On his Frontier Orthodoxy website last week, Fr. Oliver Herbel posted an essay outlining his position on Archbishop Arseny’s canonization.
In a follow-up post, Fr. Oliver responded to the charge that he was employing a “hermeneutic of suspicion.”
Finally, on his own blog, Gabriel Sanchez used Fr. Oliver’s comments a springboard to reflect upon the nature of historical inquiry in the Orthodox Church.
For anyone interested in the Abp Arseny story, or in historiography more generally, these articles (and the thoughtful comments that follow them) make for fascinating reading. At the very least, I would strongly encourage you to read Fr. Oliver’s first article, on his position vis-à-vis the Abp Arseny canonization.
Tomorrow, we’ll be back with more new material, from a new contributor to OrthodoxHistory.org.
Christ is Risen. I have a book which you may not be aware of that briefly refers to Abp Arseny. It was published in Winnioeg in 1927 in Ukrainian. The author, a Bukovinian Orthodox priest who later joined the Ukrainian Catholic Church, outlines Ukrainian church history in Canada from 1890 to 1927. There is a brief section about Apb Arseny’s activity in Canada, but the dates don’t seem to line up with his biographical data. How can I send you PDF copies of the relevant sections? Z Bohom, Deacon Bohdan.
We would certainly be interested in the material you have. Please email me at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com. Thank you!
The book by Fr. P. Bozyk, whose son is still alive and is a Uniate priest is Winnipeg, is not considered an accurate book by Ukrainian-Canadian historians.
There are too many mistakes in dates and so on. It cannot really be used as a primary source.
Since Archbishop Arseny spent most of his time in North America in the USA, I question why the OCA in Canada is pushing for his canonization. His missionary activity in Canada was not successful in the long term.
However, his work in the USA was.