This week in American Orthodox history (February 27-March 4)

March 2, 1865: Fr. Agapius Honcharenko served the first public Orthodox Divine Liturgy in New York. Way back in 2009, I wrote a pair of articles about that liturgy; click here and here to read them. What I wasn't aware of at the time was that Honcharenko had celebrated the...

ROCOR to offer an annual memorial service for Philip Ludwell III

Today being a Monday, I normally would publish the next edition of my "This week in American Orthodox history" series (in which I would say, among other things, that today marks the 97th anniversary of St. Raphael Hawaweeny's repose). But that will have to wait until tomorrow, because I need...

This week in American Orthodox history (February 20-26)

February 20, 1874: The future hieromartyr Vasily Martysz was born in Poland. He served in America -- first in Alaska, and then in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, and Canada -- from 1901 to 1912. He died in 1945 and was canonized by the the Orthodox Church of Poland in 2003....

Eulogy for St. Nicholas of Japan by St. Alexander Hotovitzky

St. Nicholas Kasatkin, the missionary bishop of Japan, died 100 years ago today. He was remarkably well known in America, where both secular periodicals and Russian Church publications chronicled his ministry. The official newsletter of the Russian Mission was the Vestnik, known in English as the Russian Orthodox American Messenger...

Fr. Ilia Zotikov: A Hieromartyr in a File Drawer

One of the little mysteries I’ve been meaning to research for some time has a bit of a family connection.  This past week, I finally had the opportunity to delve into it, and the results were far different than I ever anticipated. My great-grandparents were married on May 2/15, 1908...

This week in American Orthodox history (February 13-19)

February 14, 1872: Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, on a tour of the United States, visited New Orleans and met with representatives of the city's fledgling Orthodox parish. The Grand Duke presented gifts to the parish, including, most likely, a gold-embossed Gospel book. 130 years later, the parish still has...

Photo of the week: The funeral of Fr. Theoclitos of Galveston

Continuing with the theme from Wednesday... This photo depicts the burial of Archimandrite Theoclitos Triantafilides, the great priest of Galveston, TX, on October 27, 1916. We actually have several photos of this event -- all courtesy of Ss. Constantine and Helen parish -- but this one particularly interests me because...

Fr. Theoclitos of Galveston on Charity

Recently, I've been working with a group of researchers to document the life of Fr. Theoclitos Triantafilides, the remarkable priest of Galveston, Texas. Fr. Theoclitos was from Greece -- his father had fought in the Greek Revolution -- and as a young man, Fr. Theoclitos lived on Mount Athos and...

This week in American Orthodox history (February 6-12)

February 6, 1993: Bishop Job Osacky was enthroned as the new OCA Bishop of Chicago, almost exactly ten years after his consecration to the episcopate. Bishop (and later Archbishop) Job went on to become a key advocate for transparency in the recent OCA crisis before his untimely death in 2009....

Photo of the week: St. John Kochurov preaching in Chicago

Starting up another potentially regular feature here at OrthodoxHistory.org... This photo, dated 1905, shows Fr. John Kochurov preaching from the pulpit in the newly-constructed Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago. It's one of several great shots of Holy Trinity to be found in the Chicago Daily News photo collection,...