Category: Orthodoxy in the Americas

An Early English Life of St Herman of Alaska

The article that follows is, as far as I know, the first English-language life of St Herman of Alaska. It originally appeared under the title “Herman — Russian Missionary to America,” in a publication called The Constructive Quarterly 7:1 (March 1919). The author, Vera Johnston, was the Russian-born wife of an Englishman,...

How Many Orthodox Christians Are in America?

A quick bit of self-promotion: In January, I'll be teaching a live, 4-week course on American Orthodox History for the Orthodox Studies Institute at Saint Constantine College. I hope many of you can join me -- you can learn more and register for the course by clicking here.   Lately,...

New Class: American Orthodox History

Hey everyone - I've been writing and talking about American Orthodox history for a long time. We started OrthodoxHistory.org way back in 2009, and earlier this year I published my first book, Lost Histories, on the early years of Orthodoxy in America. Today I'm excited to announce that I'll be teaching...

Father Alex and the Mother Church

This is the third in a series of articles based on my interviews with Fr Alex Karloutsos. You can read the first two articles here: The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew The last article ended with the election of Patriarch Bartholomew and Fr Karloutsos’s...

Philip Ludwell III and Slavery

Philip Ludwell III is the first known convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in the Americas. He was a prominent figure in pre-revolutionary Virginia and a relative by blood or marriage of many great early figures in American history from George Washington to Richard Henry Lee of the great Lee family...

Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew

Earlier this year, I conducted a series of interviews with Fr Alex Karloutsos, and last week, I published my first article based on those interviews, chronicling his rise from relative obscurity to the highest echelons of power in America. Today, I will continue this series based on Fr Karloutsos’s memories,...

The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story

Father Alex Karloutsos may be the most influential Orthodox priest in modern history. He has spent time in every Oval Office going back to Jimmy Carter, culminating in a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden. His connections are extraordinary – the presidents, of course, and every patriarch you can...

Fifteen Amazing Facts in LOST HISTORIES

As you may have seen, Ancient Faith recently published my book, Lost Histories: The Good, the Bad & the Strange in Early American Orthodoxy. If you like this website, you're the target audience for the book. And while reading it should give you a good handle on the early history of...

St Raphael Hawaweeny vs the Pope of Rome

In 1894, Pope Leo XIII issued a papal encyclical on the "Eastern Rites" -- that is, the Uniates, those groups who use ancient Orthodox liturgical rites but submit themselves to the Pope of Rome. In 1898, St Raphael Hawaweeny, then an archimandrite in New York, published a response in a...

Son of Antioch: The American Ministry of Metropolitan Antony Bashir

Antony Bashir arrived in America in 1922, as a 24-year-old archdeacon. He and Archimandrite Victor Abo-Assaly were accompanying the Antiochian Metropolitan Gerasimos Messara, who was ostensibly coming to the US to attend a convention of the Episcopal Church in Portland, Oregon. Soon, however, another agenda emerged: the establishment of an...