Harry Truman’s Sacred Cow & Other Amazing Facts About Athenagoras

Archbishop Athenagoras Spyrou led the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America from 1930 until 1948. That year, he was elected Ecumenical Patriarch, a position he held for nearly a quarter century, until his death in 1972. Athenagoras is perhaps most famous (or, in some quarters, infamous) for his landmark...

Who was St. Tikhon?

Full name: Tikhon Bellavin Dates: 1865 to 1925 In America: 1898 to 1907 Who was he? Head of the Russian Archdiocese in North America at the turn of the 20th century, and later Patriarch of Moscow during the Bolshevik Revolution and its bloody aftermath. He was known for being a...

Fr Demetrios Petrides on the death of his son

For various reasons, death seems a particularly present reality right now. Of course, there is the tragic death of Fr Matthew Baker this past Sunday (and, once again, please consider helping his family). The day before Fr Matthew died, some very good friends of mine lost their 6-year-old daughter, who had been...

A Man of Sorrows and of Faith

Editor's note: The essay below was written by Father Christopher Morris, pastor of St George Orthodox Church in Kearney, Nebraska. Fr Christopher wrote this in the wake of the tragic death of Fr Matthew Baker, a young priest who died in a car accident on Sunday night. Fr Matthew left...

Fr Matthew Baker: Florovsky Visits America

Last night, March 1, 2015, the brilliant Orthodox scholar (and priest, husband, and father of six), Fr Matthew Baker, died in a car accident. In remembrance of him, we are republishing a really outstanding article that he wrote for this site in 2012. You can read more about Fr Matthew in this post by his friend, Fr Andrew Damick. If...

A more easily pronounced name

The church committee of a Greek orthodox church in New York city are to apply to the Holy Synod in Greece for the appointment of a new pastor to succeed the Rev. Agathodoro A. Papageorgopaulos, who recently resigned the pastorate of that church. If the committee want to “stand in”...

What was the first Orthodox parish in America?

The question, "What was the first Orthodox parish in America?" is surprisingly difficult to answer. A big part of the problem comes from that word, "parish." What is a parish? When does a collection of Orthodox people become a "parish"? It's a matter of interpretation, and particularly in the early...

St Raphael’s Original New York Chapel

St Raphael Hawaweeny arrived in New York City in 1895, and he immediately established a chapel for his growing community of Arab Orthodox Christians. The chapel was located at 77 Washington Street in Manhattan, right next to the Syrian Maronites' own chapel. The Orthodox chapel, called St Nicholas, was a...

A Timeline of the Life of St Raphael

A Brief Timeline of the Life of St Raphael Hawaweeny 1860 - Born in Beirut in November (family returned to Damascus the next year) 1874 - Tonsured reader 1877 - Worked as a middle school and 5th grade teacher (1877-79) 1879 - Tonsured a monk; appointed assistant to Patriarch of Antioch...

Recollections of My Grandfather: Fr. Joseph Xanthopoulos

Editor's note: In June, I published a biography of Fr. Joseph Xanthopoulos, an remarkable (and even saintly) Greek priest who first served in an Antiochian parish under St. Raphael before eventually joining the Greek Archdiocese. Fr. Joseph's story is both amazing and inspiring, and the more I learn about him,...