Orthodox History

Herman, A Wilderness Saint: From Sarov, Russia to Kodiak, Alaska

The following is a book review from our friend and colleague Nicholas Chapman: Herman, A Wilderness Saint: From Sarov, Russia to Kodiak, Alaska is a new book that I think will be of interest to many readers of this web site. It has been translated from Russian and contains material not...

A Snapshot of Interwar Orthodoxy: The Ecumenical Patriarchate

Yesterday, we began publishing a series of excerpts from Matthew Spinka's 1935 article on worldwide Orthodoxy in the years following World War I, originally published in the journal Church History.Spinka's article is a succinct and quite balanced summary of the state of affairs in global Orthodoxy in a very chaotic period....

A Snapshot of Interwar Orthodoxy: Introduction

In the June 1935 issue of the journal Church History, Matthew Spinka of the Chicago Theological Seminary published a 20-page article entitled, "Post-War Eastern Orthodox Churches." The "War" he was referring to was, of course, World War I, and his article offers a succinct and quite balanced snapshot of the...

Orthodoxy in America – an Interconnected and Shared History

Presentation given by Nicholas Chapman of Herkimer NY at the OCL 25th Anniversary Conference, Washington DC on Oct 27, 2012. (Original here) Before I begin let me thank George Matsoukas and the Board of OCL for the invitation to present today. I would also like to acknowledge Matthew Namee whose place...

Early stages of the Bulgarian schism from Constantinople

We just finished running a series of six articles on the 1872 Council of Constantinople, published contemporaneously in the Methodist Quarterly Review. The following article is from about a decade earlier, and describes the early stages of the Bulgarian split from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This piece is from an...

The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 6

This is the final Methodist Quarterly Review article dealing with the aftermath of the 1872 Council of Constantinople. From the Methodist Quarterly Review, April 1874. The Bulgarian Church question has, on the whole, attracted less attention during the year 1873 than in the previous years. The Bulgarians, undoubtedly, have...

The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 5

This article is the fifth in a six-part series on the 1872 Council of Constantinople. In this installment, we learn about the aftermath of the Council. The one bishop who refused to sign the Council's decree was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and when he returned to Jerusalem, he was deposed...

The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 4

This article is the fourth in a six-part series on the 1872 Council of Constantinople, and this particular report covers the Council itself. It contains what is, to the best of my knowledge, the only complete English translation of the decree of the Council. From the Methodist Quarterly Review, January...

The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 3

In case you haven't been following along, this is Part 3 in a 6-part series of articles we began last week, covering the 1872 Council of Constantinople, which famously condemned "phyletism." All of these articles were published in the Methodist Quarterly Review, within months of the events they discuss. This...

The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 2

Yesterday, I ran the first of six articles on the so-called "Bulgarian Question," a controversy that rocked the Orthodox world in the early 1870s and ultimately led to the 1872 Council of Constantinople, which condemned the heresy of "phyletism." Search the Internet -- both Google and the various subscriber-only databases...