russian Empire, in what is now Ukraine, and her maiden name was Zhelihovsky. She was born in 1864, and her mother was also named Vera.

Before her marriage, the elder Vera, the mother, was named Vera Blavatsky. That last name, Blavatsky, might sound familiar to some of you. The elder Vera’s sister – so, our Vera’s aunt – was a lady by the name of Helen Blavatsky – also known as Madame Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical movement.

Theosophy has been described by some as a modern version of Gnosticism. It has a lot of occult and pagan elements, drawing in particular on Hinduism. Helen Blavatsky herself spent time in India. Beliefs included reincarnation, ancient pagan deities, secret teachings. Essentially, we’re talking about neo-paganism. They certainly had a kind of syncretistic place for Christianity, as one of the many pieces of the “truth” that could lead you into true knowledge, but basically, this is a neo-pagan movement.

Helen Blavatsky had founded the Theosophical movement in the 1870s, and in 1886, her niece Vera – the future Vera Johnston – spent some time with her aunt, and read drafts of her book The Secret Doctrine. Vera was in her early twenties at this point, and her mother was a follower of Aunt Helen, so it was only a matter of time before young Vera herself became a Theosophist.

In 1889, Vera published an article called, “Modern Magic” in the Theosophist journal, and by this time she had apparently joined the movement. The year before this, in 1888, she had married Charles Johnston, an English follower of Blavatsky. Johnston himself was one of the leaders in the Theosophy movement, and was especially noted for his translations of Hindu scriptures from Sanskrit into English. Vera and Charles spent some time in India themselves, and both wrote and translated numerous Theosophical articles in the coming years. For example, in 1895, they coauthored an article called, “The Priestess of Isis and Her Accusers.” This was sort of par for the course with Vera and Charles.

Helen Blavatsky herself died in 1891, and in 1896, Charles and Vera Johnston moved to New York City. Vera was still a very visible figure on the Theosophical scene, speaking at conventions and translating articles.

Sometime after the turn of the century, the Johnstons became associated with the Russian Orthodox cathedral in New York. Now, the details on this are very sketchy. What I’m giving you is basically incomplete research. I just haven’t been able to find very many materials on Vera Johnston’s life after 1900 or so, and of course this period in which we’re most interested, because this is when she was associated with the Russian Mission.

So please understand, much of this is a mystery. But I’m going to give you what I have.

In 1912, the Russian Archdiocese moved its seminary to Tenafly, New Jersey. Both Vera and Charles Johnston were professors. I don’t know what subject Vera taught, but Charles is listed in 1918 as “Teacher of English Language.” During this period, Vera ran the seminary’s booth at a Russian bazaar in New York City (New York Times, 3/28/1915). Both Johnstons were deeply involved in the work of the Russian Mission.

Also in 1915, she wrote an article in the Constructive Quarterly called, “The Coming of Archbishop Evdokim,” talking about the arrival of the new Russian bishop. One passage in particular seems to reveal something of Vera’s own religous outlook:

In the principle thus simply and eloquently enunciated by Archbishop Evdokim, what vistas there are of reconciliation, of genuine peace and good-will among men and nations: the differences between nations, in their religious as well as their secular life, are not stumbling-blocks but revelations of the wisdom of God. The mind of Christ is so wide, so deep, so rich, that no one race, nothing less than all humanity, suffices to embody and reveal it. [Emphasis in original.]

The same year, also in the Constructive Quarterly, she translated an article called, “Byzantium the Preserver of Orthodoxy.”

So it seemed, when I learned these things, that Vera Johnston had converted – or, re-converted – to Orthodoxy. She was involved, almost on a day-to-day basis, with the life of the Russian Mission. The thing is, she doesn’t seem to have given up Theosophy. Her husband Charles, who was also involved in the Russian Mission, remained a major figure in the Theosophical movement.

In early 20th century New York, a splinter Theosphical group was formed, calling itself the “Order of the Living Christ.” While small, this group included some of the city’s elite — Wall Street executives, professors, Episcopal priests, etc. – as well as Charles and Vera Johnston, whose ties to Helen Blavatsky helped bring legitimacy to the Order. The Order was essentially an attempt to merge Christianity and Theosophy. The group believed in reincarnation, but adopted the externals of Anglo-Catholicism (traditional Anglicanism). They revered the works of Helen Blavatsky and her associates, but also had a deep fascination with early Christian mysticism. Members saw it as perfectly acceptable to be a part of the Order and still participate in the life of, for instance, the Episcopal Church. It is likely that Vera Johnston shared this philosophy, and she may well have considered herself an Orthodox Christian while simultaneously adhering to beliefs which Orthodoxy recognizes as patently heretical. All this, while teaching future priests at the official seminary of the Russian Archdiocese in America.

Vera Johnston died in 1923, just shy of 60. Charles passed away eight years later. It is likely that documents survive — perhaps the OCA archives — which can help us to better understand the Johnstons’ role in the Russian Mission, and the extent to which their Theosophical ideas were known by the Russian clergy who employed them. If any of our readers can shed more light on this odd episode in American Orthodox history, please let me know.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee. I am indebted to Jake Benson for his help in researching Vera and Charles Johnston.]

Tags: England, Helen Blavatsky, language, New York, primary sources, Russian, St Platon's Seminary, Theosophy, Vera Johnston

At the assembly of the OCA’s Canadian archdiocese being held in July 2010, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), primate of the OCA, spoke at some length about the Episcopal Assembly, particularly regarding the position of the OCA toward it. Especially considering the unique position of the OCA as it relates to the Episcopal Assembly, his remarks are of particular interest.

Listen to both his prepared speech as well as questions and answers here (courtesy of Ancient Faith Radio).

Update: One particular item I thought of note, aside from the very interesting questions about the future of the OCA, was His Beatitude’s comment that the upcoming Great and Holy Synod could be in 2013.

Tags: 2010, AFR, Episcopal Assembly, Jonah Paffhausen, media, OCA, Online Sources, primary sources

Editor’s note: The following interview, with Fr. Sebastian Dabovich, originally appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and was reprinted in the Macon (GA) Telegraph on July 31, 1903. We’re reprinting it here in full.

Abbot Sebastian Dabovich, a priest high in the circles of the orthodox Russian church, passed through Seattle yesterday on his way to inspect the mission of that church in Alaska. The abbot is an authority on the Russian church in Alaska, and spoke very interestingly of the work there in an interview. He said:

Next to the Roman Catholics the Russian [Church] has the greatest number of communicants of any church in the civilized world. On the coast the two great strongholds of the Russian church are in Alaska and a section of California. Last year I made a trip of 6,000 miles in and along the Alaskan coast, inspecting our mission stations.

On this trip I go to consecrate a new church in Douglas Island, opposite Juneau, the communicants of which are mostly miners of the Slavonic race. From there I go to Sitka to look after the work. On the whole, the trip will be largely in the nature of a rest for me.

The work of our missions in Alaska is a continually growing one, and owing to the great floating population of that country, a work that is continually changing to meet the new demands.

The majority of native Alaskans are Christianized. Our own church has been organized in Alaska for nearly 110 years. Since the country has been occupied by the United States the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and several other missionaries have come to spread Christianity.

The Russians of Alaska in early days had some land grants in California, and they occupied the whole of what is now known as Sonoma county. From here they shipped wheat and fruit to Alaska. The quality of fruit, which took a prize in the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893, came from Sonoma, and it was planted by the Russians, the seeds having been brought across Siberia from the Caucasian country and elsewhere.

Long before any one dreamed of a city of San Francisco there in San Francisco bay, in the little town of Sausalito flourished an iron foundry and machine shops. There in Sausalito the Russians built the first steamer that ever steamed to the north on the Pacific ocean. The engineer that brought the first steamer to Alaska is still living, now an old cripple of more than ninety years. He is an old Alaskan Creole, and lives with a son in Sedovia, Alaska.

On entering the old Russian capital of Sitka, the first building which attracts attention is the cathedral of St. Michael’s. The clock in the tower of this old church was made and put in its present position by Innocentius, the first bishop of Alaska.

Tags: 1903, Alaska, America, Missions, newspapers, primary sources, Russian, San Francisco, Sebastian Dabovich, Serbian

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

The Parliament ended in late September, 1893. In October, Abp Dionysius was present in Boston for the consecration of an Episcopalian bishop (Boston Globe, 10/6/1893). The next month, he went to St. Louis and was the guest of the Episcopal Bishop George Seymour, who happened to be a friend of the future Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine. A couple of days after that, Abp Dionysius made his way back to Chicago, where he delivered a speech at an Episcopal Church conference. In fact, that speech is a good deal more interesting than anything Abp Dionysius said at the Parliament of Religions, and we’ll reprint the text in its entirety here. From the Galveston Daily News (11/12/1893):

My brethren in Jesus Christ: I consider myself again very happy in presenting myself before this most reverend council of the eminent divines and minsiters of your holy church. (You will excuse me if I make any mistakes in a language which is foreign to me, and in which of necessity I am obliged to speak before you.)

It is not the first time that a Greek archbishop approaches the Episcopal church and enters into the temples of this church, so eminent a member of the Christian body, a member of the Christian family. I am not the first and I think I shall not be the last. Twenty years ago another Greek archbishop, the archbishop of Syra, Alexander Lycurgus, was in London, when the Anglican clergymen and the archbishop of Canterbury solemnly and demonstratively received him and introduced him in the cathedral church of St. Paul, where the Greek archbishop, standing on the platform of the church, had the honor to give the blessing to the clergymen and laymen of the Anglican church.

By the opportunity of my invitation and my presence at the religious congress in this city, I have also had the great honor to present myself more than once in your churches, on your tribunes and platforms; and I am not only invited to this honor, but I also come self-invited and quite voluntarily, from the feelings which I have, with other bishops of Greece, toward your holy church. And I thank your dignified bishops, especially Henry C. Potter, bishop of New York, who not only opened to me, with brotherly feelings, the doors of the churches, but at the same time opened their arms and embraced me and conducted me to the most honorable places of your temples.

As self-invited also, and as voluntarily coming into the presence of this eminent council of your church, I speak before you to-day sincerely and with heart full of love, as a brother in Christ, as a friend in the love of the divinely inspired Gospel.

I approve and admire your practical work, your struggle and perseverance, and your great expenditures for the diffusion and propagation of Christian doctrine in every part of our globe; and lastly, for the pure moral Christian education, without distinction, to all members of Christian communities. We have such an instance and testimony in our country — the school established under the direction of the persons of happy memory, the Rev. Mr. Hill and Mrs. Hill, the Americans who sacrificed their lives while working incessantly for their lovely Greece. This school was the first girls’ school in our classic land after the freedom of Greece, which gave, nearly fifty years ago, many well brought up mothers to many families, rich and poor, without any distinction; and for that reason the entire Greek nation expresses her gratitude especially to your Christian association and generally to your American people. We regard not with indifference your church, but we look always to your work with the deepest interest, with hearts full of love, and also with hope for the future.

As regarding this hope for the future, it suffices me to repeat here before you, word for word, my address which I pronounced in Trinity church, at Boston, during the holy service of the consecration of the new Bishop Lawrence. “It is certainly,” I said, “a great pleasure for you to see a new bishop in your circle, but your pleasure can not be greater than the one I experience in being here and looking at your reverend persons and listening to the divine service of your church. For in your church, and in the eminent divines of that church, one can see concentrated the hopes of the union in the future of all the Christian churches in the world. Surely you are Protestants, but at the same time you are also Catholics. You are Protestants on the one hand; you only can embrace all the other Protestant bodies. And, on the other hand, as Catholics, you alone can command the attention of the Catholic churches. For wh ile you have protested, you alone have retained a great part of the rites of Catholicism, and you have not rejected all the traditions of the Catholic church.

“Hence your church, sister to the one on account of protesting, sister also to the other on account of the Catholic traditions, is the center toward which all the eminent persons of the distinctive churches will cast their eyes in the future, when, by the grace of God, they will decide to take steps for the union of all the Christian world into one flock, under one shepherd or pastor. In this pre-eminent idea and hope for the future, I embrace the new bishop and all the other bishops here present as my brethren in Christ. I embrace your church, the pen and ink of which anxiously awaits a bright page in the future history of the Christian religion.”

Needless to say, this sort of speech was music to the ears of the Episcopalians who heard it. Abp Dionysius expressed exactly the sort of role that so many Episcopalians envisioned for their Church: the great center towards which the Protestants and the “Catholics” (Orthodox and Roman) would ultimately move. It is quite possible that Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine, then an Episcopal priest, was present at Abp Dionysius’ speech. Years later, Irvine expressly rejected the idea that Anglicanism was the platform for Christian unity, instead arguing that Christian unity was possible only in the Orthodox Church — the “Mother Church of Christendom,” as he called it, the true Church from which all others had deviated. That Abp Dionysius adopted, not the Irvinian position (which really is the Orthodox position), but rather the standard Anglo-Catholic one, is rather remarkable.

After the Episcopal conference in Chicago, Abp Dionysius traveled west, visiting San Francisco in early December (Los Angeles Times, 12/17/1893). It isn’t clear whether he met with the Russian Bishop Nicholas Ziorov, but he almost certainly encountered some of the hundreds of Orthodox Christians in the city.

On his return trip to Greece, Abp Dionysius went across the Pacific. On a train ride from Singapore to Calcutta, he happened to run into a Methodist bishop, who invited him to attend a Methodist conference in Calcutta. Abp Dionysius accepted. According to one American periodical, “Although he remarked privately that Bishop Thoburn was not a real bishop, he bestowed upon him when taking leave the apostolic kiss” (Congregationalist, 4/26/1894). At his host’s request, Abp Dionysius delighted the Methodists by delivering St. Paul’s Mars Hill sermon in its original Greek. (Christian Advocate, 4/5/1894)

Abp Dionysius made it home to Greece by the middle of 1894, but soon thereafter, late in the summer, he died. The New York Observer and Chronicle (1/24/1895) offered a fine obituary:

Some interesting details connected with the death of Archbishop Dionysios Latas of Zante, who died last August, and whose name is familiar to Americans since his visit to Chicago the year before, have very recently been sent to this country by Bishop Potter. Archbishop Latas was greatly beloved by the people of Zante. As a preacher he was eloquent and tireless; and in his work as a leader of the clergy he was most efficient, giving to the island good priests, and developing those whom he had found already there.

His own training was well rounded. Besides his native tongue he was a master of German, Italian and English. He was distinguished by his fine presence and sonorous voice and by the gentleness and sweetness of his manners. Though far past the prime of life he had still before him many years of work. A writer in one of the Athenian journals, referring to the time of the late earthquake in Zante, says: “I remember him when the island was shaking and the houses falling in ruins, going about in his carriage through the narrow roads of the settlements from morning till night, comforting and advising, cheering and inspiring confidence in divine help, the only hope of people in the perilous state of the hapless Zacynthians. And I saw him, as they grasped his hand, secretly giving material help along with his prayers.”

The funeral took place with great magnificence, and in the midst of great emotion and sorrow, the people all through the two days previous flocking in crowds to the central church of the town, where the body had been placed, and reverently kissing the hand of their beloved priest.

A British writer, in the journal Academy, offered these comments (reprinted in The Dial, 10/1/1894):

A greater breadth of thought — acquired probably from his long studies in Germany — brought him closer to the intellectual classes in modern Greece than most of his brethren. Whenever he preached in the Metropolitan Church of Athens, the building was closely packed. When it was my privilege to hear him, his restrained yet burning eloquence and the but half suppressed applause of his hearers brought to my remembrance the accounts that are extant of the effect of the preaching of the Golden-mouthed [Chrysostom] at Constantinople, fifteen centuries ago.

Archbishop Dionysius Latas was 58 when he died, and had served as bishop of Zante (Zakhynthos) for ten years.

Tags: 1893, 1894, America, Boston, Chicago, Dionysius Latas, Episcopalians, Greek, Nathaniel Irvine, newspapers, primary sources

What follows is Part 3 of Charles Hale’s 1877 biography of St. Innocent. Click here to read Part 1, and click here to read Part 2.

Consecrated for a great work he [Innocent] was as prompt to set about it as he was earnest in his labor. Stourdza’s “Remembrancer” contains a number of letters from Innocent to the revered Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow. Mouravieff well says of these that, “describing apostolic labors carried on for so many years for the conversion of savages in Northeastern Siberia and in Russian America they would furnish a series of Lettres Edifiantes as interesting as any of those in which the Jesuits so delight.”

We have space here to give translations of but a few extracts from these.

The first of the series tells of his arrival in America as Bishop and of the beginning of his work there.

April 30, 1842

At last, thank the Lord God, in America! I must now tell you of my voyage, my arrival, etc.

On the 20th of August, 1841, we sailed from the mouth of the Ochot River, in the brig Ochotsk, under most favorable circumstances, and directed our course towards one of the Kourile islands named Simousir, which we reached September 2d. On the evening of that day we left the island and sailed for Sitka. For about twenty days the winds were favorable, the weather clear and warm, so that September 21st we were but 500 miles from Sitka, about 4,000 from Ochotsk. The weather was so pleasant that we held services every holyday, not in the cabin, as is usually the case, but on deck. September 25th, St. Sergius’ Day, about 4 p.m., but at Moscow about 4 a.m., we sighted Mt. Edgecumbe, near New Archangel, and the next day, September 26th, the day on which we commemorate the death of the Beloved Disciple of Christ, a day on which the Church prays that the darkness which has so long covered the heathen may be dispersed, we entered the harbor of Sitka, and dropped anchor about 4 p.m. Saturday, September 27th, I went ashore, where I was received by all the chief authorities, the officials and the entire body of the Orthodox, amongst whom were some baptized Koloshes standing by themselves. In a partly official dress I went to the Church, where I delivered a short address to my new flock and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to our Lord God. September 28th, I celebrated the Divine Liturgy.

The Church, at New Archangel, which is growing old and will need to be rebuilt in four or five years I found otherwise in fair condition and handsomely ornamented as if they really expected a Bishop to come. But all this is to be ascribed to the zeal of the principal warden, Etolin, who from the time of his coming to the colony has been earnest to have the church in good order.

Our doings since we came to Sitka have not yet been very important.

1st. A mission has been sent to Noushstan which will reach its place of destination not sooner than the middle of June next. The priest in charge is full of hope, though he is not one of the most learned of men. We have furnished him with full instructions and with everything we could provide.

2d. December 17th, a sort of theological school was opened, containing, now, 23 persons, Creoles and natives. The monk M., a student of the Moscow Spiritual Academy, has it in charge.

3d. The theological student J.T. was sent to Kadiak [sic] to learn the language and in four months has had wonderful success. He is a person of decided ability.

4th. The monk M. has been preaching to the Koloshes, and not without success. I hardly dare say how great the success may be. He has about 80 candidates for Holy Baptism and asks it for them, but I do not care to be over hasty with them; the more and the better they are taught the more they can be depended on.

5th. I went this Spring to Kadiak to examine into the affairs of the Church there and was comforted beyond expectation. The report of my arrival in America, the zeal and piety of their priest and the Christian co-operation of the Governor, Kostromitinoff, have all been most useful to the Kadiaks. Poor things, until now they had heard little of what is good, and, as they said, they now begin to go from darkness to light. Previously perhaps scarcely one hundred of them came to church, even irregularly, and they knew scarce anything of devotion. Now the church is full every holyday, and Lent was kept by more than four hundred of them, some coming from distant places. The iniquity of cohabiting in unblessed marriages, formerly common, is now at an end. Things had fallen into such a neglected state that of the 3,700 souls reported in the census of 1841 there were more than 1000 unbaptized. There are now about 100 children unbaptized between the ages of two and nine. And how many such died, especially at the time of the small-pox, which took the lives of over 2000.

The next letter from which we quote shows Innocent’s care for the young.

April 5, 1844

On the eleventh of January I began to assemble about me, in my chapel, all the children, both boys and girls, who do not belong to the schools and to teach them the law of God. The children here (at Sitka), between the ages of one and eighteen, are very numerous. In the Theological school, in the Company’s school, and in two girls’ schools, there are about one hundred and forty scholars, and yet I gathered about one hundred and fifty others. The girls I taught on Tuesday, the boys on Wednesday.

About two years ago, in all our American Churches, and also in the Cathedral of Kamchatka, the priests in charge of the Churches assembled the children of both sexes in Church once or twice a week and taught them the law of god and their duties in general. And I am happy to say that this year, if the priests in all the Churches of the Diocese have not kept up that custom, yet the greater part of them are diligent in this part of their work.

At this time the children receiving instruction in the Churches throughout the Diocese must number about four hundred, besides the scholars in the schools, who would swell the number to more than six hundred or the thirty-fifth part of all the inhabitants.

In another part of the same letter he speaks of the Koloshes,

The Koloshes, our neighbors, thank God, continue to come to Holy Baptism. In Easter week thirty-five of them were baptized, at their own request, and at no one’s persuasion. In the Lent just past those already baptized, who all lived near the fort, were very particular in keeping the fast and that without any special suggestion on my part — indeed they were not a whit behind the Russians in their observance.

[Hale continues, quoting from another letter of St. Innocent to St. Philaret:]

June, 1845

The word of truth begins to extend more and more in the northern coasts of America. The priest Golovin was in those parts last year, 1844, and during his stay there had an opportunity of seeing, in their settlements, almost all of those baptized by him on the occasion of his first visitg, the year previously, and, thank God, if not all, still a good part of them remembered and tried to fulfil the promises made at their baptism, and some of those most penetrated with the word of truth have tried to bear testimony of Christianity to their heathen friends and have persuaded many of them to be baptized. The Kvichpak Church, in September, 1844, numbered more than two hundred and seventy natives and thirty foreigners, whilst in 1843 there were of the Christians there thirty foreigners and four natives, the same of whom the Holy Synod told me when I was in St. Petersburg. One of these especially very heartily co-operated with the priest. The natives expressing with one mouth a desire to have a priest living amongst them it only remained for me to proceed to the founding of an independent mission there and, thank God, the mission is already organized and has gone there this year. The priest Jacob Netchvatoff is in charge of this mission, the same whom I wished to send to the Kenae mission and who was reported as belonging to it, but as the work in the north was more important I sent him to the Kvichpak mission. To the Kenae mission has been sent the Monk Nicholas (a deacon), who has gone there this year.

This year, 1845, after leaving Petropaulovsky, where I arrived by the mercy of God, June second, I expect to visit the Aleoutine Islands and next summer to take a sea voyage to Kamchatka.

[And another letter:]

May 1, 1848

From reports received by me last September from Kenae and Kvichpak missionaries it is clear that the Lord does not cease to bless their labors with visible success. The missionaries too, labor with all zeal and judgment, not striving to increase unduly the number of the baptized, on the contrary they exercise great circumspection in receiving those who come to them desirous of Holy Baptism. The Kenae in general receive Christianity with gladness and in a spirit of obedience to God’s law. They listen to instruction with untiring attention, fulfil their Christian duties heartily and with all care and, what is very noteworthy, on a single expression of the missionary’s wish they give up their national dances and songs, replacing the latter with our hymns, so far as they are translated into their language.

All of their former Shamans have been baptized, and the greater part of them show themselves to be very good Christians. Some of them, on a very slight hint from the missionary, cut off their hair (which previously they had highly prized), in token that they not only followed, but were glad to fulfil, their missionary’s teachings.

The word of God sown by the missionaries on the border of the ocean has been conveyed without any direct instrumentality of theirs, by those converted from heathenism, to a people living at the extreme north part of the continent of America, called Koltchans, who had never seen a missionary.

The Kenae missionary writes that, in the Spring of last year, 1847, there came to one of the Kenae villages some families of Koltchans with the intention of going to the mission to be baptized, but were not able to go by boats. The Kenae who saw them said that, when they prayed, some of the Koltchans who came to them burst into tears, and said: “God has forsaken us, and does not call us to him. How shall we die, for there evil awaits the unbaptized!” The missionary was not able to visit these Koltchans, and fulfil their pious wish, having the charge also of hte Noushagin Mission, which now, from the lack of men suitable for missionaries, was dependent upon the Kenae missionary.  Their former missionary, the Priest Paitchelin, on account of illness, has been compelled to go to the Kadiak Church. In the summer of the year 1846 there came in boats to the redoubt at the upper part of the River Kouskokvim a number of Koltchans and their families, 54 persons in all, desiring to receive Holy Baptism. They received it at the hands of a layman, the person who was in charge of the redoubt, for the missionary was not and could not be there at that time, owing to his having so much other needful work. In the summer of 1847 these same newly baptized persons again came to the redoubt to see the priest, and with them there came also other Koltchans, about sixty in number, who also wished to be baptized, but, for the same reason as before, were unable to see the priest, and were baptized by the layman already mentioned.

The selection from Innocent’s letters published in Stourdza’s “Remembrancer” makes no further mention of the Koltchans, but we may surely believe that they were not left to walk in darkness, “for God ever provideth teachers for them that would learn of Him, and maketh known the way of truth to them that love the truth.”

The good Bishop has little to say of himself in his letters. As to what he did, we must learn from others. He was not only, in his vast diocese, the chief of the missionaries, but the chief missionary; not only a spiritual governor but a model of faithfulness and zeal. We are told that he became master of six dialects, spoken in the field committed to his charge. He himself translated, and assisted others in translating, large parts of God’s Word and the Liturgy of his Church for the use of the natives. For forty-five years, ten of them as Bishop of Kamchatka, eighteen more as its Archbishop, he labored on, in season and out of season. Towards the close of 1867 God called to Himself one of the most remarkable prelates of modern days, Philaret of Moscow, who lived to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his Episcopate, and then “fell asleep.” The writer was, a few weeks after, in Moscow, where speculations were rife as to who could worthily follow such a man. When it was announced that Innocent of Kamchatka had been chosen to the vacant See, there was a general satisfaction. It could not be said of him that nearly half a century of toil and exposure had left his natural force unabated. But, though he had passed the limit of three score years and ten, he entered upon his new duties with earnestness. Assisted in the administration of his diocese by two efficient Vicar Bishops, one of whom, Leonide, has recently died, just after his promotion to the Archi-episcopal See of Yaroslav, and yet by no means leaving all to them, he has been diligent in using his vast influence for the good of his whole church. Withdrawn, like Selwyn, from the missionary field, like the Bishop of Lichfield he labors as heartily as ever for the missionary cause. He feld that the missionary work which had been carried on so well by individual zeal, could be prosecuted more effectively by organized efforts. He knew, too, that the Church of Russia had need, for its own sake, to be heartily interested in the missionary cause, as has any church on which God has laid the duty of laboring rather than of suffering for Him. And so he brought about the foundation of the Orthodox Missionary Society, in behalf of which he issued the following pastoral [letter]:

November 21st of this year, 1869, the approval of the Czar was given to the Constitution of the Orthodox Missionary Society, under the august patronage of Her Imperial Highness, the Empress Maria Alexandrovna. By virtue of this Constitution the Council of the Society belongs to Moscow and to me has been committed the duty of being its President. It has pleased God that here, in the centre of Russia, in my declining years, I should still take part in missionary work, to which, by the will of Divine Providence, on the most distant borders of our country almost the whole of my life was dedicated from early youth.

The object of the Missionary Society is to aid Orthodox Missions in the work of converting to the Orthodox Faith those not Christians, living within the borders of our country, and of building up those so converted in the truths of our holy religion as well as in the practice of the duties of the Christian life. Of such persons we have as fellow-countrymen many millions untaught in the holy truths of the faith, or needing to be built up in them. Compared with the number of these our missions are very small, and what we have need means to support and extend their work.

How holy a work this is, how very necessary for our Orthodox Church and Empire, must be self-evident to you. The true source of means for the development of this work must be found in the sympathy and zeal in its behalf of all Orthodox Christians. The Missionary Society is founded for all, rich and poor, who are ready to aid in this great work, which asks for and which needs them.

As your chief pastor and as the President of the Society I ask and pray Christ-loving Moscow, with my people and clergy, not to leave me in this holy work without their sympathy and co-operation. In a short time, please God, I hope to meet my beloved flock, that together we may offer up to the Lord our prayers for His blessing upon the Orthodox Missionary Society, in the work it is undertaking, and may hold at Moscow the first public meeting of the Society.

INNOCENT, Metropolitan of Moscow, President of the Orthodox Missionary Society

It is the purpose of the writer, God willing, on another occasion to give a somewhat detailed account of this Orthodox Missionary Society and of the work carried on by it, already extending beyond the wide borders of the Russian Empire, its primary field of action.

As we look back on the record of Innocent’s labors let us bless God for the good example of His faithful servant and pray Him to crown with His richest blessing the close of such a life.

Tags: 1877, Alaska, Charles Hale, Innocent Veniaminov, Jacob Netsvetov, Missions, primary sources, Russian

Editor’s note: Last week, we presented the first part of the first biography of St. Innocent, written by the Episcopalian clergyman Charles R. Hale. What follows is Part 2, which details the introduction of Orthodoxy to Alaska and the priestly ministry of Fr. John Veniaminoff, the future St. Innocent. Tomorrow, we will publish the last section of Hale’s article, which focuses on St. Innocent’s tenure as a bishop.

“Who in the West,” asks Mouravieff, “hears anything of the truly apostolical labors of the Archbishop of Kamchatka, who is ever sailing over the ocean, or driving in reindeer sledges over his vast but thinly settled diocese, thousands of miles in extent, everywhere baptizing the natives, for whom he has introduced the use of letters, and translated the Gospel into the tongue of the Aleoutines?” Few, indeed, have heard, doubtless there are many who would be glad to hear.

The present Metropolitan of Moscow, late Archbishop of Kamchatka, has been called “the Russian Selwyn,” but he began his missionary labors much earlier than the late [Anglican] Bishop of New Zealand, and has been called to a yet higher position of dignity and influence in his own Church, than that held by the Bishop of Lichfield. John Veniaminoff was born August 20 (September 1, o.s.), 1797, was educated in the Seminary of Irkutsk, from which he graduated in 1817, and entered upon the sacred ministry in May of that year. He was advanced to the priesthood in 1821. December 15 (27 o.s.), 1840, Innocent, for by this name he is henceforth known, was consecrated, by the Episcopal members of the Holy Synod, in the Kazan’s Cathedral at St. Petersburg, to the newly founded Bishopric of Kamchatka. In 1850, his See was made Archi-episcopal. Early in 1868 he succeeded the honored Philaret as the Metropolitan of Moscow. It is a curious coincidence that Bishop Selwyn was consecrated but a few months later than he, October 17, 1841; and the appointment of Innocent to Moscow was announced within a very few days of the time when the Bishop of Lichfield entered upon his new charge, January, 1868.

Of the first two years after his ordination to the priesthood, in which he seemed to have been engaged in parish work in the Diocese of Irkutsk, we have no record. But in 1823 he offered himself as a missionary and was sent by his Bishop to Ounalashka [Unalaska]. Let us preface the story of his labors there, as he himself does, by a brief account of earlier work in the same region. In doing this we translate from his own words, for lack of space however greatly abreviating [sic] his narrative.

How attractive his exordium:

Knowing how pleasant it is for the true Christian to hear of the propagation of Christianity among nations previously unenlightened by the Holy Gospel, I have determined to set forth what I know concerning the propagation and establishment of Christian truth in one of the most remote parts of our country, where, by the will of God, I have been led to spend many years.

Then he goes on to show how

The Christian religion crossed to the shores of Russian America with the first Russians who went to establish themselves in those parts. Among those who sought at once to establish a new industry for Russia, and to acquire gain for themselves, there were those who resolved, at the same time, upon the establishment of Christianity amongst the savages with whom they dwelt. The Cossack, Andrean Tolstich, about 1743 discovering the island known under the name Andreanoffsky, was probably the first to baptize the natives. In the year 1759, Ivan Glotoff discovering the island of Lisa, baptized the son of one of the hereditary chiefs of the Lisevian Aleoutines. He afterwards took the young man to Kamchatka, where this first fruits of the Ounalashka Church spent several years and studied the Russian language and literature and then, returning to his native country, with the position of chief Toen (Governor) conferred upon him by the Governor of Kamchatka, helped greatly by his example, in the propagation of Christianity.

The good missionary confesses that self-interest had something to do with the desire, on the part of many of the first settlers, for the spread of Christianity among the savages, they thinking that thus they would be able to establish better relations with the natives. When we think of the way in which Americans and English have too often acted toward the savage tribes with whom they have been brought into contact, instead of blaming the defective motive, on the part of some, we may rejoice that, in this instance: “The desire of Russians for gain served as a means for diffusing the first principles of Christianity among the Aleoutines, and aided the labors of the missionaries who came after.”

Mr. Shelikoff, founder of the American company:

Among his many plans and projects for the advancement of the interests of the American part of our territory, had in view especially the propagation of Christianity, and the founding of Churches. On which account, on his return from Kadiak [sic] in the year 1787, he laid a memorial in regard to this before the Government and begged it to found an Orthodox Mission, of which he and his associate Golikoff took upon them the expense both of establishment and sustaining. As a result of his intercessions there was founded at St. Petersburg a mission of eight monks, under the lead of Archimandrite Joseph, for the preaching of the word of God among people brought under Russian dominion. Well provided for by Shelikoff, Golikoff, and other benefactors, the mission set out from St. Petersburg in the year 1792, and in the following autumn arrived at Kadiak.

At once they entered upon their work, beginning on the Island of Kadiak. In 1795, Macarius went to the Ounalashka district on a missionary tour, and Juvenal visited the Tehougatches, and crossed over the Gulf of Kenae, both being everywhere warmly received by the natives. The year after, Juvenal, in the neighborhood of the lake of Pliamna, or Shelikoff, “finished his apostolic labors with his life, serving the Church better than any of his associates.” Many years afterward, the circumstance[s] of his martyrdom were related by the natives. Some other members of the mission gave special attention to the education of the children, one of them, Father German [Herman], founded an Orphan Asylum, of which he remained in charge until his death in 1837.

Shelikoff realized the importance of having the work properly organized, and so he was not content with such a mission as was sent out. “He urged the founding of a Bishopric in Russian America, under the charge of its own bishop. He fixed upon Kadiak as a the proper residence of a bishop, estimating the population of that island as about fifty thousand. In consequence of his entreaties, and in consideration of the number of inhabitants,” an Episcopal See was founded, and Joseph, Archimandrite of the mission, was summoned to Irkutsk, and there consecrated, in March 1799, by the Bishop of Irkutsk, and there consecrated, in March 1799, by the Bishop of Irkutsk, to be the first Bishop of “Kadiak, Kamchatka and America.” The new Bishop, as he returned homeward, was lost at sea, in the ship Phoenix, with all who accompanied him, including the priest Macarius and the deacon Stephen, who had come with him from St. Petersburg, when the mission was founded.

Soon after this Shelikoff died, and all thought of extending the mission, and of setting up a Bishopric, seemed lost sight of for years. In the whole colony there was but one missionary priest, until in 1816, in response to the entreaties of Baranoff the Governor, Michael Sokoloff was sent to Sitka.

A fact in this connection, not generally known, may here be mentioned that a Russian settlement, under the name of Russ, was made, under the auspices of Baranoff, in California, on the coast about forty miles northwest of San Francisco. A number of Indians here became members of the Orthodox Church, and when the colony was removed to Sitka, went northward with it. Of these Indian converts or their descendants there were in 1838 nine still living at Sitka. In 1821 new privileges were granted to and new regulations made for the Russian American Company, and the duty was laid upon it of maintaining a sufficient number of priests for the colony. Accordingly three were obtained from Irkutsk, in 1823 John Veniaminoff for Ounalashka, in 1824 Frumentius Mordovsky for Kadiak and in 1825 Jacob Netchvatoff for Atcha.

Veniaminoff entered upon his work with enthusiasm and a hearty liking for those among whom he was to labor. He recounts how Father Macarius and others who had preached the Gospel amongst them

did not present to them with fire and sword the new faith, which forbade them things in which they delighted — e.g., drunkenness and polygamy, but notwithstanding this the  Aleoutines received it readily and quickly. Father Juvenal remained in the Ounalashka district but one year, and voyaging to distant islands, and travelling from place to place with only one Russian attendant, the Aleoutines whom he had baptized, or whom he was preparing for Holy Baptism, conveyed him from place to place, sustained him and guarded him without any recompense or payment. Such examples are rare.

Although the Aleoutines willingly embraced the Christian religion, and prayed to God as they were taught, it must be confessed that, until a priest was settled amongst them, they worshipped one who was almost an unknown God. For Father Macarius, from the shortness of time that he was with them, and from the lack of competent interpreters, was able to give them but very general ideas about religion, such as of God’s omnipotence, His goodness, etc. Notwithstanding all of which, the Aleoutines remained Christian, and after baptism completely renounced Shamanism, and not only destroyed all the masks which they had used in their heathen worship but also allowed the songs which might in any way remind them of their former belief to fall into oblivion. So that when, on my arrival amongst them, I through curiosity made enquiry after these songs, I could not hear of one. And as to superstitions, from which few men well taught in Gospel truth are quite free, many which they had they quite gave up, and others lost their power over them. But of all the good qualities of the Aleoutines, nothing so pleased and elighted my heart as their desire, or, to speak more justly, their thirst, for the word of God, so that sooner would and indefatigable missionary tire in preaching than they in hearing the word.”

But Veniaminoff’s missionary service was not with the peaceful Aleoutines only. There was a fierce tribe, the Koloshes, who, to use his words, when first met with, in 1804, “like fierce wild beasts hunted the Russians to tear them in pieces, so that these had to shut themselves up in their fortresses or go out in companies.” And even in 1819 they still looked “on Russians as their enemies, and slew such as they could take by night, in revenge for the death of their ancestors slain in contests with them.”

To these he resolved to carry the Gospel. To this end he came to Sitka, in the neighborhood of which the Koloshes lived, towards the close of 1834. That Winter and the ensuing Spring imperative duties detained him among the Aleoutines at Sitka. When Summer came, he found that the Koloshes had left their settlements and were scattered in different parts for the purpose of fishing. Veniaminoff confesses, too, that he had a shrinking from meeting these hostile savages. Ashamed of himself for what he felt to be cowardice he resolved that immediately upon the close of the Christmas holidays he would take his life in his hand and go.

“Let no one wonder,” he goes on to say, “at the decrees of Providence.”

Four days before I came to the Koloshes the small-pox suddenly broke out amongst them and first of all at the very place where I had expected to make my first visit. Had I begun my instruction of the Koloshes before the appearance of the small-pox they would certainly have blamed me for all the evil which came upon them, as if I were a Russian shaman or sorcerer who sent such a plague amongst them. The results of such inopportune arrival would have been dreadful. The hatred towards the Russians, which was beginning to wane, would have become as strong as ever. They would perhaps have killed me, as the supposed author of their woes. But this would have been as nothing in comparison with the fact that my coming to the Koloshes just before the small-pox would probably have caused the way to be stopped for half a century to missionaries of God’s word, who would always have seemed to them harbingers of disaster and death.

But, Glory be to God who orders all things for good! The Koloshes were not now what they were two years previously (when he had meant to come among them). If they did not immediately become Christians they, at least, listened or began to listen to the words of salvation. Few were baptized then, for, while I proclaimed the truth to them, I never urged upon them or wished to urge upon them the immediate reception of Holy Baptism, but, seeking to convince their judgment, I awaited a request from them. Those who expressed a desire to be baptized I received with full satisfaction. I always obtained from the Toens (or chiefs) and from the mothers of those desiring to be baptized a consent which was never denied, and this greatly pleased them.”

Veniaminoff introduced inoculation amongst the Koloshes, and the good they saw ensuing from this “greatly changed their opinion of the Russians and of their shamans (or magicians). They neither forbade nor did anything to hinder the reception of Holy Baptism by those desiring it. Instead of despising or avoiding those baptized they looked on them as persons wiser than themselves and almost Europeans.”

After sixteen years of missionary toil Veniaminoff was sent to St. Petersburg to plead for help for the mission. The Czar Nicholas proposed to the Holy Synod to send one who had proved so faithful a priest back to the scene of his labors as a Bishop, for Episcopal supervision was manifestly greatly needed. “Your Majesty must consider,” suggested some members of the Synod, “that, though he is no doubt an excellent man, he has no Cathedral, no body of clergy and no Episcopal Residence.” “The more then, like an Apostle,” replied the Czar, “Cannot he be consecrated?” The objections of those prelates remind us of some that have more recently been heard nearer home. It is to be hoped that, where the need of a Bishop is evident, such objections may soon be things of the past.

As has been already stated the good missionary priest was, December 15 (27 o.s.), 1840, consecrated in St. Petersburg to be Bishop of Kamchatka, with the name, by which he will hereafter be known, of Innocent.

Tags: 1877, Alaska, Charles Hale, Episcopalians, Herman of Alaska, Innocent Veniaminov, Juvenaly of Alaska, Missions, primary sources, Russian

Editor’s note: The first biography of St. Innocent of Alaska was not written by an Orthodox author, but by an Episcopalian, Charles R. Hale, in 1877 (a year before St. Innocent’s death). Hale (1837-1900) was an Episcopal priest (and later a bishop) who had great affection for the Orthodox Church. For a good summary of Hale’s life and his connection to Orthodoxy, click here.

Today, we’re presenting the first part of Hale’s biography of St. Innocent. Next week, we’ll publish Part 2, and in the future, we’ll offer more of Hale’s writings on Orthodoxy. This biography originally appeared in the journal American Church Review (July 1877).

It has long been the habit of persons unfriendly to the Orthodox Churches of the East to speak of them as well night dead Churches. The charge has been but too eagerly repeated by such as, determined upon a certain course of public policy, through a blind selfishness which must surely bring, if persisted in, a dread Nemesis, were not inclined to think well of Eastern Christians, whom it would have been inconvenient to recognize as brethren. A favorite specification in the accusation brought against Christians of the East has been, that they were utterly wanting in a missionary spirit. In these days, we know something of what enslavement to the Turk involves. And what, in common justice, to say nothing of Christian charity, have we a right to expect from those groaning under such bondage? Does not Mouravieff’ well demand, as to these, in Question Religieuse d’Orient et d’Occident,

Have we the conscience to ask that they should make converts, when, now for more than four hundred years, they have been struggling, as in a bloody sweat, to keep Christianity alive under Moslem tyranny? And, in that time, how many martyrs, of every age and condition, have shed a halo around the Oriental Church? No less than a hundred martyrs of these later days are commemorated in the services of the Church, and countless are the unnamed ones who have suffered for the faith, in these four hundred years of slavery. In 1821, Gregory, Patriarch of Constantinople, was hung at the door of his cathedral, on Easter Day. Another Patriarch, Cyril, they hung at Adrianople. Cyprian, Archbishop of Cyprus, with his three Suffragan Bishops, and all the Hegumens of the Cyprian monasteries, were hanged upon one tree before the palace of the ancient kings. Many other prelates and prominent ecclesiastics were put to death in the islands and in Anatolia. Mount Athos was devastated. And yet, none apostatized [sic] from the faith of Christ.

Are not such martyrdoms the best way of making converts? It was thus that, in the first three centuries, the Church was founded in those lands. How can it be said that, among people who could so die for the faith, there was no real spiritual life? Has not the Greek Church shown by her deeds the steadfastness of her faith? The kingdom of Greece, in its fifty years of independence, has labored nobly to repair the desolations of many generations. But surely we, who find excuse in the circumstances of the times for the apparent lack of interest of the American [Episcopal] Church in the missionary cause during the first half century of our separate national life, must readily admit that the Hellenic Church has had and still has ample scope for her energies at home.

We come now to the Church of Russia, and what do we find? A large part of what now makes up the Russian Empire was, when it became such, inhabited by Mahometans and heathen. Yet everywhere the Gospel is, and long has been, preached, and God’s blessing has manifestly followed the proclamation of His word. Says Mouravieff, to quote again from Question Religieuse, etc.:

The loving principles of the extension of Christianity are at work here. The Russian Church, as dominant throughout a great empire, diffuses gradually the light of Christ’s Gospel within her own borders. Her more immediate duty is to labor for the conversion of the heathen, Jews, Mahometans and schismatics, who belong to her, scattered over the one-ninth part of the habitable globe. In those dioceses where there are heathen or Mahometans, the languages spoken by them are taught in the theological seminaries, so that, not only those specially devoted to the work, but the parochial clergy also, may be enabled to act as missionaries. Russia has sowed the seeds of Christianity over a vast field, ever establishing new parishes, which most naturally become also mission stations. In this mode of working, there is little to excite attention, or to create talk. When and how have so many of our heathen become Christians? It is not every one who knows. But multitudes of these are now enjoying the blessings of Christianity and civilization. There is yet, however, much to be done for the conversion and establishment in the faith of many tribes, who are more or less in darkness, and the Church still labors for and with them.

But the missions of the Russian Church are not confined to the heathen or false believers within her own borders. For many years she has had a mission at Pekin [Beijing], and the most successful mission work in Japan would seem to be that carried on by her.

If information in regard to Russian missionary work is not forced upon the attention it is yet not unattainable to those who seek for it. The literature of Russian missions is not a small one. The writer, in giving at the head of this paper a list of works now before him, has mentioned but a small part of those bearing on the subject. Let us cast a hasty glance at these. We shall find them filled not so much with talk about missions as with records of faithful missionary work. In the work first mentioned on this list, Mouravieff gives a Compte Rendu d’une Mission Russe, dans les Monts Altai. This paper, one of those translated by Neale, in “Voices of the East,” under the title The Mission of the Altai, describes a most effective work, begun in 1830 and still carried on, amongst wild nomads in the southern part of Siberia.

In the “Remembrancer of the Labors of Orthodox Russian Evangelizers,” Alexander S. Stourdza, a pious layman, began to give a record of missionary work done by the Russian Church, between 1793 and 1853. Mr. Stourdza died in 1854, leaving his work far from complete. The fine octavo volume before us was all that he was enabled to finish. In it he tells of the conversion of two tribes of the Caucusus, about the year 1820. Then he gives the journal of the Archimandrite Benjamin, an earnest missionary among the Samoyedes of Northern Russia, describing their conversion between the years 1825 and 1830. To follow extracts from the journals of other missionaries, two of these being Archimandrite Macarius, the founder of Mission of the Altai and the Arch-priest Landyscheff, who succeeded him in its charge. Then we have described to us the establishment of the Orthodox Church in Russian America, and a selection of letters are published fro the author of that account, Innocent, Archbishop of Kamchatka, to Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, to whom Innocent has now succeeded. The remainder of the work tells of missionary labors in the Aleoutine Islands and in Northwestern and Central Siberia. The other publications give more recent missionary intelligence and tell of the present condition of the missionary work.

From such a mass of interesting material it is difficult to make a selection. In setting forth, however, the story of that missionary hero, Innocent, now Metropolitan of Moscow, but for many years Archbishop of Kamchatka, the writer thinks that his subject will be one more than ordinarily attractive to American Churchmen. As Mr. Stourdza believed he could best make his great work of value if, “instead of an artificial narriative, he set before his readers the doings of Russian evangelists, as told at different times, and, for the most part, in the letters of the missionaries themselves, without embellishment or eulogies,” so the aim of the present writer will be to present in a summary form a translation of authentic documents, with the needful connecting and explanatory remarks rather than to tell the story for himself.

Tags: 1877, Alaska, Charles Hale, Episcopalians, Innocent Veniaminov, Missions, primary sources, Russian

Attend an American Orthodox parish today, of any jurisdiciton, and you’re likely to hear prayers offered for the President of the United States (and, in some parishes, for the other branches of government as well). The first evidence I’ve been able to find of such prayers is from the journal Christian Union, 10/4/1871:

Bishop Johannes, of the Russo-Greek Church on the Pacific coast, has ordered the prayer for the President of the United States, contained in the Liturgy of the Episcopal Church, to be used by the Greek Priests. The Russo-Greek Calendar has also been modified so as to make it conform to that of Western Christendom in several essential important points.

It’s not clear what those calendar changes were, but obviously, the prayers for the President were part of a broader program to make Orthodoxy more American.

Four decades later (and exactly 99 years ago today), a Greek fruit dealer in Boston decided that the local Greek parish (and, apparently, Greek churches throughout the country) should also pray for US leaders. From the Boston Globe (7/14/1911):

That the ritual of the Greek church in this country be changed so that prayers would be for “the President, his family, the governors and their families,” instead of the customary for “King George of Greece and his family,” was the object of a petition filed yesterday in the office of Clerk Darling in the U.S. circuit court.

Constantinos D. Dimary of 46 Curve st, a fruit dealer, prepared the document, writing it on a 20-pound brown paper bag with a pencil. There is considerable legal phraseology in the document, as Dimary studied law in Greece. He feels that the country which has been adopted by his countrymen should get the blessings of his church.

What exactly Mr. Dimary hoped to accomplish by filing a petition in court is beyond me. Did he expect the court to compel Greek churches to pray for the US President? It’s one thing to bring up such a thing to your parish priest (or local bishop, but the Greeks didn’t have one in 1911), but to seek the aid of the courts is a little extreme. I don’t know what became of this petition (although I can guess that it didn’t get very far), and I’m not sure how the Greeks of Boston responded. I know we’ve got quite a few Greek Orthodox readers from the Boston area; can any of you shed more light on this odd incident?

One more note along these lines. In 1920, the Antiochian Metropolitan Germanos Shehadi — leader of the “Antacky” faction of Syrians — published a collection of Orthodox hymns, with music, in English, under the title The Paradise. Among those hymns was one that went like this: “God bless the President of the United States, and its people with peace and prosperity, God keep this peace and prosperity, forevermore, forevermore, forevermore. Amen.” This, it appears, was used in Met Germanos’ parishes during the Divine Liturgy, where once upon a time the Eastern Roman Emperor was commemorated.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

UPDATE (7/14/2010): After I published this article yesterday, Isa Almisry found an example of prayers for the US President in 1870, which is earlier than the Bishop John Mitropolsky example related above. From Isa:

The New York Times records on November 25, 1870, that “servives were conducted by Bishop PAUL, formerly Bishop of Alaska, who is on his way to Russia, to assume his new position as Bishop of Siberia. Rev. Mr. BJERRING also officiated. The litany was said by the Bishop, while prayers for the Emperor and Empress of Russian, and for the President and people of the United States were offered by the pastor.”

Tags: 1871, 1911, 1920, America, Antiochian, Boston, civil authorities, Germanos Shehadi, Greek, John Mitropolsky, newspapers, primary sources, Russian

Last week, I was privileged to speak at the Greek Archdiocese Clergy-Laity Congress in Atlanta. I gave the same talk on two days, July 5 and 6. Below, we’ve published the text of my lecture. A couple of things, up front: first, I didn’t include footnotes, because this was just the text I personally used in delivering the talk. And second, I make several references to Atlanta and Georgia, because that’s where I was speaking. Also, please forgive any typos or other errors; I know that there are a few, and I haven’t fixed all of them.

I’ve been asked to speak about Orthodoxy in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course, this was the Ellis Island era, the time when hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the United States from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. It’s when many of your ancestors came here; it’s also when my own ancestors came here, from what was then the Ottoman Empire and what is today Lebanon. Of course, besides the Greeks and the Syrians and Lebanese, there were also lots of Serbs, Romanians, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Bulgarians. These were largely Orthodox people, coming to the United States from all over the Orthodox world, and bringing with them their ancestral faith. And while these people spoke different languages and had different local traditions, they all shared that Orthodox faith. Because they came here and preserved their faith – because of that, we have Orthodoxy in America today. My goal here today is to give you a sense of what it was like back then – what it was like to be an Orthodox Christian in late 19th/early 20th century America.

In 1890, only two Orthodox parishes existed in the entire United States of America: a Russian cathedral in San Francisco and a semi-independent Greek church in New Orleans. Of course, there was a significant Russian Orthodox presence in Alaska, but at that time Alaska was just a territory, not a state, and it was both geographically and culturally disconnected from the US mainland.

The church in New Orleans was founded in 1865 by a group of Orthodox people led by a Greek cotton merchant named Nicolas Benachi. This was a multi-ethnic parish, and besides Greeks, it included Antiochians and Slavs among its members. The U.S. Census of 1890 describes it as a part of the Church of Greece, “in connection with the consulate of Greece in New Orleans.” The first priest to visit New Orleans – he wasn’t the parish priest, but he visited and served the first liturgy there – he was a strange character named Fr. Agapius Honcharenko. This man was an itinerant Ukrainian of questionable credentials who was visiting New York in 1865 when he was contacted by the New Orleans parish. He certainly was not connected to the Russian Church; he actually claimed that the Tsarist government had put a price on his head for his involvement in revolutionary activities. Honcharenko had some sort of connection with the Church of Greece, but not long after his visit to New Orleans, he left Orthodoxy altogether and tried to start his own Protestant sect in California.

The New Orleans parish itself was a really interesting community. Before they had actually organized themselves as a parish, they raised their own Orthodox militia regiment to fight on the Confederate side of the Civil War. Later on, from 1881 to 1901, the community had a priest from Bulgaria. Until 1906, most of the church records were kept in English. It was only later that Greek became the dominant language.

After I finished preparing this talk, I learned of some very exciting developments happening with the New Orleans parish. After Hurricane Katrina, the parishioners were cleaning out the church, and someone stumbled onto bunch of old documents, tucked away in some long-forgotten cupboard or closet. As it turns out, these were the sacramental records kept by the parish priests in New Orleans, dating back to the earliest years of the parish. The papers were soaking wet, and right now, the parish is having them restored. They show that the parish had members of all different ethnic groups, and in particular, a lot of Antiochians. And these people weren’t just concentrated in the city of New Orleans – they were in small towns all over Louisiana, and probably beyond. We’re just now beginning to get a glimpse of what life was like in the first Orthodox parish in the contiguous United States. There are plans to digitize the documents, and there’s even talk of building an Orthodox museum in New Orleans, to house the hundreds of documents and artifacts the community has accumulated over the past century and a half. Anyone interested in Orthodox history or Greek history will want to keep an eye on what’s going on in New Orleans.

The other really old parish, the San Francisco cathedral, was founded in 1868 under Russian authority. Just like New Orleans, San Francisco had a multi-ethnic Orthodox community. That community largely consisted of Greeks and Serbs, and in 1867, they formally requested that the Russian bishop in Alaska send them a priest. Soon after this, the Russian bishop moved his own residence down to San Francisco.

The San Francisco parish seemed almost cursed with turmoil. In 1879, the dean of the cathedral was apparently murdered, and one of the prime suspects was his assistant priest. A few years later, the Russian bishop drowned at sea; this appears to have been a suicide brought on by a physical ailment. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, the cathedral community was rocked by scandal. The new bishop, Vladimir, was accused of all kinds of horrific crimes. The cathedral itself burned to the ground, and many people suspected arson. Eventually, Bishop Vladimir was recalled to Russia, and by the end of the decade – by the end of the 1890s – the bishop in San Francisco was an outstanding man, Tikhon Bellavin, who was respected by all the different ethnic groups in the community. Bishop Tikhon went on to become Patriarch of Moscow. He suffered under the Communists, and in 1988, he was canonized a saint.

Now, as I mentioned, the New Orleans and San Francisco parishes were the only churches in the United States in 1890. They were outposts, really; there wasn’t much in the way of established Orthodoxy in America, outside of the Russians and Orthodox natives in Alaska. But after 1890, things began to change really rapidly. On the one hand, as I said before, thousands of Orthodox immigrants were arriving in the United States. And at the same time, entire parishes of Eastern Rite Catholics were converting, en masse, to Orthodoxy.

These Eastern Catholics were from the Austro-Hungarian Empires, and their ancestors had been Orthodox, but in the preceding centuries, they had left the Orthodox Church and joined the Roman Catholics. When they came to the United States, they were not very well-received by the Roman Catholic hierarchy in America. The big moment came in 1889. An Eastern Catholic priest named Alexis Toth had just arrived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to take over pastoral care of the Eastern Catholics in the area. And as was the standard procedure, when he got to Minneapolis, he presented himself to the local Roman Catholic archbishop, a man named John Ireland.

Archbishop Ireland was absolutely livid that Toth had come to Minneapolis. Ireland shouted at Toth, “I have already written to Rome protesting against this kind of priest being sent to me.” Toth said, “What kind of priest do you mean?” And Ireland said, “Your kind.” And then he continued, “I do not consider either you or this bishop of yours Catholic. […] I shall grant you no permission to work there.” Later on, Toth said, “The Archbishop lost his temper, I lost mine just as much.”

Unwelcomed by the Roman Catholics, Toth began to look into other options. At this point – and here, we’re talking right around 1890 – there wasn’t much in the way of Orthodoxy in America, as we’ve seen. Toth eventually contacted the Russian bishop in San Francisco, and his entire Eastern Catholic parish in Minneapolis converted to Orthodoxy. Toth himself became a leading proponent of Eastern Catholic conversions to Orthodoxy. Tens of thousands of Eastern Catholics joined the Russian Orthodox Church in America over the next several decades. The core of the growing Russian Archdiocese – and the core of what we know today as the OCA – consisted of these former Eastern Catholic parishes. The significance of the Eastern Catholic conversions cannot be overstated – this was a major, major development.

Of course, at the same time that this was happening – literally, at exactly the same time – thousands of people who were already Orthodox were coming to the United States from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. And these people were also starting their own Orthodox churches.

One of the most interesting of these early communities was in Chicago. In the 1880s – so, even before the big immigration started – Chicago had a growing Orthodox population. By 1888, there were about a thousand Orthodox in the city. Most of them were Greeks and Serbs, and despite the fact that they weren’t Russian, they petitioned the nearest bishop – who was Russian – to send them a priest. In 1888, the Russian bishop responded to their petition by asking them to hold a meeting, to figure out if there was enough interest to support a church. The main speakers at the meeting were a Greek, a Montenegrin, and a Serb. The Greek man was George Brown, who had come to America as a young man, and had fought in the American Civil War. George Brown gave a short speech, and it’s short enough that I’ll read most of it to you now, exactly as the Chicago Tribune reported it the next day:

“Gentlemans,” he said, “Union is the strength. Let everybody make his mind and have no jealousy. I have no jealousy. I am married to a Catholic woman but I hold my own. Let us stick like brothers. If our language is two, our religion is one. The priest he make the performance in both language. We have our flags built. It is the first Greek flags raised in Chicago. We will surprise the Americans. Let us stick like brothers.”

The meeting ended with everybody wanting to start an Orthodox church, and they agreed that the services could be done in both Greek and Slavonic. The Russian Bishop Vladimir traveled east from San Francisco for a visit later that year, but unfortunately, this was the same Bishop Vladimir who became embroiled in a series of horrible scandals. One of Vladimir’s strongest opponents in San Francisco was a Montenegrin who happened to be the brother of one of the leaders of the Chicago community. So the Chicago Orthodox were hearing all these horrible things about Bishop Vladimir, and they decided they wanted nothing more to do with the man. They put out feelers to numerous other Orthodox churches – the Serbian Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Church of Greece.

Eventually, the Church of Greece sent a priest named Fr. Panagiotis Phiambolis, and in 1892 Phiambolis established the first Orthodox parish of any kind in Chicago. But this was not a multi-ethnic parish, like San Francisco and New Orleans. This parish was specifically for Greek people. The Chicago Tribune reported that the new Greek church “wants no one but those of Hellenic blood among its members” Almost exactly one month after the Greek church began in Chicago, the Russians established their own church. By now, I should note, Bishop Vladimir had been recalled to Russia, and was replaced by Bishop Nicholas.

So now in 1892, there were two Orthodox parishes in the city of Chicago – one Greek, one Russian. This was the first time in our history that two Orthodox churches, answering to different ecclesiastical authorities, coexisted in the same US city. But there’s a flip side to all of this. Despite the fact that they had separated based on language and ethnicity, they still got along with each other. In 1894, the Chicago Greek and Russian priests concelebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Russian church to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the Russian mission to Alaska. When the Russian Tsar Alexander III died the following month, a memorial was served by both the Greek and Russian priests at the Greek church, which was simultaneously dedicating its new building. When the new Russian bishop, Nicholas, visited Chicago in later that year, the local Greek priest, Phiambolis, participated in the hierarchical Liturgy at the Russian church. Later on, in 1902, the church bell was stolen from the Russian parish, and the Greek priest invited his Russian counterpart to come to the Greek church and ask the Greek parishioners for help. The two churches, Greek and Russian, then held a joint meeting of both parishes, to organize an effort to find the bell.

On the Pacific Coast, Orthodox communities began to organize themselves in places like Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. In both Portland and Seattle, there was a lot of diversity among the Orthodox, with Greeks, Serbs, Antiochians, and Russians all in the same community. And in both Portland and Seattle, these diverse Orthodox populations affiliated themselves with the Russian Church. Seattle is a really interesting story, because, while it was under the Russian Church, the parish itself was named after St. Spyridon, who of course is a Greek saint. How did that happen? Well, the land for the church was donated by a Greek family, and because of that, they got to choose the name. Church services were in Greek, Slavonic, and English, and one of the prerequisites for being the pastor in Seattle was an ability to work in multiple languages.

Seattle’s multi-ethnic community didn’t last forever. By 1917, there were over two thousand Greeks in Seattle, and they decided they needed their own Greek church. But there weren’t any hard feelings. People said that they were just happy that there were enough Orthodox in Seattle for two churches.

Fr. Michael Andreades was of the early priests of that original multi-ethnic Seattle parish. Andreades was Greek, but he had been educated in Russia, and he was under the Russian bishop in San Francisco. He was one of several ethnic Greek priests who served under the Russian diocese. This was certainly not the norm for Greek clergy in America, but it definitely was not unheard of.

Another of these Greek priests was Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides. His father was an Athenian who fought in the Greek War for Independence, and then afterwards moved to the Peloponnese. That’s where Triantafilides himself was born. As a young man, Triantafilides went to Mount Athos and was tonsured a monk. He became affiliated with the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon, on Mount Athos, and from there, he went to Russia itself, where he studied at the Moscow Theological Academy. This is where things get really interesting. Triantafilides was asked by King George I of Greece to come to Greece and tutor the king’s young son, Prince George. Then the Russian Tsar, Alexander III, asked Triantafilides to return to Russia and tutor his children, including the future Tsar Nicholas II. Triantafilides was actually one of the priests who served at the wedding of Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra.

So how did Triantafilides go from the royal courts of Greece and Russia to the United States? Well, in Galveston, Texas – which was a major seaport in the 19^th century – there was another one of those multi-ethnic Orthodox communities. The Greeks and Serbs of Galveston got together and petitioned the Russian Church to send them a priest. Tsar Nicholas II himself answered their petition by sending them his old tutor, Triantafilides, who by this time was in his early sixties.

Triantafilides was the priest in Galveston for over 20 years, until his death in 1916. But he didn’t just take care of the Galveston parish. He took responsibility for the Orthodox people living throughout the Gulf Coast, traveling thousands of miles by horse and by train. His parish, which was named Ss. Constantine and Helen, eventually came to be predominantly Serbian, and many years after his death, the church switched from the Russian to the Serbian jurisdiction. But to this day, they continue to venerate their original Greek priest, sent by the Russian Tsar.

But Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides was not the first prominent Greek priest in America. That title belongs to Fr. Kallinikos Kanellas, who arrived in San Francisco in the early 1890s. Kanellas came to the US from India, where he had been the priest of the Greek Orthodox church in Calcutta. He initially came to America just for a visit, but he was a sickly man, and he became ill, which forced him to stay for awhile. He became affiliated with the multiethnic Russian cathedral in San Francisco. Of course, with so many Greeks there, having a Greek priest would have been particularly helpful. Like so many of his fellow priests, Kanellas traveled all over the country. He actually seems to have been the first Orthodox priest to visit this state – Georgia – when he baptized a Greek child in Savannah in 1891.

In 1892, a new Russian bishop took over in San Francisco, and he released Kanellas, who then traveled to the eastern part of the United States. Around 1902 or 1903, Kanellas was asked to become the priest of the Greek church in Birmingham, Alabama, which was under the Church of Greece. He spent the next eight years there. The Greek-American Guide described him as “a very sympathetic and reverend old man.” He was one of the only Orthodox priests in the entire American South, so like Triantafilides, he traveled quite a bit. One of the places he visited was Atlanta. Kanellas eventually became the first priest of the Greek church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he remained there until his death in 1921.

Priests like Andreades, Triantafilides, and Kanellas were not Russian, but they all spent time serving in the Russian diocese. The reverse didn’t happen – Russian priests didn’t serve under the Church of Greece. But there is a fascinating story that I must tell you – because not all of the Greek priests were, in fact, Greek.

Just after the turn of the twentieth century, a man named Robert Morgan began to attend the Greek church in Philadelphia. The curious thing about Robert Morgan is that he was a black Episcopalian deacon from Jamaica. In 1907, he traveled to Constantinople, and was ordained an Orthodox priest. He was sent back to Philadelphia, and I’ll quote directly here, “to carry the light of the Orthodox faith among his racial brothers.” Morgan took the name “Fr. Raphael,” but unfortunately, he wasn’t very successful in his missionary work. Aside from his own family, there’s no clear evidence that he converted anyone else to Orthodoxy. But the startling fact remains that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ecumenical Patriarchate initiated a mission to convert black Americans to Orthodoxy.

Now, as I said, Fr. Raphael Morgan was attached to the Greek church in Philadelphia. When he went to the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be ordained, he had two letters in his possession. One was from the Greek community of Philadelphia, which supported Morgan’s ordination, and said that if he failed to establish a black Orthodox church, he was welcome to be the assistant priest at their parish. The other letter was from the parish priest in Philadelphia, a remarkable man named Fr. Demetrios Petrides.

Petrides was born on Samos in the mid-1860s. He was a married priest, with children, but his wife died before he came to America. Back in Greece, Petrides’ daughter fell in love with a young man, John Janoulis, and they wanted to get married. Petrides approved, but the Janoulis’ father wanted his son to get an education, rather than get married. So Janoulis was disowned by his father, and Petrides took the couple under his wing. The young Janoulis left for America to earn money, which of course was common practice at the time, and then Fr. Demetrios was asked by the Church of Greece to become the new priest in Philadelphia. He arrived in 1907, and brought along his daughter, reuniting her with her husband. Just a couple of months after he arrived in America, Petrides wrote his letter, recommending that Robert Morgan be ordained a priest. For a while, Morgan actually lived in the Petrides family home.

Like so many of his fellow priests, Petrides traveled throughout his region of the country, ministering to the Orthodox people he found who didn’t have a priest. One time, he went to Ithaca, New York, to do a baptism. After the service, unbeknownst to Petrides, a 16-year-old Greek girl had advertised that she would go into a “spirit trance.” Greeks had traveled from all over to witness the spectacle. Petrides caught wind of what was going on, and he burst into the room, stopped the girl’s trance, and told the people that spiritualism is against the teachings of the Orthodox Church. This was the sort of man he was – completely unafraid to stand up for what was right, no matter what.

It was this gumption that got Petrides run out of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia church was dominated by a rich layman, Constantine Stephano, who was a millionaire cigarette manufacturer. Stephano and Petrides did not get along. Things came to a head in 1912, when Stephano sent the following message to Petrides – this is almost unbelievable. It said,

“Constantine Stephano commands you to appear at his office every evening at sunset and salaam low upon entering his presence. Then you are to stand erect, with folded arms, with your eyes cast downward, awaiting a word from Stephano before sitting down or otherwise changing your position. If you are not asked to be seated you are to remain in this position until Stephano leaves his office, and when he passes through the door you are to salaam low again and depart with bowed head.”

Stephano was obviously trying to humiliate Petrides, and Petrides would have none of it. He responded, “I will not thus humiliate myself before this maker of cigarettes.” Now, in the early twentieth century, Greek parishes in America had only a loose connection to the church authorities in Athens or Constantinople. As a practical matter, the parishes were run by lay boards of trustees, which would hire and fire priests at will. Constantine Stephano arranged for Petrides to be ousted from the Philadelphia church, by the slim margin of seven votes.

But, characteristically, Petrides left with his head held high. In September of 1912, newspapers in Georgia began reporting that a daring Greek priest was coming to Atlanta. One newspaper called Petrides “the stormy petrel of the cloth.” Another paper said that he was famous for his “lambasting of the rich Greeks who loved money for the sake of power.” He was warmly welcomed by the Greeks in Atlanta, who seemed to have a good idea of the sort of priest they were getting.

But Petrides was not simply focused on his fellow Greeks. At the turn of the twentieth century, there was a very active dialogue taking place between the Orthodox and the Episcopalians. This led to the creation of a group called the “Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches Union.” The Orthodox members of the group included clergy from various ethnic backgrounds, including Antiochians, Russians, and Greeks. For several years in the teens, Fr. Demetrios Petrides was the organization’s Greek representative. He thus was engaged in this national inter-Christian dialogue, and he was also cooperating with his fellow Orthodox of different ethnicities.

As the teens wore on, Petrides developed diabetes, and in the days before insulin, that was a death sentence. He died in September of 1917. Annunciation Cathedral here in Atlanta should be very proud to claim Fr. Demetrios Petrides as one of its first priests. He was a significant historical figure, and an outstanding pastor.

We’re nearly at the end of this talk, and I’ve basically just told you a series of stories. So what’s the point – are there any common threads, or lessons to be learned, from this admittedly limited look at early Greek Orthodox history in America? I think there are, and I’ll just touch on them very briefly here at the end.

First and foremost, it should be clear that Greek Orthodoxy in America did not develop in a vacuum, somehow separated from the rest of Orthodoxy in America. Most of the earliest communities of Orthodox Christians here were multi-ethnic. This was largely a matter of practicality: there simply weren’t enough people in each individual group to start forming separate ethnic parishes. In many places – San Francisco, New Orleans, Chicago, Seattle, Galveston – there was a clear sense that, for Orthodox Christians to survive in America, they needed each other. They needed – we still need – to work together to build up Orthodoxy in our local communities. No matter what we’d like to think, we’re simply too small, too weak, to thrive on our own, without each other. And just as in those early parishes, cooperation and a unified effort does not imply the abolishment of our individual identities. I will always be Lebanese, just as so many of you will always be Greek. Working together, on a practical level, does not have to mean a compromise of our heritage. It didn’t a hundred years ago, and it does not now.

I’d like to close with the words of that Greek veteran of the Civil War, George Brown, the early leader of Chicago’s Orthodox community: “Union is the strength. Let everybody make his mind and have no jealousy. Our religion is one. We will surprise the Americans. Let us stick like brothers.” Thank you.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Tags: Alexis Toth, America, Antiochian, Atlanta, Chicago, Demetrios Petrides, early unity, Episcopalians, Galveston, Greek, Kallinikos Kanellas, Michael Andreades, New Orleans, newspapers, Panagiotis Phiambolis, parishes, Philadelphia, primary sources, Raphael Morgan, Russian, San Francisco, Seattle, Serbian, Theoclitos Triantafilides, Tikhon Belavin, Vladimir Sokolovsky

The first Orthodox place of worship in New York was founded in 1870, when the Russian Church established an embassy chapel under the care of Fr. Nicholas Bjerring. As we’ve discussed before, the idea of a New York chapel originated in 1866, and its purpose was primarily to further relations with the Episcopal Church. A year earlier, in 1865, the renegade priest Agapius Honcharenko served the first Orthodox liturgy in New York. In 1863, two Russian priests visited the city when their naval vessels docked in New York’s harbor. Until recently, I thought that this was as far back as we could trace the presence of Orthodox clergy in New York.

Remarkably, though, there was almost an Orthodox chapel in New York long before all that. The following report appeared in the January 1850 issue of the Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America:

Efforts are now making in New York to form a congregation of Greek Christians. We observe an announcement that a priest of that denomination, with an interpreter, is now in New York, and will doubtless take charge of the movement.

I haven’t been able to find any other reports of this development, and it obviously didn’t lead to an organized parish. But it does indicate that, even in 1849-50, there were enough Orthodox people in New York for somebody to send a priest to visit them, and possibly start a church. Who was the priest? What church sent him — was it Russia, or Greece, or the Ecumenical Patriarchate? And why did this early effort fail? There’s a story here, waiting to be uncovered. The New York Times — the best-archived New York newspaper — didn’t begin publication until 1851. But there were dozens of other papers in that era; surely some of them covered this story. Sooner or later, we’ll track down the details.

[This article was written by Matthew Namee.]

Tags: 1850, New York, newspapers, primary sources

The Antiochian Archdiocese website has just published video of His Grace, Bishop Basil (Essey) of Wichita, Secretary of the Episcopal Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Hierarchs of North and Central America, reflecting on that body. The video was recorded on June 17, 2010, at his diocesan Parish Life Conference.

It’s of particular note to those interested in history that the bishop begins his talk precisely on a historical note, putting the Assembly in the context of the long-awaited Great and Holy Synod.

Watch it here.

Tags: 2010, Basil Essey, Episcopal Assembly, media, primary sources