Category: Orthodoxy in the Americas

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

January 23, 1921: Fr. Ingram Nathaniel Irvine died of heart disease in New York, at the age of 71. Irvine has been a frequent topic on this website. Born in Ireland, Irvine came to the US as a teenager and served as an Episcopal priest for a quarter century before...

HEOCACNA and Bishop Sophronios(us)

Bishop Sophronios/Sophronius (Beshara) was a bishop for the Holy Eastern Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church of North America (HEOCACNA), an enterprise started by Bishop Aftimios.  For all intents and purposes, the jurisdictional unity attempt died in 1933.  Bishop Sophronius, however, was the last bishop.  The date of his death has...

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...

Toward an American Orthodox historical narrative

On December 30, we published an article by Daniel Silliman on the search for a narrative for Orthodoxy in America. As Daniel observed, mainstream religious scholars have paid precious little attention to Orthodoxy, and even we Orthodox haven't done much to flesh out the narratives that shape our history. I've...

Searching for a narrative for Eastern Orthodox in America

Editor's note: The following article was written by Daniel Silliman, who teaches American Religion and Culture at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. The article originally appeared on Mr. Silliman's blog, and I thought our readers here at OrthodoxHistory.org would find it interesting. - Matthew Watch American Religious Studies and...

Christmas, the New Calendar, and the Russian Church in 1923

After reading Matthew Namee's recent post on the celebration of Christmas according to the New Calendar in Orthodox parishes and jurisdictions in America during the first half of the 20th century, I thought it appropriate to post an article that appeared in the pages of the New York Times  on December...

Infant Abandoned in NY Greek Church in 1908

The following remarkable story appeared in the New York Times on May 1, 1908. If anyone can provide more information, please email me at mfnamee [at] gmail [dot] com. BABY LEFT IN CHURCH; SOCIETY TO ADOPT IT Advent of the Little Stranger Caused Flurry Among Women of the Ladies' Aid...

The first New Calendar Christmas for the Antiochians in America

It's almost Christmas for those of us on the New Calendar, but of course, our Old Calendar brethren will have to wait an additional 13 days. Originally, of course, all Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas on the same day, because we all followed the same calendar. In 1923, an Inter-Orthodox Congress...