Category: Orthodoxy in the Americas

A photo of Fr. Paul Kedrolivanksy

A few weeks ago, I did a podcast on the apparent murder of Fr. Paul Kedrolivansky, dean of the San Francisco Russian cathedral. At the time, I wasn't aware of any surviving images of Kedrolivansky. Recently, however, I discovered the above photo, in the wonderful Alaska's Digital Archives. It was...

Source of the week: Schmemann on Vatican II

Fr. Alexander Schmemann was one of the observers at Vatican II, the landmark 1960s council of the Roman Catholic Church. His reaction to the event is priceless -- Schmemann took the "opportunity to thank God" that he was Orthodox. Here's the story, from the New York Times (11/16/1963): A Russian Orthodox...

A Greek bishop in America in 1893

In 1893, the World's Fair was held in Chicago. In conjunction with the Fair, something called the "World's Parliament of Religions" was held from September 11-27. This was a remarkable gathering, which brought together not only Christian leaders of various denominations, but people of every religious stripe -- Jews, Muslims,...

Source of the Week: Dabovich on Bishop Nestor

On today's episode of my American Orthodox History podcast, I talk about the tragic death of Bishop Nestor Zass, head of the Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska from 1879 to 1882. One of Bp Nestor's parishioners in San Francisco was the 19-year-old Jovan Dabovich, the future Archimandrite Sebastian....

Can you solve this mystery?

I recently received an email from Fr. Timothy Sawchak, of Holy Trinity OCA Church in Kansas City. He sent the above photo, of a mystery clergyman. It was, apparently, discovered at an old studio and given to Annunciation Greek Church, also in Kansas City.  There was no writing on the...

The death of St. Raphael

This past Saturday was February 27, the 95th anniversary of the death of St. Raphael Hawaweeny, the great Syrian Bishop of Brooklyn. His death set off more than a week of commemorations in the Syrian Orthodox community. Telegrams immediately went out to Syrian parishes all over the country. In fact, the...

A Greek church in San Francisco, 1903

  From its founding in 1868, the Russian cathedral in San Francisco was a multiethnic community. In particular, Greeks and Serbs were an integral part of the church, and, at various times, there was an ethnic Greek (Fr. Kallinikos Kanellas) and an ethnic Serb priest (Fr. Sebastian Dabovich) serving the...

Today in history: St. Tikhon on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

St. Tikhon delivered the following address on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, February 23, 1903, in San Francisco. It was reprinted in Holy Trinity Cathedral LIFE (the newsletter of the San Francisco OCA cathedral) in March 1995, and may be found in the fantastic Holy Trinity Cathedral online archives. We are...

An Antiochian priest in Jamaica, 1910

It is well known that, at the turn of the last century, thousands of Syrians/Lebanese made the trip across the Atlantic to New York. What is less well known, at least here in the US, is that many Syrian emigrants went to other parts of the New World, including South...

Antiochian.org interview

I was recently interviwed by Virginia Nieuwsma of Antiochian.org, the official website of the Antiochian Archdiocese. They ran the interview today, and you can read it by clicking here.