Matthew Namee

Matthew Namee serves as editor of OrthodoxHistory.org. He specializes in the history of Orthodoxy in America from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. He's written a lot about church history, both at this website and elsewhere, and he's spoken at numerous conferences and events. Matthew is the former research assistant to Bill James, the legendary baseball author and Boston Red Sox executive. He went on to earn a J.D. from the University of Kansas and serves as General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer for Orthodox Ministry Services. He and his wife Catherine and their children attend Holy Apostles Orthodox Church in Vancouver, WA. Matthew can be contacted at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com.

mfnamee@gmail.com

Harry Truman’s Sacred Cow & Other Amazing Facts About Athenagoras

Archbishop Athenagoras Spyrou led the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America from 1930 until 1948. That year, he was elected Ecumenical Patriarch, a position he held for nearly a quarter century, until his death in 1972. Athenagoras is perhaps most famous (or, in some quarters, infamous) for his landmark...

Who was St. Tikhon?

Full name: Tikhon Bellavin Dates: 1865 to 1925 In America: 1898 to 1907 Who was he? Head of the Russian Archdiocese in North America at the turn of the 20th century, and later Patriarch of Moscow during the Bolshevik Revolution and its bloody aftermath. He was known for being a...

Fr Demetrios Petrides on the death of his son

For various reasons, death seems a particularly present reality right now. Of course, there is the tragic death of Fr Matthew Baker this past Sunday (and, once again, please consider helping his family). The day before Fr Matthew died, some very good friends of mine lost their 6-year-old daughter, who had been...

A more easily pronounced name

The church committee of a Greek orthodox church in New York city are to apply to the Holy Synod in Greece for the appointment of a new pastor to succeed the Rev. Agathodoro A. Papageorgopaulos, who recently resigned the pastorate of that church. If the committee want to “stand in”...

What was the first Orthodox parish in America?

The question, "What was the first Orthodox parish in America?" is surprisingly difficult to answer. A big part of the problem comes from that word, "parish." What is a parish? When does a collection of Orthodox people become a "parish"? It's a matter of interpretation, and particularly in the early...

St Raphael’s Original New York Chapel

St Raphael Hawaweeny arrived in New York City in 1895, and he immediately established a chapel for his growing community of Arab Orthodox Christians. The chapel was located at 77 Washington Street in Manhattan, right next to the Syrian Maronites' own chapel. The Orthodox chapel, called St Nicholas, was a...

A Timeline of the Life of St Raphael

A Brief Timeline of the Life of St Raphael Hawaweeny 1860 - Born in Beirut in November (family returned to Damascus the next year) 1874 - Tonsured reader 1877 - Worked as a middle school and 5th grade teacher (1877-79) 1879 - Tonsured a monk; appointed assistant to Patriarch of Antioch...

Who was St. Raphael under — Antioch or Russia?

Who was St. Raphael under? It depends partly on whom you ask, and it also depends on when you ask. In 1895, when Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny came to America to oversee the Syro-Arabs, he was most definitely under the Russian Church. In fact, at the time, he was on the...

We Must Have A Bishop

The following editorial appeared in the Saloniki-Greek Press (a Greek-American newspaper) on Feb. 28, 1914. At the time, there was no Greek bishop in America. Until 1908, the Greek parishes were loosely tied to either the Ecumenical Patriarchate or the Church of Greece, but in 1908, the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued...

Chicago Greeks oppose choral music in 1908

Several years ago, I began writing about the "Americanization" of Orthodoxy -- things like pews, organs, mixed choirs, the cassocks vs. collars debate, clean shaven priests, etc. (Click here to read my article on organs in Greek churches.) Recently, I found a great historical source -- an open letter from...