Category: Orthodoxy in the Americas

This week in American Orthodox history (May 7-13)

This week's installment of our "This week" series is unusually brief, because I'm in the middle of final exams for law school. I hope you'll understand, and I should be back next week with a full-length piece. May 9, 1870: The newly chrismated convert Nicholas Bjerring was ordained to the...

Author & Hollywood screenwriter Elliot Paul converts to Orthodoxy

On March 5, 1958, the New York Times ran the following article: AUTHOR ADOPTS FAITH Elliot Paul, in Hospital, Joins Greek Orthodox Church PROVIDENCE, R.I., March 4 (AP) -- Elliot Paul, author, became a member of the Greek Eastern Orthodox Church today in bedside ceremonies at the Veterans Administration Hospital...

This week in American Orthodox history (April 30-May 6)

May 4, 1793: Empress Catherine the Great of Russia granted the Holy Synod permission to establish an Orthodox mission in "Russian America" (Alaska). The following year, the first eight missionaries, including St. Herman, arrived on Kodiak Island. May 3, 1870: Nicholas Bjerring, a convert from Roman Catholicism, was received into...

Photo of the week: a newlywed archbishop

In the half-dozen years before his wedding on April 29, 1933, Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh had moved further and further away from mainstream Orthodoxy, setting himself up as the head of an "autocephalous" jurisdiction called the American Orthodox Catholic Church—which at its inception in 1927 had the official blessing of the...

Some thoughts on the Russy-Antacky schism

Yesterday, in my "This week in American Orthodox history" article, I mentioned the following event: April 23, 1917: St. George Syrian Orthodox Church in Worcester, MA became the first official "Antacky" parish, declaring its loyalty to Metropolitan Germanos Shehadi. Informally, the Russy-Antacky schism began immediately after St. Raphael died in...

This week in American Orthodox history (April 23-29)

April 29, 1900: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Lowell, MA split into two factions. Here's what I wrote about that schism in my paper, "The Myth of Past Unity": [O]ne portion of the parish wanted to discharge their priest, Fr. Nathaniel Sideris, and “hire” another. “We have the right...

Historical Studies of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

One of our advisory board members, Deacon Andrei Psarev of Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY, operates the excellent church history website ROCORStudies.org. As the name suggests, the site is devoted to studying the history of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). Recently, we asked Deacon Andrei to...

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

Christ is risen! Indeed he is risen! April 17, 1907: Fr. Demetrios Petrides arrived in America from Greece. He went immediately to Philadelphia, taking charge of Evangelismos (Annunciation) Greek Orthodox Church in the city. One of his first acts was to write a letter to the Ecumenical Patriarchate recommending that...

Florovsky Visits America

Sixty-five years ago today, on Holy Monday, April 7, 1947—the feast of Annunciation (O.S.)—an important event in the history of Orthodoxy in America occurred, with the first visit of Father Georges Florovsky to the United States. As with so many key turns in his ecclesiastical trajectory, Florovsky's coming to America...

The 1940 Census Release: American History Moves Up a Decade

For those of us historians who work in the early twentieth century, one of the major sources of our work (and indeed a lot of what we've done here at SOCHA) are public records.  We heavily depend on things like marriage and death certificates, government documents, voter registration lists, and,...