Category: Orthodoxy in the Americas


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...

Amazing 1915 Letter on Jurisdictionalism in American Orthodoxy


The following remarkable letter appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on March 18, 1915. It offers a well-informed but obviously partisan perspective on the Orthodox reality in America and globally in 1915 -- in the midst of World War I. There's so much happening in this letter, so many layers. It...

Freemasonry and the Orthodox Church


If you search the internet for Orthodoxy and Freemasonry, most of what you'll find will be condemnations of the movement. You might also find my 2012 article on Freemasonry in American Orthodox history. But, as far as I know, there hasn't been much work done to document the basic history...

New Book on American Orthodox Saints


Holy Trinity Publications, out of Jordanville, NY, has just published a book that will surely be of interest to many readers of this website: Glorified in America: Laborers in the New World from Saint Alexis to Elder Ephraim. Originally published in Greek, the book was written by the monks of the Monastery...

Fr Seraphim Rose and “Corrective Baptism”


There is not universal agreement about the manner in which converts are received into the Orthodox Church. In some Orthodox jurisdictions, all converts are received via baptism and chrismation, regardless of whether they were previously baptized in a heterodox tradition. Others receive these types of converts via chrismation only, provided...

Patriarch Athenagoras, the CIA, and the State Department


Last fall, I spoke at a conference at Hellenic College-Holy Cross, commemorating the centennial of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. I've already posted my main paper from that conference, on the "barbarian lands" theory of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. At that conference, I also spoke briefly about Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras,...

The US Assembly of Bishops: A History in Pictures


The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America just held its 12th meeting since it was established in 2010. Every time they meet, the bishops take a group photo. Below, you can view a slideshow of all of these photos over the years. My thanks to...

Antiochian Metropolitan Elections: A Brief History


The recent retirement of Metropolitan Joseph has left the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America without a primate. In the coming months, the Archdiocese will undoubtedly hold a special convention to nominate candidates to be the next Metropolitan, and then the Holy Synod of Antioch will elect one of those nominees....