Metropolia beats Moscow in court

In the Supreme Court cases Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral and its successor Kreshik v. St. Nicholas Cathedral, the highest court in the country ruled against the Metropolia and in favor of the Moscow Patriarchate in a dispute over church property. But Moscow didn't win all the time. The 1962...

Atlas Excerpt #1: Orthodoxy in Colonial Virginia

Recently, Holy Cross Orthodox Press published the Atlas of American Orthodox Christian Churches, edited by Alexei D. Krindatch. I contributed several pieces to the Atlas, including the article "Ten Interesting Facts About the History of Orthodox Christianity in the USA." With Alexei's permission, we'll publish excerpts from that article over...

Five court cases

Sorry for the long delay between articles... I've been terribly busy, I'm afraid. Here are notes on five of the many, many Orthodox court cases I've been researching lately. These cases fit broadly into the category of "deference," where the courts tend to defer to the higher church authorities (bishop,...

Independence Day in Chicago, 1892

Back in 2009, I wrote an article about a unique Independence Day church service held in Chicago by Fr. Firmilian Drazich of Serbia. I thought it'd be appropriate to link to it today. If anyone out there has more information about this fascinating event, please email me at mfnamee [at]...

Orthodoxy and the First Shot of the American Civil War

This is about as unlikely a title for an article on American Orthodox history I ever expected to come up with! But a visit to a used bookstore in Canada a week ago has thrown up some whole new avenues for research. I found a slender volume entitled “Lincoln and...

Friday Links

I'm testing out a possible new feature here at OH.org -- links to recent articles that might be of interest to readers of our website. Please let me know what you think of this feature, and if you have any suggestions for links to include in future "Friday Links" posts....

Abp Iakovos opposed civil rights demonstrations in 1963

When I hear "Archbishop Iakovos" and "civil rights," I immediately recall that famous cover of LIFE, with the powerful Greek Archbishop standing next to Martin Luther King, Jr. during King's legendary 1965 march in Selma, Alabama. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled onto an August 14, 1963 Los Angeles Times article...

19th Century Alaskan Orthodox Calendar to be Auctioned

On Facebook, my friend (and historian of Alaskan Orthodoxy) Eric Peterson posted a link to an article on the impending (June 26) auction of a rare Alaskan Orthodox "peg calendar," dating to the late 19th century. In the article, Fr. Michael Oleksa explained, "I think the average lay person kept track...

What is an Armenian parish?

Matthew Namee’s somewhat recent post concerning what constitutes a parish caught me by surprise, as I was preparing a very similar article of my own to illustrate a problem I’ve been having in continuing to tell the story of the Armenian Orthodox Church for SOCHA.  When I agreed to assist...

2nd Anniversary of OrthodoxHistory.org

Two years ago today, June 19, 2009, we launched OrthodoxHistory.org with a post entitled, "Real Church. Real History." I've thoroughly enjoyed working on this website in the 24 months since then, and I'm very grateful for the contributions of our other authors: Fr. Oliver Herbel, Fr. Andrew Damick, Dn. Matthew Francis, Dr. William...