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

Guns on Pascha, 1905

I was browsing my newspaper archives recently, and came across an article about a Greek Pascha celebration in New York, exactly 105 years ago today (April 30, 1905). Here's the whole article, from the New York Times: While more than a thousand persons were in front of the Holy Trinity...

New Podcast on Fr. Demetrios Petrides

On today's episode of my American Orthodox History podcast, I focus on the life of Fr. Demetrios Petrides, a Greek priest in Philadelphia and Atlanta from 1907 to 1917. It was Petrides who, as priest in Philadelphia, wrote a letter to the Ecumenical Patriarchate recommending Robert Morgan for ordination as...

OCA Canonization Commission issues statement

This past weekend, the Canonization Commission of the OCA issued a statement at OCA.org. According to Commission secretary (and OCA archivist) Alexis Liberovsky, the Commission will begin detailed studies of the lives of both Metropolitan Leonty Turkevich and Archbishop Arseny Chagovtsov, to determine whether the OCA should canonize them. Canonization...

Fr. Antony Hill: the second black Orthodox priest in America

After a week's worth of articles on the Archbishop Arseny criminal libel case, I thought I'd break things up a bit by looking at something completely different -- the story of Fr. Antony Hill, the second black Orthodox priest in America. By now, a lot of people know that Fr....

The Archbishop Arseny Trial Transcript

Last week, Fr. Oliver Herbel wrote a series of articles on the 1909 criminal libel trial involving Archimandrite (later Archbishop) Arseny Chagovtsov, who is currently being considered for canonization by the OCA. Fr. Oliver's summary may be found at the following links: Part 1 - Introduction Part 2 - the...

New book on Wichita’s Lebanese Heritage

Recently, I coauthored Wichita's Lebanese Heritage, a new book from Arcadia Publishing. Smack-dab in the middle of the Great Plains, Wichita, Kansas is an unlikely center for Orthodoxy. But it's a pretty remarkable place, with a resident Antiochian bishop, the greatest Orthodox-owned bookstore in America, and thousands of Orthodox Christians....

Source of the week: 1907 review of Hapgood Service Book

On today's episode of our American Orthodox History podcast, I discuss Isabel Hapgood, an Episcopalian woman who had a significant impact on American Orthodox history. She is most famous today for her landmark English translation of the Orthodox Service Book. Her translation was first published in 1906, and remains in...

“The Stormy Petrel of the Cloth”

We've spent a lot of time on this website talking about Fr. Raphael Morgan, the first black Orthodox priest in America. Morgan was attached to the Greek church in Philadelphia. When he went to the Ecumenical Patriarchate to be ordained in 1907, he had two letters in his possession. One...

A break for Holy Week

For the remainder of Holy Week, I'm going to take a break from writing new articles. We'll have new material up on Bright Monday, April 5. In the meantime, feel free to check out our many past articles -- we've got almost 200 up so far, and you can navigate...

Fr. Raphael Morgan against Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey was a widely influential black nationalist from Jamaica. He promoted black pride and championed the "back to Africa" movement. In 1916, when he was just 29 years old and at the outset of his public career, he visited the United States and embarked on a 38-state speaking tour. Not...