Orthodox History

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,...

Embassy, Emigrants, and Englishmen: A Review

Review of Christopher Birchall. Embassy, Emigrants, and Englishmen: The Three Hundred Year History of a Russian Orthodox Church in London. Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Publications, 2014. In Embassy, Emigrants, and Englishmen, Christopher Birchall has produced the definitive history of Russian Orthodox presence in London. The book is unlikely to be...

A History of the Antiochian Representation Church in Moscow

Since 1848, the Patriarchate of Antioch has had a "metochion," or representation church (basically an church embassy) in Moscow. Immediately before he came to America, St. Raphael Hawaweeny served as head of the metochion. Earlier this year, the must-read blog Notes on Arab Orthodoxy published a brief history of the...

Who was St. Raphael under — Antioch or Russia?

Who was St. Raphael under? It depends partly on whom you ask, and it also depends on when you ask. In 1895, when Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny came to America to oversee the Syro-Arabs, he was most definitely under the Russian Church. In fact, at the time, he was on the...

We Must Have A Bishop

The following editorial appeared in the Saloniki-Greek Press (a Greek-American newspaper) on Feb. 28, 1914. At the time, there was no Greek bishop in America. Until 1908, the Greek parishes were loosely tied to either the Ecumenical Patriarchate or the Church of Greece, but in 1908, the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued...

Chicago Greeks oppose choral music in 1908

Several years ago, I began writing about the "Americanization" of Orthodoxy -- things like pews, organs, mixed choirs, the cassocks vs. collars debate, clean shaven priests, etc. (Click here to read my article on organs in Greek churches.) Recently, I found a great historical source -- an open letter from...

Fr. Philip Abo-Assaley of Grand Rapids

Fr. Philipous (or Philip) Abo-Assaley was an early Antiochian priest who served under St. Raphael and, later, Bishop Aftimios Ofiesh. He founded St. George Orthodox Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. and served as its pastor for many years. Recently, I stumbled onto this very nice little biography of Fr. Philip...

Conference on St. Sergius of Radonezh

One of our SOCHA advisory board members is Deacon Andrei Psarev, church history instructor at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, NY. He’s asked us to help spread the word about a conference being held at Jordanville on October 10 and 11 to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the birth of St....

The Battle of Pacific Street, Part 4: Did St. Raphael Try to Shoot a Policeman?

In my last article, I wrote about the "Battle of Pacific Street" -- the gunfight between Syrian Orthodox and Maronites in Brooklyn on the night of September 18, 1905. As I said before, St. Raphael Hawaweeny fled the scene and was chased (and then arrested) by a policeman, Officer Mallon....