Category: Firsts

This week in American Orthodox history (February 13-19)

February 14, 1872: Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, on a tour of the United States, visited New Orleans and met with representatives of the city's fledgling Orthodox parish. The Grand Duke presented gifts to the parish, including, most likely, a gold-embossed Gospel book. 130 years later, the parish still has...

Photo of the week: The funeral of Fr. Theoclitos of Galveston

Continuing with the theme from Wednesday... This photo depicts the burial of Archimandrite Theoclitos Triantafilides, the great priest of Galveston, TX, on October 27, 1916. We actually have several photos of this event -- all courtesy of Ss. Constantine and Helen parish -- but this one particularly interests me because...

Nicholas Chapman’s new lecture on Philip Ludwell now available

Nicholas Chapman recently gave an hour-long talk on Philip Ludwell III, the first Orthodox convert in American history. The lecture is now available for purchase, and you've got two options: an MP3 download for $4.95, and a boxed CD for $9.95. The boxed CD includes a newly-discovered portrait of Ludwell...

Early Orthodoxy in Galveston & New Orleans

In an article about Fr. Stephen Andreades, the first resident priest in New Orleans, I quoted from Understanding the Greek Orthodox Church, by Demetrios J. Constantelos (published 1982). At the time, I had only a Google Books "snippet view" of the book, but I've since acquired a copy through interlibrary...

This week in American Orthodox history (January 16-22)

January 16, 1924: Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow -- former Archbishop of North America, and future canonized saint -- issued an ukaz removing Metropolitan Platon Rozhdestvensky from his post as primate in America for "public acts of counter-revolution." Of course, Tikhon was under pressure from the Soviet government. Really, "pressure" is...

The First Antiochian Chapel in America

In the life of St. Raphael Hawaweeny published by Antakya Press (page 24, to be precise), there's a reference to an early Syrian/Antiochian chapel in New York, dating to 1893. The story goes that a visiting Antiochian priest, Archimandrite Christopher Jabara, established the chapel at Cedar and Washington Streets in...

Greek Catholic — not Orthodox — monk in America in 1850

Last week, I wrote about a priest from Lebanon who visited the United States in 1850. In an update to that post, I reprinted an 1850 Syracuse newspaper article claiming that the priest was an "impostor" who was raising money through dishonesty. That Syracuse newspaper referred to another article in...

Orthodox priests in America in 1849-50

Earlier today, I posted this note from 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...

Unsolved mysteries of American Orthodoxy

Yesterday, I published a brief article on Fr. Stephen Andreades, the first resident priest of the first Orthodox parish in the contiguous United States -- Holy Trinity in New Orleans. The entire early history of that parish is something of a mystery. We know who the early priests were --...