Category: Orthodoxy in the Americas

The Orthodox Baptism of a Civil War Veteran

Last week, we published the story of William Hoskins, an 89-year-old veteran of the American Civil War who traveled from Los Angeles to San Francisco in December 1900 to be baptized into the Orthodox faith by St Sebastian Dabovich. Shortly after this, Fr Kirill Sokolov, dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral...

US Civil War Veteran Baptized by St Sebastian Dabovich

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the number of Orthodox in America had not reached 50,000, but it already had several distinguished converts to the Orthodox Faith from Protestantism and Roman Catholicism: William Hoskins, an eighty-nine-year-old Civil War veteran who was a Baptist from Los Angeles, who traveled to...

Karloutsos and Biden

This is the fifth article in our series on Fr Alex Karloutsos. Here are the first four: The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew Father Alex and the Mother Church Karloutsos and 9/11 “I first met Joe Biden in 1987, when he ran for President...

Karloutsos and 9/11

This article is the fourth in a series on Fr Alex Karloutsos, based on many hours’ worth of interviews I did with him in 2024. Here are the previous three installments: The Father Alex Karloutsos Origin Story Karloutsos and the Rise of Bartholomew Father Alex and the Mother Church By...

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,...