The “Bulgarian Question” and the 1872 Council of Constantinople, Part 1

Recently, I had occasion to research the 1872 Council of Constantinople, which somewhat famously condemned "ethno-phyletism." The issue arose because, as I understand it, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church -- which was under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate -- declared itself autocephalous. Anyway, before I began this research, I could...

Fr. Andreades’ 1867 New Orleans homily

Archimandrite Stephen Andreades was the first priest of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in New Orleans. He arrived in late 1867, making him the very first resident Orthodox priest in the contiguous United States. Very little is known about Andreades, and most of what we know comes from a short homily...

Thanksgiving at St. Nicholas Cathedral, 1921

Thanksgiving Day as it is constituted as a civil holiday in the United States (and Canada) is not specifically found on the Orthodox liturgical calendar, but that doesn't mean that Orthodox Christians in North America have ignored it.  Here's a notice from the New York Tribune for a Thanksgiving Divine...

Freemasonry in American Orthodox history

Once upon a time, it was the norm for American men to be members of fraternal organizations. These were especially attractive to new immigrants, who wanted to be integrated into American society and make progress in business. And in that earlier era, fraternal membership was the best and quickest way to...

Two Greek youths come to America in 1823

Years ago, on an online database, I came across an article titled "The Two Greek Youth" and published in the April 1823 issue of The Guardian, or Youth's Religious Instructor, a short-lived American magazine. According to the article, Protestant missionaries brought these two boys over from Malta to study at...

This week in American Orthodox history (Nov. 5-11)

November 8, 1894: Memorial services for Tsar Alexander III of Russia were held in New York and Washington, DC. The New York memorial was held in Holy Trinity Greek church, because there was no Russian church in the city. In Washington, President Grover Cleveland attended the service, which was led...

Photo of the week: the monument to Fr. Methodios Kourkoulis

In its early years, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (later Cathedral) went through priests like a newborn goes through diapers. In the dozen years from its founding in 1892 until 1904, the parish welcomed, and said goodbye to, no fewer than eight pastors. These included some (relatively) big names: Fr....

An Antiochian wedding at the St. Louis World’s Fair

(An earlier version of this post was published in 2010.) 108 years ago this week, in 1904, St. Raphael Hawaweeny, the Syro-Arab Bishop of Brooklyn, officiated at a wedding in St. Louis. The English bride and Arab groom had a rather romantic backstory, and the wedding took place at the imitation...

This week in American Orthodox history (Sept. 17-23)

September 18, 1905: On the very same day, two big events took place: St. Tikhon Bellavin, the Russian Archbishop of North America, elevated Fr. Sebastian Dabovich to the rank of archimandrite. Dabovich was the leader of the Serbian Orthodox in America, and Tikhon planned to make him a bishop, although...

Fr. Alexander Schmemann in Detroit, 1962

Recently, I was alerted to several photographs of a visit Fr. Alexander Schmemann made to Detroit in the winter of 1962.  Today would have been Fr. Alexander's ninety-first birthday, so I thought this to be as good an opportunity as any to share these pictures with our readers. 1962 was...